Gold Trains & Incan Bounties: 7 Buried Treasures in Poland
According to tales of old, there’s treasure waiting to be found in Poland – great riches have supposedly been stashed in various places around the country. The Knights Templar, Peruvian freedom fighter Túpac Amaru II, and even a so-called gold train all get a mention in these popular stories about hidden treasure in Poland.
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‘The Battle of Płowce 1331’ by Juliusz Kossak, 1883, photo: Wikipedia.org
We start off with a treasure whose history dates back all the way to the 14th century. In the year 1331, Poland came under attack from the Teutonic Order, which led to the Battle of Płowce. Near the village of Płowce in today’s central Poland, the Teutonic Knights clashed with Polish forces led by Poland’s king Władysław Łokietek. Historians say the outcome of this battle, which took place on 27th September, was inconclusive but Łokietek still managed to stop the attacking army.
One of the episodes of the battle is said to have taken place on a small lake near the village of Sadłóżek. A unit of Polish knights defended an earth rampart there from being taken over by the Teutonic Order. Apparently, these Polish troops brought with them many of their valuable possessions so that they couldn’t be stolen from their homes while they were away. However, when the Teutonic Order began to approach the rampart, the Polish knights became concerned that their valuables might fall into the hands of the enemy there and then.
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The knights defending the rampart realized they might lose […] and began to think what to do with the treasures they had brought to the camp; […] it was decided that all the riches, mainly silver and gold, […] would be put into a single, huge, oak chest and submerged in the depths of the nearby lake.
Author
From topolka.pl, trans. MK
Even though the Teutonic Order was driven off from Poland, this group of Polish knights never managed to retrieve their precious chest – perhaps the lake near Sadłóżek was too deep. In the 19th century, efforts were made to drain the lake and uncover the treasure hidden within. However, these efforts proved unsuccessful – the lake’s surface was temporarily lowered only by a couple of metres and no chest was found. Perhaps Łokietek’s treasure is still there waiting to be salvaged from the depths of the lake near Sadłóżek…
The Knights Templar’s treasure
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The Knights Templar chapel in Chwarszczany, photo: Rafal Jablonski / East News
Next up we have another treasure linked to events from the distant 14th century. During the Council of Vienne, an important meeting of Catholic bishops held in the years 1311-1312, the armed religious order of the Knights Templar was formally abolished. This crusading order was founded two centuries earlier to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land. But they also became very wealthy and allegedly amassed immense treasures including none other than the Holy Grail itself! The order ended up being infamously and brutally dissolved by France’s king Philip IV.
However, the legendary treasure of the Knights Templar was never found. Many places around the world have been rumoured to contain it and among them is the quaint village of Chwarszczany in western Poland. There you can find an amazing gothic chapel raised in the 13th century by the Knights Templar. This outstanding stone and brick building is said to reference biblical descriptions of Solomon's Temple. According to some, the Knights Templar managed to hide their treasure beneath this chapel or in the grounds surrounding it before they were abolished.
As of yet, no treasure has been found here. However, last year in the CNN article On the Trail of the Knights Templar and Holy Grail in Western Poland, the Polish archaeologist Przemysław Kołosowski disclosed some curious information about the chapel:
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Our GPR has detected gothic crypts with the remnants of Templar knights beneath the chapel. […] According to legends and medieval documents, there was a well in the vicinity of the chapel. Rumour has it that the well served as an entrance to a secret tunnel. This still requires an exhaustive archaeological investigation.
Maybe at the end of this (possible) secret tunnel lies the famed Knights Templar’s treasure containing the Holy Grail? Others say that the knights might’ve sunken their treasure in a now dried-up lake located about 30 kilometres to the north-east of the chapel, next to the village of Świątki…
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Dunajec Castle, photo: Dariusz Zarod / East News
Another historical Polish building which dates back to the Middle Ages and is linked to a story about hidden treasure is Dunajec Castle. This impressive gothic castle, picturesquely located on the sizeable Lake Czorsztyn in southern Poland, was built in the first half of the 14th century. In the 17th century, it was remodelled into a renaissance residence and most of this form has still been retained.
In the complex tale of the treasure in Dunajec Castle, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. The story goes that Sebastian Berzeviczy, a descendant of the castle’s owners, travelled to South America in the 18th century. There he wedded an indigenous woman of noble birth with whom he had a daughter named Umina. As an adult, Umina married Andreas, son of the famous freedom fighter Túpac Amaru II, who led an uprising against the Spanish rule over Peru in the 1780s. Túpac Amaru II was a genuine historical figure and a descendant of the last ruler of the Incas, Túpac Amaru.
