A prayer book, secret bunker, tunnel and a Star of David tell a story of Jewish resistance in a Poli

(1 Jun 2026) ASSOCIATED PRESS Bedzin, Poland - 29 May 2026 1. Close of Hebrew prayer book from 1934 2. Wojciech Mazan looks at prayer book 3. Close of book 4. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Wojciech Mazan, finder and art historian: "In this shallow dust lay only one item – this prayer book. This is interesting, because here we find many rodent nests, and they are filled with remnants of some heavily ground-up papers, cut into strips by the rodents, while this prayer book was completely untouched." 5. Various of Mazan inspecting attic, digging through dust, resting in a dust mask 6. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Karolina Jakoweńko, president of the Cukerman Gate Foundation: "Thousands of questions: who left it, how was it preserved, in such a clean place, where the whole attic is drowning in dirt, in ruins, here we have a beautiful, cleaned place where someone deliberately left it, preserved it, wanted to keep it, didn't want to go to an extermination camp with it, wanted it to probably survive." 7. Piotr Jakoweńko walks in to underground hideout 8. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Piotr Jakoweńko, the Cukerman Gate Foundation board member: "This was the exact entrance where these young men entered the bunker by opening the oven, climbing down the ladder, and exiting through it as well. The oven was located directly above this spot." 9. Close of bricks 10. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Piotr Jakoweńko , the Cukerman Gate Foundation board member: "We don't know what happened to the people in this basement. We don't know if any of them survived. Perhaps as many as 60 people were hiding here." ASSOCIATED PRESS Warsaw, Poland - + DATE NOT AVAILABLE+ +MUTE/ 4:3/ BLACK AND WHITE+ 11. Mid high angle of Jewish people crowded inside the Warsaw ghetto 12. Pan of body and old people in street 13. Various of crowds moving along cobbled streets ASSOCIATED PRESS Bedzin, Poland - 29 May 2026 14. Various of Marcin Dos sitting down on a step looking at an armband with the Star of David 15. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Marcin Dos, finder of armband: "It crossed my mind that it was a fragment of a shirt sleeve. The thought immediately occurred to me that it might be an armband, but I had not any real conviction, I waited to see if I would find the Star of David or not, because otherwise it might turn out to be just a piece of cloth. Well, the star appeared, the star appeared, and it turned out to be an incredible discovery." 16. Close to armband with the Star of David 17. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Karolina Jakoweńko, president of the Cukerman Gate Foundation: "Someone simply threw it. Where? Was it somewhere in the house, was it somewhere in the garden, or did someone sweep it up there and throw it into the attic with the rubble? How did it get mixed up with the rubble? But believe me, it really was in one of the buckets that were brought down from the attic with dust, debris, and other things." 18. Various of volunteers bringing down buckets of dust and debris from the attic and searching it 19. SOUNDBITE (Polish) Karolina Jakoweńko, president of the Cukerman Gate Foundation: "We constantly emphasize that any form of resistance, whether it's building a hideout or trying to hide a child or an elderly parent, is a form of resistance. It's just a matter of words and doesn't have to involve armed struggle, because if they created hideouts, places where they wanted to survive, then that's a form of resistance. And that's how we want to tell this narrative." 20. Various of volunteers uncovering an underground tunnel and hiding place dug under a former shed 24. "Bedzin Ghetto Fighters Memorial" house exteriors LEADIN: Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...