With much of the area razed following the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the subterranean chambers were only discovered during an archaeological work undertaken two years ago by the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.
During the excavation works that have followed, over 3,500 artifacts have been unearthed, among them fragments of Jewish prayer books and vessels for ritual washing, as well as everyday items such as mugs, scissors, plates and, even, a child’s slipper.
Speaking of the decision to induct the cellars into the register of monuments, the conservator, Marcin Dawdiowicz, described the site as “a very emotional and direct witness to the events of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”.
Continuing, Dawidowicz added that the area would be placed under permanent conservatory protection once the decision is formally rubber stamped.
The museum, meanwhile, has described the cellars as “a tangible trace of a non-existent city that still sits under the feet of its inhabitants” and promised to place the discovered items on public display once the institution opens next year.
Making the site so important is its close proximity to what served as the command bunker of the
Ghetto Uprising’s leader, Mordechai Anielewicz.
Hopelessly outnumbered by German forces, Anielewicz and other senior members of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) found themselves surrounded on May 8, 1943. Choosing to die with dignity, and on “their own terms”, Anielewicz and around 120 other Jews committed suicide.
The bodies were not exhumed after the war and the site of the bunker was covered by a symbolic hill made from rubble.
Three years ago, archaeologists from the Warsaw Ghetto Museum as well as Pułtusk’s Aleksander Gieysztor Academy and Christopher Newport University in America began non-invasive research in and around the area in a bid to verify historic accounts about the bunker.
The following year, in 2022, digging led to the discovery of two cellars which most likely served as hiding places during the deportations to the Treblinka death camp. Archaeologists have also theorized that the cellars were a peripheral part of Anielewicz’s hideout.
