The old recording spool found by researchers at the University of Akron, Ohio contained songs sung by Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust on their way to labor camps.
The prisoners were forced by the Nazis to sing these songs as was reported by the British Daily Mail.
The spool that had apparently been mislabeled contained songs in Yiddish and German, recorded in the Henoville refugee camp in northern France, in the summer of 1946.
The songs were performed by Holocaust survivors, while being interviewed by Dr. David Boder.
Researcher Jon Endres stumbled upon the discovery while doing an inventory check in the archive.
The recording spool was labeled "Heroville songs" instead of "Henoville." Once he converted the delicate spool into digital format, Endres was shocked by the discovery.
"I think it is one of the most important discoveries from our collections in our 50-year history," said Dr. David Baker, the Margaret Clark Moran Executive Director of the Cummings Center, to the Daily Mail.
"That we could give the world the melody to a song sung by those sentenced to their death through forced labor during one of the most unspeakable horrors of the 20th century is remarkable," added Baker.