WARSAW, POLAND—Notes from Poland reports that archaeologists working in the Warsaw ghetto have uncovered children’s shoes, tableware, ceramic tiles, diary pages, burned books, and book pages written in Hebrew and Polish. Established by the Nazis in 1940, an estimated 460,000 Jews were held captive in the ghetto, an area covering just 1.3 square miles. Researchers led by Jacek Konik of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum have been investigating an area near a memorial mound named for Mordechai Anielewicz, head of the Jewish Combat Organization, which was based nearby at 18 Miła Street. Anielewicz is thought to have died at the site in May 1943 during an uprising triggered by the deportation of many of the captives to death camps. “It was here that the soldiers of the Jewish Combat Organization, surrounded by the Germans, probably committed mass suicide,” Konik said. The Nazis demolished the Warsaw ghetto after the uprising. To read about a torah pointer uncovered in a Polish town whose Jewish community was decimated by the Nazis, go to “Artifact.”

Source: archaeology.org