Lodz (Poland), Jan 11 (AP) A recent discovery of objects that were most likely hidden by their Jewish owners during World War II is a rare and precious discovery, officials in central Poland said on Wednesday.

Lodz city authorities were showing to The Associated Press and commenting about around 400 items, including silver-plated menorahs, hanukkiahs, tableware and daily use items, which were uncovered there last month during house and yard renovation works.

Also Read | FAA Outage: Hundreds of Flights Grounded in US After Federal Aviation Administration Reports Computer System Failure.

“Those residents who buried these items did so most likely thinking that they would one day return for them, that they would be able to retrieve them," said Lodz deputy mayor, Adam Pustelnik.

“Most likely, these people lost their lives” in the Holocaust, Pustelnik said. “Such stories are truly rare and precious and also are a great lesson for us all.”

Also Read | Thailand: Male Prostitute Robs Sex Worker, Kills Her Puppy and Threatens Murder if 'She Ends Relationship'.

The items were packed in a wooden box, now partly disintegrating, and wrapped up in newspapers, said Krzysztof Hejmanowski, a building inspector with the Warbud construction company that came across the stashed trove.

Experts believe the package was hidden early on in the war.

The address at 23 Polnocna Street, where the objects were found, was just outside the perimeter of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. The occupying Nazi Germans established the Jewish quarter in Lodz in February 1940, and until August 1944 and it held about 200,000 Jews from across Europe. Most of the inmates died there or in concentration camps.

The items will be handed over to the city's Archaeology Museum.

A Municipal Investment Administration official, Malgorzata Loeffler, said the items and their history stir “emotion and deep thought about the fact that we are not alone, that we leave something behind”. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)