Bronislaw Jankowiak, a former Auschwitz prisoner and the author of a letter in a bottle left in the cellar of a bomb shelter, later a school, has been tracked down in Sweden, where he died in 1997.

Jankowiak survived Auschwitz and other death camps. In 1945 he was transported with 15,000 former prisoners from Poland to Sweden for recovery. 20-years-old Bronislaw settled down in a town, located 600 km from Stockholm. He married a former Auschwitz prisoner Maria Czarnek, with whom he had four children. Jankowiak died in 1997.

One of his daughters – Irene Jankowiak, a school teacher from Uppsala - confirmed that her father was an Auschwitz prisoner and had the registration number 12313. She was surprised by the news about the letter in a bottle. Her father never told anyone about it. When she saw the letter though, she recognized his handwriting.

Recently workers who were demolishing what is now a vocational school in Oswiecim, southern Poland, found a bottle with a message inside. The letter was written in 1944 by Auschwitz camp prisoners constructing a bomb shelter for German soldiers.

It was scribbled on a piece of rough paper probably ripped from a cement bag. Seven prisoners: six Poles and a Frenchman aged 18 to 20-years-old signed the letter and included their identification numbers. One of them was Bronislaw Jankowiak.

Albert Veissid, a French prisoner of Auschwitz, who was among those who wrote the letter 65 years ago, was also tracked down. He is 85 and lives in a village near Marseille. (mg/pg0