After the fall of the insurgency and the death of Túpac Amaru II, Andreas became a candidate for the Incan throne. Spain considered him a threat and he had to flee South America with his family – by then he and Umina had a son named Antonio. But trouble followed them and Andreas was assassinated in Italy. This tragedy prompted Berzeviczy to offer Umina and Antonio refuge at Dunajec Castle. Some say that when the mother and son arrived at the castle they had with them an Incan treasure taken from South America. Sadly, Spain’s rulers were relentless – Umina was later killed in Dunajec Castle by Spanish assassins. Her son was adopted by a family by the surname of Benesz and managed to survive.
Many years later, in 1946, Dunajec Castle was visited by the Polish archaeologist and politician Andrzej Benesz who claimed he was Antonio’s descendant. Thanks to information from Antonio’s adoption certificate, Benesz discovered a mysterious container at the castle, hidden beneath the steps of a stone staircase. The container stored a quipu or a piece of Inca string writing. The message of this quipu was never revealed, but it supposedly had three small golden plaques attached to it, which were inscribed with names of places containing hidden Incan treasure. One of these places was Dunajec Castle – the purported hiding place of the treasure brought by Umina and Antonio from South America. To further add to the mystery the quipu went missing not long after its discovery…
However, no Incan treasure has yet been discovered at Dunajec Castle, which nowadays serves as a museum. Evidently, the search is still on!
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The tower of the derelict church in Małga, photo: Andrzej Sidor / Forum
From Peru, we head to Russia. In August 1914, during World War I, Russia clashed with Germany in what is known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg. It took place in today’s Poland, near the town of Nidzica, and was badly lost by the Russian army. Their losses were so high that their commander, Alexander Samsonov, committed suicide after the battle.
Before the Russian commander took his life, he manged to make his way into the vicinity of the town of Wielbark. Some say that Samsonov arrived in this area on a horse-drawn cart loaded with over 100 kilograms of gold that belonged to his army. He was being pursued by German soldiers and decided to split the treasure between the Russian officers accompanying him, hoping they might carry it away from enemy hands. After the valuables were divided, General Samsonov pointed a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The story goes that the gold taken by his officers was lost without a trace.
Although it’s highly improbable that Samsonov had a heavy load of gold with him right after the Second Battle of Tannenberg, that hasn’t stopped people looking for it. Supposedly, the Russian officers stashed the gold in various places in the town’s vicinity, such as the no longer existing village of Małga or the village of Przeździęk Mały, and both these locations have been the focus of a lot of digging. One of the most curious beliefs about Samsonov’s treasure is linked to an oak tree growing close to the Karolinka forester’s lodge located near Przeździęk Mały:
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According to legend, part of the military gold was buried beneath this tree. To find the treasure you have to dig between the 25th and 30th of August, that’s when Samsonov was surrounded in 1914. The shadow of the branches shows the spot where the treasure was hidden.
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From gazetaolsztynska.pl, trans. MK
Up until today, however, no massive Russian treasure has been found in the vicinity of Wielbark. Surely, this means that it’s still waiting to be discovered!
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A replica of the Amber Room at Tsarskoye Selo, photo: SIPA Press / East News
While Samsonov’s treasure is linked to World War I, our next haul is connected to World War II. That was when the priceless Amber Room went missing, prompting numerous theories about its supposed post-war whereabouts.
The Amber Room was a stunningly beautiful room decoration made entirely of amber for the king of Prussia Frederick I. It was created in the 18th century by Gdańsk artisans and included mosaics, sculptures and reliefs. It originally adorned a chamber in Frederick I’s Berlin palace, but after his death it was gifted to the Russian tsar Peter the Great. In Russia, the Amber Room adorned the interiors of Saint Petersburg’s Winter Palace, before later being moved to the Tsarskoye Selo residence. In 1941, Nazi Germans looted the room and took it Königsberg Castle where it was put on display. Before the city was taken by the Red Army in 1945 and renamed Kaliningrad, the Nazis put all the Amber Room’s elements into crates which were stored in the castle’s cellars. There’s no credible information about what happened to the room afterwards.
