While cleaning his aunt's house in Hagen, Germany, a history teacher discovered a plethora of Nazi artifacts hidden behind a wall, according to a report by the London Times.
The house was damaged in the recent floods, causing plasterboard to rotten. When Sebastian Yurtseven pulled out a piece of the rotted board, he spotted a space behind the wall.
This is where he found World War II artifacts, including a portrait of Adolf Hitler, a revolver, gas masks, Nazi Party badges, brass knuckles, letters and documents.
“I got goosebumps,” Yurtseven told local media. “I didn’t think it would turn into such a huge discovery.”
The building housed the local headquarters of the National Socialists People's Welfare (NSV) organization during the Nazi era, which Yurtseven and his aunt say the family didn't know when they purchased the property.
Historians believe the objects may have been hastily dumped as the US troops took the city in April 1945.
Ralf Blank, manager of the Hagen city achieve, says, “That must have happened very hectically."
According to Blank, the find will help historians learn more about the NSV, and their role in the Nazi regime. The NSV distributed food and gas masks and helped evacuate children to rural areas during the war. They also benefited from donations of assets and goods seized from Jewish groups and individuals.
“We hope, for example, to come across files on the distribution of so-called Jewish furniture,” Blank says
12 boxes have been recovered by archivists, who are in the process of examining them.
“The amount of material found in the wall is overwhelming,” the city archive said on Facebook on Monday. “For 1.5 weeks, employees ... have been in the process of viewing and sorting the recovered material.”