Expert Refuses to Value WW2 Medal After Discovering Origin

The after-effects of the Second World War still remain...

And they just continue to prove how brutal it really was.

It came to an end 76 years ago.

But it's still an incredibly raw subject for many.

Now, we all know that World War II was a lengthy and brutal war.

It was fought between the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allied powers (United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and France), beginning in 1939 and finally coming to an end in 1945.

The 400 million estimated deaths caused by WW2 made it the bloodiest conflict...

As well as the largest war in history.

The United States played an enormous part in the war.

The attack from Japan on Pearl Harbour in 1941 marked the United State's first involvement in the war; this attack is still, today, considered one of the most brutal attacks in war history.

And devastatingly...

An estimated total of 418,500 Americans died during WW2, including both military and civilians.

Not many were lucky enough to make it home...

And out of the sixteen million American soldiers that served in WWII, only a small percentage were lucky enough to return home. The ones that did come home, however, brought back memories that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

The use of bombs and atomic weapons in the war was utterly devastating.

Take the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan, for example. The U.S-made bomb instantly killed between 70,000-80,000 civilians on the ground and for many years to come, people suffered extreme after-effects caused by the catastrophic nuclear bomb.

The bombs used in the war were things not to be meddled with...

But miraculously, numerous bombs dropped around the world during the war failed to detonate... and they still remain untouched to this very day.

That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous, however.

Almost eighty years on since the war came to an end, an undetonated bomb can still pose a serious threat to the civilization that is unconsciously living around it.

And this was proven recently...

And when a WW2 bomb was detonated in a lake in Poland, people were left feeling extremely shaken.

Not only was it terrifying to witness...

It was also fascinating.

We need to be thankful that the bomb was underwater...

Because who knows the destruction that would have been caused if not.

The 5.4-ton Tallboy bomb was found in September 2019 beneath a waterway leading to the port of Szczecin, in the northwest of Poland.

It has laid in the Piast Canal for decades, and the decision came yesterday on the 14th of October to neutralize the bomb.

Navy demolition experts and divers attempted to safely neutralize the bomb that contained 2,400kg worth of explosives...

But they "accidentally" set off the device - resulting in the largest explosion.

The explosion was huge...

And the water is seen erupting miles into the air as it sends a shockwave across the city.

Thankfully, residents nearby had been evacuated beforehand...

And the divers were a safe distance away as they attempted to defuse the bomb through remote deflagration, whereby the explosive charge is burnt without causing a detonation (if successful, that is).

"The deflagration process turned into detonation."

Lt. Cmdr. Lewandowski explained, "The object can be considered neutralized, it will not pose any more threat to the Szczecin-Swinoujscie shipping channel."

"All divers were outside the danger zone."

The blast was that big, it could even be felt by residents in Swinoujscie, which was part of Germany when the RAF dropped the bomb in 1945.

All we can say is...

Thank goodness nobody was hurt!

But the latest story is absolutely heartbreaking.

BBC

And it's the story of a WW2 medal that recently showed up on a British TV show about antiques.

The antique expert refused to put a price on the medal.

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After he discovered the absolutely devastating origin of the medal.

The expert, Mark Smith, was overcome with emotion.

BBC

After he inspected the item and told that the coin - from 1955 - was given to people who survived the Holocaust and escaped concentration camps.

Speaking about the medal, he said:

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"There is no price you can put on what someone went through to be awarded that medal".

So heartbreaking.

BBC

The woman who the medal belongs to says it was her grandfathers and she had no idea of the origin.

Smith went onto explain: "Now your medallion is the 10th anniversary medal for the liberation of concentration camps and they were given to people, Belgians who had been in concentration camps, so the medal you actually have on the front of it shows a prisoner wearing a concentration camp uniform."

"There is no price you can put on what someone went through to be awarded that medal."

Smith concluded:

"Now we always give you a valuation on the Antiques Roadshow.

"But we don't give valuations to Holocaust things because there is no price you can put on what someone went through to be awarded that medal.

"So I can't tell you what it's worth but now you know what it is, I hope you think it was worthwhile coming to the Antiques Roadshow."

Heartbreaking. At least now the woman knows a little more about the horrors her grandfather went through.