Curators at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum have discovered personal data of a 4-year-old Věra Vohryzková, a Czech Jewish girl who in 1943 was sent to the concentration camp along with her mother and younger brother. The information was found written inside one of the children's shoes, which are part of the museum collection. This is yet another such find. In 2020, Amos Steinberg's shoe and a suitcase that belonged to his father, Ludvik, were identified.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum curators have found the name and surname of a child, as well as information regarding the transport and the transport list. They were marked inside a children's shoe, which is part of the museum collection. Apart from Věra Vohryzková's shoe, a suitcase once owned by the girl's uncle was also preserved.

"The shoe belonged to Věra Vohryzková, born in January 1939. In May 1942, the girl was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto created by the Germans near Prague. She was deported to Auschwitz in December 1943 together with her mother, Štěpánka Vohryzková, and her two years older brother, Jiří. They all perished in the camp," said Hanna Kubik from the Museum Collections.

Before the Nazis placed the 4-year-old Věra in Auschwitz-Birkenau, her father Max Vohryzek - owner of a textile factory in Dačice (South Bohemian Region, close to the Austrian border) - had been murdered in that very camp in July of 1942.

"Thanks to extensive parallel research, including analysis of marks left on suitcases that belonged to people deported to the camp, we were able to link the girl's shoe and a suitcase that belonged to her uncle," Kubik added.

The musuem said that the girl's uncle, František Aufrecht, was born in March 1908. "He was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto in January 1944 and deported to Auschwitz in September 1944. He perished in Dachau in April 1945, a month before the camp's liberation," we read at the museum website.

The Head of the Collections Elżbieta Cajzer said that preserving the historical items that had belonged to the camp victims meant constantly improving the safety of the conditions in which they were stored. "When we place these unique objects in special protective packaging, we carefully analyse and verify all traces left by their owners," Cajzer said.

"This is the second such case in which it was possible to link together the owners of a suitcase and a child's shoe. In 2020, Amos Steinberg's shoe and a suitcase that belonged to his father, Ludvik, were identified," the museum said at the website.