Shedding light on the 'Nazi gold train'

Fortune hunters and the merely curious have descended in droves on a stretch of railway line between the cities of Wroclaw and Walbrzych in Poland where a fabled “Nazi gold train” is said to have been found.

Police patrol the wooded area telling people – who have come from far and wide by the look of the vehicle number plates – to keep out. 

If that fails they impose fines of 500 zloty (Bt4,800) for “destruction of woodland” or for illegally crossing the railway line.

Relaxed family outings for a ramble through the forest have been turned into feverish hunting for, and speculating about, what might be hidden deep underground here.

“The likelihood that there is something there is high,” Polish Culture Minister Malgorzata Omilanowska said last Friday. Her deputy, Piotr Zuchowski, head of the national monuments commission, says he is “99 per cent certain” that there is a German armoured train dating back to World War II in a tunnel thought to be 70 metres underground.

According to local lore, there were in fact two trains that disappeared without trace during the final months of the war. The question remains: What were they carrying?

The answer has been the subject of speculation for two weeks; perhaps gold and diamonds stolen from Jews murdered in the Holocaust, perhaps ammunition and other war material, or archives and other documents that could be of value to historians researching the period.

Robert Singer, chief executive of the World Jewish Congress, is taking the reports of Nazi gold seriously.

“If any of these items were stolen from Jews before they were murdered, or sent to forced labour camps, every measure must be taken to return them to their owners, or their heirs,” he said in a statement.

Should this not be possible, any proceeds from the find should go to Polish Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, who have never been adequately compensated for their suffering, Singer urged.

“We hope Poland will take the appropriate actions in that regard,” he said.

Precisely how the information came to light more than 70 years after the train, or trains, went missing is equally shrouded in mystery.

Zuchowski referred to a “deathbed confession”, noting that one of those claiming the find is a German, whose father or grandfather could have been involved in hiding the train and passed on the secret before going to his grave.

Meanwhile the tourist industry in Walbrzych is making the most of the gold fever that has taken hold. 

The rumours on their own have raised interest in the city and in the uncompleted tunnel complex nearby which was built by the Germans during the war.

Ksiaz Castle, the 13th-century fortress under which the tunnels are sais to have been dug, has for several days now been advertising special tours to the city’s underground tunnels. The logo for these tours shows a sparkling steam train.

However the Lower Silesian Historical Society, which has researched the stories for years, remains sceptical.

“Our experience from digs over the years and the archive material in our possession clearly indicates that the information regarding the discovery of the armoured train is not accurate,” it said in a statement.

The local historians reacted angrily to the suggestion they had not done their homework.

“The quest for attention from the media drowns out normal common sense,” the society said. 

Former miner Tadeusz Slowikowski, who has for the past 50 years been conducting his own digs in the area in search of finds from World War II and who has also looked for the train, has his own reasons for scepticism.

“The people in Germany hiding gold and valuables were well aware that Lower Silesia could find itself outside the borders of the Third Reich after the war,” he told the Gazeta Wyborcza Polish daily.

They would not have left gold and diamonds behind as they retreated, he believes.

“If the train contains anything, it is probably raw materials for armaments,” Slowikowski said.

As a young miner, he heard rumours about the train hidden far below the railway line from German co-workers as far back as the 1950s.