Stanislawa Wasilewska was 42 when she was captured by Nazi German troops on Aug. 31, 1944 in Warsaw and sent to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück. From there, she was sent to the Neuengamme forced labour camp, where she was given prisoner number 7257 and had her valuables seized.
Eighty years later, Germany's Arolsen Archives returned Wasilewska's jewelry to her grandson and great-granddaughter at an emotional ceremony in Warsaw during which families of 12 Polish inmates of Nazi concentration camps were given back their confiscated belongings.
Some relatives had tears in their eyes as they received the mementoes of their long-gone, often unknown family members. More such ceremonies are planned.
Wasilewska's family were given back her two amber crucifixes, part of a golden bracelet and a gold wristwatch engraved with the initials KW and the date 7-3-1938, probably marking her wedding to Konstanty Wasilewski.
“This is an important moment in our lives, because this is a story that we did not fully know about and it came to light,” Wasilewska's great-granddaughter, Malgorzata Koryś, 35, told The Associated Press.
When Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, Wasilewska was taken by the Red Cross from Neuengamme to Sweden, but later returned to Poland. She is buried in her native Grodzisk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw.
From another family, Adam Wierzbicki, 29, was given two rings that belonged to Zofia Strusińska and a golden chain and tooth filling of Józefa Skórka, two married sisters of his great-grandfather Stanislaw Wierzbicki. Captured together on Aug. 4, like Wasilewska ,the sisters also went through Ravensbrück and Neuengamme before the Red Cross took them to Sweden.
A family story has it that a Swedish man fell in love with one of the sisters and wanted them both to stay, promising to take care of them, but they decided to go back to Poland, Wierzbicki said.
The return of their jewelry is “important for sentimental reasons but also for historical reasons,” Wierzbicki told the AP.
The items were returned by the Arolsen Archives, the international center on Nazi persecution, which holds information on about 17.5 million people. It stores some 2,000 items that were seized by the Nazis from concentration camp inmates from more than 30 countries, and are intended to be returned to their relatives.
When the prisoners were sent to concentration camps, their valuables — wedding rings, watches, gold chains, earrings and other items — were confiscated and put in envelopes marked with their owners’ names. That allowed for the items’ return to the families, decades later.
It was an uplifting moment when the archives volunteers contacted him, Wierzbicki said, but there was also this thought that “history will catch up with you. It was like my aunts were looking at me from the past."
The archives launched its restitution campaign, “Warsaw Uprising: 100 Untold Stories,” to mark 80 years since the city rose up against the Nazi invaders on Aug. 1, 1944, with the goal of reaching the families of 100 victims and reviving the memory of them through their belongings.
Archive director Floriane Azoulay said they were only custodians of the belongings, which should be returned to the families.
“Every object that we return is personal,” Azoulay said. "And it’s the last personal thing a person had on them before they became a prisoner, before they became a number. So it is a very important object for a family.”
Volunteer Manuela Golc has found more than 100 Polish families and each time it's an emotional moment.
“It is often the case that we pass on information that the family was not aware of at all," Golc said. "So this conversation on the phone ... is also very difficult. But in the end we are very happy that the memento is returning to the family.”
If she was unable to trace a family online or through official records, she travelled to cemeteries, leaving notes waterproofed against the rain for the families on the graves of people whose data matched those in the archives, asking them to get in touch. Sometimes they do.
The Warsaw Uprising was launched by the underground resistance Home Army with the goal of taking control of the capital city ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. It fell after 63 days of heroic struggle that cost the lives of some 200,000 fighters and civilians. In revenge, the Germans expelled the surviving residents and reduced Warsaw to ruins.
During German occupation in 1939-45, Poland lost some six million residents, half of them Jewish, and suffered huge material losses.
A jury has found two men guilty on human smuggling charges in a case where a family from India froze to death in Manitoba while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border.
The Canadian government has unveiled its plans for a sweeping GST/HST pause on select items during the holiday period. The day after the announcement, questions remain on how the whole thing will work.
An 81-year-old Quebec man has been sentenced to prison after admitting to killing his wife with Alzheimer's disease.
The Canadian government is warning travellers following the deaths of at least six people in the mass poisoning of foreign tourists in Laos after drinking tainted alcohol.
Pat King, one of the most prominent figures of the 2022 'Freedom Convoy' in Ottawa, has been found guilty on five counts including mischief and disobeying a court order.
At least 15 people have been sickened by E. coli poisoning tied to a recall of potentially tainted ground beef, U.S. federal health officials said. The company tells CTVNews.ca it was not sold in Canada.
The Canada Revenue Agency has released updated federal income tax brackets for 2025, reflecting adjustments for inflation. Here’s the breakdown.
Thirty new measles cases were reported this week in Canada, bringing the total number in Canada to 130 in 2024.
For the second straight month, grocery prices in Canada rose faster than the inflation rate, and beef in particular is significantly pricier than it was last year.
A jury has found two men guilty on human smuggling charges in a case where a family from India froze to death in Manitoba while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border.
An 81-year-old Quebec man has been sentenced to prison after admitting to killing his wife with Alzheimer's disease.
Pat King, one of the most prominent figures of the 2022 'Freedom Convoy' in Ottawa, has been found guilty on five counts including mischief and disobeying a court order.
An investigation into the school bus crash near Lac La Hache, B.C., earlier this year that left dozens of people hurt and one Good Samaritan dead has concluded the incident was nothing more than a tragic accident, the RCMP revealed Friday.
A Saskatchewan principal sentenced to six months behind bars for sexual assault has another chance to prove he’s the victim of a middle-school prank that escalated out of control.
The Canada Revenue Agency has released updated federal income tax brackets for 2025, reflecting adjustments for inflation. Here’s the breakdown.
A New York judge on Friday granted Donald Trump permission to seek dismissal of his hush money criminal case, in which he was found guilty earlier this year, in light of his victory in the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election.
The deaths of six foreign tourists linked to a suspected mass methanol poisoning has thrown a spotlight on a small town in Southeast Asia that has worked hard in recent years to shed its reputation for excess.
The Italian Renaissance diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli has become synonymous with subtle scheming. And now, an extremely rare first edition of his most famous work, the political manual 'The Prince,' is going up for auction, with an expected sale price of up to £300,000 (US$375,000).
Queen Camilla will miss her third public engagement in two weeks as she recovers from a chest infection, Buckingham Palace said Friday.
A second Australian teenager who fell critically ill after drinking tainted alcohol in Laos has died in a hospital in Bangkok, her family said Friday, bringing the death toll in the mass poisoning of foreign tourists to six.
Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew from consideration as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general on Thursday, said Friday he will not be returning to U.S. Congress next year.
The Liberal government is putting money into people's pockets over the holidays, but its announced affordability measures create winners and losers.
A senior official says the Canadian government is not aware of any evidence linking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to alleged criminal activity perpetrated by Indian agents on Canadian soil.
The Halifax International Security Forum opened Friday with Defence Minister Bill Blair defending Canada's military spending amid mounting pressure on NATO members to do more following Donald Trump's win in the U.S. presidential election.
As the country heads into the worst time of year for respiratory infections, the Canadian respiratory virus surveillance report tracks how prevalent certain viruses are each week and how the trends are changing week to week.
A child in California is recovering at home from a confirmed case of bird flu. They are the first child in the United States to test positive for avian influenza.
The Mpox outbreak continues to represent a public health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
Astronomers have spotted orbiting around a young star a newborn planet that took only three million years to form, quite swift in cosmic terms.
The promise of starting life anew on Mars may appear alluring as the climate crisis intensifies and space and rocket technology advances. But the reality would be dreadful, according to experts.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says oyster samples from New Brunswick's east coast have tested positive for two diseases, one of which has been found for the first time in Canada.
A portrait by baroque painter Caravaggio of of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini is going on display in Rome, from Nov. 23 until Feb. 23, 2025, at Palazzo Barberini.
Sean 'Diddy' Combs cannot be trusted to follow the rules he has proposed for himself as part of a US$50-million bail package, a prosecutor said on Friday, in urging a judge to keep the music mogul in the Brooklyn jail where he has been held for 10 weeks ahead of his May 5, 2025 trial on sex-trafficking charges.
CTV film critic Richard Crouse says 'Wicked' is a bold, brassy re-imagination of the beloved hit musical that brews up its own cinematic vibe.
Canada Post saw hundreds of millions of dollars drain out of its coffers last quarter, due largely to its dwindling share of the parcels market, while an ongoing strike continues to batter its bottom line.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. has launched a defamation lawsuit against Canada Bread Co. Ltd. and its parent company Grupo Bimbo.
Starting Friday, avid moviegoers won't go thirsty or run out of salty, buttery treats while enjoying the latest films at all Cineplex theatres.
Peter Frank has paddled from Michigan's Upper Peninsula in June to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland this month in his 1982 Sawyer Loon decked canoe, but he’s still got a long way to go.
The world's tallest woman and the world’s shortest woman have met for afternoon tea in London to celebrate Guinness World Records Day.
A coffee shop in Middleborough, Massachusetts, went viral overnight for offering free coffee to customers who entered the shop while dancing.