The value of the Amber Room is immeasurable. It consisted of about 6 tonnes of precious amber, but its artistic and historical worth far exceeded the cost of its materials. It’s possible that this amazing chamber was destroyed during World War II when the castle in Kaliningrad was badly damaged. But some say that the room was successfully evacuated from that city and remains stashed somewhere… Since the story of the Amber Room is highly popular, hundreds of places around the world have been claimed to be its hiding spot, quite a few of them in Poland.
For example, the Amber Room is rumoured to be hidden in a secret tunnel beneath the 13th-century castle in Bolków in western Poland. This claim is linked to a story related by historian Stanisław Stulin in his 2000 book Gdzie Ukryto Bursztynową Komnatę (Where the Amber Room is Hidden).
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In November 1944 in the market square in Bolków, seventeen trucks waiting to drive into the castle were seen. They were loaded with crates, two of which were damaged and had amber slabs sticking out of them.
Apparently, these trucks had come from Kaliningrad and one of their passengers was a Nazi German officer. Nevertheless, the castle’s secret tunnel where the Amber Room was allegedly stored was never found.
Some other places in Poland that are said to be the hiding spot of the precious chamber are the ruins of the palace in Dzikowo Iławeckie, the Teutonic castle in Pasłęk or the depths of Lake Resko Przymorskie. The hunt for the Amber Room continues…
Also linked to World War II is the tale of the so-called gold train. With the Red Army approaching at the end of 1944, the Nazis apparently wanted to evacuate a great stash of valuables out of Wrocław (then Breslau). There was so much of it that they loaded an entire train with things like gold, bank deposits and artworks looted from Poland and the USSR. Once everything was oboard, it set off from Wrocław to the town of Wałbrzych. However, somewhere near Wałbrzych the train mysteriously disappeared and since then has never been seen. Some say the train was hidden (in some appropriately sizeable spot) and is still waiting to be found. Among the train’s purported locations, you can find the undergrounds of the impressive historical Książ Castle in Wałbrzych or Mount Sobiesz located to the west of that town.
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According to one of the hypotheses, the transport left its route and entered a tunnel that had been bored nearby the village of Lubiechów [today part of Wałbrzych – ed.], which led to the undergrounds of Książ Castle. Another hypothesis says that the train remains in a tunnel in the Sudety Mountains. The train’s many supposed locations in that range include the underground complex in Mount Sobiesz near the town of Piechowice, where a military factory used to operate. Part of this structure could’ve been a shelter – perfect for hiding treasure.
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From wroclaw.wyborcza.pl, trans. MK
In 2015, a big media sensation erupted when two men searching for the gold train, Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter, declared they had located it. They said it was hidden in a secret underground tunnel near the Wrocław-Wałbrzych railway line. However, after the spot was examined, it transpired that nothing extraordinary was there at all. Naturally, this only proves that the search for the gold train is far from over…
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Lobkowitz Palace in Żagań, Duchess Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord’s residence, photo: Skarabeusz / Wikipedia.org
The last item on our list is Talleyrand’s treasure, which belonged to Duchess Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord. In the 19th century, this noblewoman of German and possibly also Polish descent (historians speculate that her father might’ve been the Polish diplomat Aleksander Batowski) amassed a great collection of artworks and precious letters at her palace in Żagań in today’s western Poland. Among the items were paintings by Canaletto and Rembrandt as well as her correspondence with famous figures like the pianist Fryderyk Chopin and playwright Aleksander Fredro. Talleyrand-Périgord also possessed letters written by Napoleon and the last king of Poland, Stanisław August Poniatowski. After her death in 1862, her collection remained at the baroque palace in Żagań.
During World War II, the palace was turned into a German military hospital, and in 1944 the duchess’ collection was packed into crates and stored in the basement. When the USSR’s forces were nearing Żagań, the Nazis evacuated some of these crates, but many – including one with Talleyrand-Périgord’s letters – were left behind. Some artworks from the duchess’ collection were found after the war but what became of the rest and her precious correspondence remains a mystery. Some say the lost part of the collection, or the so-called Talleyrand treasure, was hidden somewhere in Poland and is still waiting to be recovered.
Among its supposed locations are the castle in Kliczków and the palace in Borowina, both villages located not far from the duchess’ residence. According to another theory, the missing remainder of the collection is actually hidden somewhere in Żagań… If Talleyrand’s treasure were to be found, the present-day value of its artworks and significant correspondence would be absolutely immense.
Well, this spot marks the end of our list of Poland’s hidden treasure. To all would-be treasure hunters out there, happy hunting!
Written by Marek Kępa, Jul 2021
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