Archaeologists excavating a World War II Ghetto bunker in the town of Będzin in southern Poland have discovered what they described as an unexpected “sensation” — well preserved traces of an underground hideout and tunnel used by Jews who staged an abortive revolt against the Nazis in 1943.
“During the archaeological work, we managed to unearth, document, and secure two extremely important architectural elements that shape the history of the Będzin ghetto,” the archaeological company Wykop na Poziomie said in a Facebook post.
“We uncovered stone stairs leading to the interior of a hiding place, located beneath a now-vanished outbuilding, and… a tunnel (!), which also provided access to a safe basement space,” it said.
The archaeologists said they had expected to find both “architectural elements” but their level of preservation is “remarkable.” The tunnel, they said, preserves its original wooden floor and fragments of its walls.
The bunker being excavated is adjacent to a building known as the Ghetto Fighters’ House, located at what today is 24 Rutka Laskier Street. During WW2, when the Nazis forced Jews into a ghetto, the building was the clandestine meeting place for Zionist youth groups and The Jewish Combat Organization — whose members, led by Frumka Plotnicka, staged a revolt in August 1943 as the Nazis were carrying the final deportations and liquidation of the ghetto. They fought for three days before being crushed.
Beneath the house was a bunker hideout, which could be entered through the stove in the kitchen, which concealed a hidden staircase.
The NGO Cukerman Gate Foundation purchased the property in 2024, intending to create a memorial museum there. The Foundation has long maintained and restored a private synagogue in a Będzin tenement building.
“{At the Ghetto Fighters House] we envision a multitasked Center that will interpret and support the memory of this unique site of Jewish resistance in Europe,” it says. It will tell “stories and the memories of Jewish resistance in Będzin, from 1942 to the deportations in August 1943.”
The archaeological work was commissioned and carried out in cooperation with the Foundation, thanks to funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, as part of the “Sites of Memory and Permanent Commemoration, 2026” program.
See the Cukerman Gate web page for the Ghetto Fighters House
Read a Haaretz story about the project