Auschwitz suitcase reveals parents' fate
Harry Grenville and his sister Hannah didn't know what
had happened to their parents during World War II for nearly 70 years. That
uncertainty came to an end last month following an initiative of a Polish citizen
who visited the Auschwitz concentration camp museum.
According to a report in London's Times newspaper, the
Polish visitor photographed a vast pile of suitcases left by victims murdered
in the Holocaust, each of which had a name and serial number painted in white
letters on the front.
He then decided to try to trace surviving relatives, and
tracked down Harry Grenville, 87, in Dorchester, England.
Harry and Hannah's parents sent them from Germany to a
foster family in England, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After
the war, they tried without success to find out what had happened to their
parents.
A final message received in 1944 informed them that their
parents were being moved to a camp in the “east”. Now Harry Grenville knows
that their final destination was Auschwitz.
“Out of the blue a photograph turned up of a whole lot of
suitcases of victims and, lo and behold, there on this photograph is my
father’s name,” he said. “It was a bit of a shock and my heart did miss several
beats when I saw it for the first time.
"This is the first evidence I have ever had that my
mother, my father and my grandmother actually arrived at Auschwitz. I have
carried suspicions with me for a long time and now I have this evidence I feel
justified in my suspicions.
“There will never be closure,” he added. “But I take a
great deal of comfort from the fact that the second and third generations after
the Nazis are trying to bring about reconciliation and a confession of the sins
of their forefathers.”
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