Children’s ID Tags Recovered at Nazi Death Camp

News February 7, 2021

(Yoram Haimi/Israel Antiquities Authority)
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Poland ID Tag
(Yoram Haimi/Israel Antiquities Authority)

SOBIBOR, POLAND—Live Science reports that four identity tags have been unearthed at the site of the Sobibor Nazi death camp in eastern Poland by a team of Israel Antiquities Authority researchers. Each of the four tags is different, and all are thought to have been given to children by their parents in the hope that the families could be reunited. Archaeologist Yoram Haimi said one of the tags, which belonged to six-year-old Lea Judith De La Penha, was found near the camp’s railway platform. Haimi said the other three tags, which belonged to Deddie (David Jacob) Zak, aged eight; Annie Kapper, aged 12; and David Juda Van der Velde, aged 11, were found in the vicinity of the camp’s killing area, which includes a gas chamber, crematorium, and mass grave. Haimi said only half of David Juda Van der Velde’s tag survived the burning of his body. The Nazis killed everyone in the camp and destroyed it in November 1943 after a prisoner uprising. Fifty prisoners succeeded in the escape and survived the war. For more on archaeological excavations at Sobibor, go to "World Roundup: Poland."

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