A woman who claimed mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor 'brutally raped and battered' her in a Dublin hotel penthouse was awarded nearly 250,000 euros on Friday by a civil court jury in Ireland.
Whoopi Goldberg's latest venture, the All Women’s Sports Network (AWSN), has been a long time in the making.
Alex Ovechkin has a broken left fibula and is expected to be out four to six weeks, an injury that pauses the Washington Capitals superstar captain’s pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career goals record.
Northvolt AB has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States, but said the move will not jeopardize the manufacturer's planned electric vehicle battery plant in Quebec — though hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars invested in the parent company could be lost.
Canadian drivers are regularly in a hurry to get to their destination and a majority are willing to take unnecessary risks on the road, according to the results of a new survey.
A man from B.C.’s Lower Mainland who was scammed while selling his Porsche Cayenne online is sharing his cautionary tale – while calling for increased protections from the government.
Humans weren’t the only ones who struggled through the bomb cyclone that formed off the B.C. coast this week, bringing intense winds and choppy seas.
After driving near the water that winter day, Brian Lavery thought he saw a dog splashing in the waves – then realized it was way too cold for that.
Toronto radio and podcast host Jax Irwin has recently gone viral for videos of her cute -- and at times confusing -- phone conversations.
Two young women from New Brunswick have won one of the most prestigious and sought-after academic honours in the world.
Stretching 3,000 kilometres from the tip of New Zealand to its southernmost point, with just a bicycle for transport and a tent to call home, bikepacking event Tour Aotearoa is not for the faint of heart.
When he first moved to his urban neighbourhood, Barry Devonald was surprised to be welcomed by a whole flock of new neighbours.
When George Arcioni began renovating his kitchen last summer, he didn’t expect to find a stack of letters hidden in the wall behind his oven.
A Nova Scotia couple fulfilled their wildest dreams Thursday night when they got engaged at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Toronto.
Some Calgary residents caught what appeared to be a meteor streaking across the sky early on Wednesday morning.
An investigation into the school bus crash near Lac La Hache, B.C., earlier this year that left dozens of people hurt and one Good Samaritan dead has concluded the incident was nothing more than a tragic accident, the RCMP revealed Friday.
Mounties in Richmond say they arrested a man outside city hall on Friday morning after receiving a report that he was uttering threats against police while livestreaming on social media.
A fiery two-vehicle crash in Chilliwack closed multiple lanes of Highway 1 Friday morning, which have now reopened.
An additional 160,000 students in Ontario will get access to free meals, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at a Brampton, Ont. school Friday.
Three people are facing charges in connection with a carjacking of a stolen BMW that collided with a TTC bus in North York early Monday morning.
Henry Wolfond returned to Earth Friday morning after a quick trip to the edge of space. The Toronto finance executive was part of a six-person crew onboard the New Shepard, a reuseable rocket designed for space tourism by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Alberta RCMP have charged a sixth person in connection with the death of Calgarian Tara Miller.
Calgary is under a snowfall warning with total amounts of 15 to 25 centimetres expected.
Calgary saw the largest increase in the price of new homes among Canadian cities over the past year, new data reveals. Despite some of Canada’s largest markets experiencing a decrease in new home prices year-over-year, Calgary’s rose 4.5 per cent.
A 51-year-old woman has died in hospital, more than a month after a fire damaged a home in Ottawa's west end. The Ottawa Police Service says it is now treating the death of Ottokie Kelly as a homicide.
An Orléans man who uses a service guide dog wants to see changes to rules surrounding dog attacks, after his guide dog was attacked by another dog last month.
The Ottawa police officer acquitted in the death of Abdirahman Abdi six years ago spoke publicly for the first time at the coroner's inquest into the Ottawa man's death.
An 81-year-old Quebec man has been sentenced to prison after admitting to killing his wife with Alzheimer's disease.
Quebec provincial police are searching for a third suspect in connection with Kevin Mirshahi, the cryptocurrency influencer who was kidnapped and killed last summer.
Quebec’s pension fund manager says it is co-operating with United States authorities after three former employees were indicted in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., in an alleged scheme to give hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to the Indian government.
An Alberta man has been charged after he allegedly drove his vehicle into a home and fired a gun in a town east of Edmonton.
A bail hearing has heard that a woman accused in the drowning death of a five-year-old girl in an Alberta lake didn't know the child and was supposed to be under house arrest.
Edmonton's Harry Ainlay Titans are, for the sixth time in seven years, headed to the provincial high school 5A football championship on Saturday.
A fall storm moving from Cape Cod into the Maritimes will bring rainy and windy weather to the region this weekend.
A teen who pleaded guilty in the death of 17-year-old Tyson MacDonald on Prince Edward Island last year has been sentenced to two years in custody.
