600 zloty and a bar of soap

When the NKVD arrested the Deszberg family in April 1940, Mama took her treasure box with her into exile. Among the treasures were 600 zloty--several months' wages for a laboring man--and a bar of soap. She couldn't spend the money, which was useless in Siberia, and she never used the soap, which seventy-one years later still retains its faint perfume. Mama wrote on the box that she would open it when she returned to Lwow. She never did, alas. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford