More than 70 years after they were murdered at Auschwitz, six unknown Holocaust victims will be laid to rest after it was revealed that their remains have lain for decades in the Imperial War Museum archives.
Unbeknown to Jewish leaders, the ashes and bone fragments, believed to belong to five adults and a child, have been in storage for more than 20 years since they were bequeathed in the late 1990s by a Holocaust survivor who took them during a visit to the Nazi death camp.
After consultation with Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, of Britain, a ceremony will take place this month to bury the remains in a Jewish cemetery in Hertfordshire, creating a memorial to Holocaust victims.
It is believed to be the first time that the remains of people murdered at a Nazi death camp will have been laid to rest in Britain.
An unnamed Holocaust survivor had visited the extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau some time before the 1990s and had removed remains from a memorial mound of ashes, it is understood.
They offered to bequeath a number of Holocaust-related items to the museum. including spectacles, shoes and human remains in two boxes. The museum said that it did not want them, but they were sent anyway in 1997. It is the only time that remains of Holocaust victims have been in its care.
Read the article by Kaya Burgess in The Australian (from The Times).