A vulnerable man who was missing in Cape Breton has been found safe.
A jury has found two men guilty on human smuggling charges in a case where a family from India froze to death in Manitoba while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border.
Human remains have been discovered near a home in the RM of Rockwood, Man.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses is calling on the federal government to step in and get Canada Post employees back to work.
A Regina program has created a landscape to encourage more girls to get involved in sports while building their self-esteem.
Much of southwest Saskatchewan, including Regina, is under a snowfall warning on Friday, with total amounts of 10 to 25 centimetres expected.
A Regina chiropractor accused of sexually assaulting seven different women took the stand Thursday as arguments began in his defense.
Charges were laid after a crash between an LRT train and a Dodge vehicle shut down a busy Kitchener street for more than eight hours on Thursday.
FunGuyz, which calls itself the biggest magic mushroom dispensary in Canada, says it's shutting down all 30 of its Ontario locations.
Police are looking for a Brantford man last seen at the beginning of the month.
A Saskatoon man is concerned about an Alberta non-profit coming into the city to open a new shelter and run the Lighthouse.
A Saskatchewan principal sentenced to six months behind bars for sexual assault has another chance to prove he’s the victim of a middle-school prank that escalated out of control.
Saskatoon is bracing for another round of winter weather following a snowfall that blanketed the city earlier this week.
An 81-year-old was killed in a dog attack this week in Bonfield, Ont. Police believe three dogs were involved.
A 30-year-old woman is in hospital in Sudbury after she was stabbed multiple times early Friday morning in Chelmsford.
The Almaguin Highlands detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police is investigating a sudden death in Magnetawan.
London fire crews and police are on scene of a house fire in east London. Crews were called to the 1800 block of Culver Drive, east of Third Street and south of Oxford Street, around 11:30 a.m.
Crews were called to the school around 10 a.m. to reports of smoke. According to the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB) the fire has been put out.
Significant delays are being reported in the area and tow trucks are on scene to help. No injuries have been reported.
Emergency crews were called to Highway 400 in Georgian Bay Township Friday morning after a fatal tanker truck rollover.
Two people are facing drug trafficking charges after what provincial police are calling the largest fentanyl seizure in Simcoe County.
The doors are locked and the OPEN sign is off on Friday at an illegal magic mushroom dispensary in downtown Barrie one day after FunGuyz announced it would shutter its 30 Ontario locations.
Windsor police are crediting a quick response by their downtown patrol officers to help arrest a 39-year-old man after an attempted bank robbery.
A man has been arrested by Windsor police following an incident on a public bus.
The Gift CK is coming back to Chatham-Kent for a fifth year on Nov. 30.
Carihi Secondary school in Campbell River is closed due to a fire on the property overnight – drawing a firefighting response from multiple departments and a crowd of onlookers.
The power has been restored and single-lane traffic reopened on Saanich’s Quadra Street by the wreckage from a massive fire on a condo construction site.
Another windstorm is headed to B.C.’s South Coast Friday, though Environment Canada says it will be weaker than the bomb cyclone event earlier this week.
Police are appealing for information on a targeted shooting that resulted in the hospitalization of a man in Kamloops.
British Columbia's independent police watchdog has cleared officers of wrongdoing in a crash where three people were killed south of Kamloops in July of last year.
A B.C. woman who stole more than $14,000 in volunteer-raised funds that were supposed to be spent on school supplies and programs – including hot meals for vulnerable kids – won't spend any time in jail.
The Hurricanes launched a three-game road trip south of the border Wednesday dropping a 4-0 game to the league-best Everett Silvertips.
A new citywide campaign is hoping to encourage residents to shop, eat and explore local this holiday season.
Agriculture is an industry mainly dominated by men, but around 80 middle school and high school students – all of whom are female – are hoping to change that.
Sault-based charity Save Our Young Adults, or SOYA, will soon move to a new home -- for good reason.
The City of Elliot Lake said Thursday it has received a $3-million donation from Edward and Suzanne Rogers for the Centennial Arena restoration.
Students in Sault College’s business accounting program have a new learning pathway that will ultimately give them a head start to a career.
A Newfoundland energy company's embrace of data centres is raising doubts about eastern Canadian hopes of harnessing the region's howling winds to supply Germany with power from green hydrogen.
An international group led by a Canadian is in Rome this week to push the Catholic Church to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on abuse by clergy.
A company hoping to build a multi-billion-dollar wind-to-hydrogen project in western Newfoundland is eyeing other options as Canada's plans to supply Europe with green energy have not yet materialized.
The Shopping Trends team is independent of the journalists at CTV News. We may earn a commission when you use our links to shop. Read about us.
