Haul Of Porcelain Pieces Found In Shop Destroyed In WWII

The cellar of a porcelain and China shop destroyed in World War II which was then forgotten about because nobody knew it was under the rubble has been rediscovered packed with several thousand items during roadworks.

Construction workers unearthed the hidden treasure on Sikorskiego Street in the centre of Gorzow Wielkopolski, a city in the Greater Poland Voivodeship in western Poland.

Credit: CEN/@MuzeumLubuskie
It was filled with several thousand porcelain vessels from 1940 and most of them were in perfect condition

The workers discovered the cellar of Theodor Arnd’s glass and porcelain shop which was destroyed in World War II (WWII) had been preserved under the rubble for over 70 years.

Reports state over several thousand porcelain pieces in near-perfect condition were found in the cellar, with most dating back to 1940.

Marta Liberkowska, director of the promotion and information department at Gorzow town hall told local media: “This street has surprised us from the beginning. Since we started the construction work, we have found small and large objects there. This time we came across a cellar – a remnant of one of the tenement houses that suffered during the Second World War.”

The porcelain was produced in Kolmar, today’s Chodziez and in Bavaria, southern Germany. Reports state some of the dishes contained swastikas which had since been scratched off from some of them.

Credit: CEN/@MuzeumLubuskie
It was a basement, a remnant of one of the tenement houses from the Second World War era

Archaeologists from the Lubuski Museum worked on the find and Stanislaw Sinkowski, one of the archaeologists from the museum said: “There were several thousand pieces of porcelain tableware in the cellar. These are items from 1940. It is quite a young find, but it is very interesting.”

Local archaeologists state they do not remember a similar finding on such a large scale. 

According to address books from 1914 and 1931 and advertisements from 1927, Theodor Arnd owned a glass and china shop at the address.

A postcard from 1914 shows Richtstrasse, and in the foreground on the left the shopfront of the glass and porcelain shop can be seen.

Sinkowski added: “For now, we are removing this porcelain. It will be renovated and then properly catalogued. There is even an idea for an exhibition”.


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Story By: Bartosz Staszewski, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

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