Global media has for days been abuzz with talk of trains
full of jewels and gold stolen by the Nazis in WWII after two fortune hunters -
a German and a Pole - claimed to have found an armoured train buried in the
massive network of secret underground tunnels near Walbrzych in Poland.
However, a regional governor has voiced serious doubts about
the alleged discovery of a Nazi gold train, days after a deputy culture
minister said he was "more than 99 percent sure" one had been found.
Above, an old mine shaft at the Old Mine Science and Art Centre in Walbrzych, Poland
"It's
impossible to claim that such a find actually exists at the location indicated
based on the documents that have been submitted," explained Tomasz
Smolarz, governor of the southwestern region of Lower Silesia. Smolarz added
that he had set up a special unit including historians and geologists to
scrutinise the alleged discovery.
Picture: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
He also said police and other security services are blocking off the
presumed location of the train along a stretch of active railway tracks in a
bid to prevent accidents amid an unprecedented influx of treasure hunters.
Polish Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski said he had seen a
convincing ground-penetrating radar image of the alleged Nazi train. "I'm
more than 99 percent sure such a train exists, but the nature of its contents
is unverifiable at the moment," Zuchowski told reporters, adding that he
could make out platforms and cannons on the photo. "The fact that this
train is armoured suggests there could be valuable objects inside"
including artworks, archival documents or treasures, Zuchowski added.
Rumours of two special Nazi trains that disappeared in the spring of
1945, towards the end of World War II, have been circulating for years,
capturing the imagination of countless treasure-hunters
Part of a
subterranean system built by the Nazis in what is today Gluszyca-Osowka, Poland
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