(JTA) – Utensils, tools and scraps of leather were found in a prisoners’ block at Auschwitz during renovation and restoration work. The objects were discovered last month hidden beneath a chimney flue in block 17 of the main camp, Austria’s National Fund for Victims of National Socialism told the AFP news service. The fund’s secretary general, Hannah Lessing, told AFP that the objects – knives, forks and spoons, scissors, hooks, pieces of leather and parts of shoes – could mean that the prisoners were planning an escape or they were used to survive the Nazi camp. They have been handed over to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum for conservation.

Items still occasionally turn up when work is done on the Auschwitz buildings.