Two amateur historians who claim to know the location of a World War II-era German train thought to be laden with treasures in an underground tunnel in Poland have started excavation work to unearth it.
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Some say the train, which also reportedly carries artwork, historical artifacts and documents, never existed.
Polish lawmakers and politicians have reacted angrily to the use of the term “Polish death camps”, as they say it implies a Polish responsibility for the atrocities that caused the death of millions.
One Polish government official initially said he was “99 percent sure” the train was there, but geological experts using magnetic equipment, so far, found no train on the spot. Richter and Koper, joined by several other volunteers, expect the search to last several days.
A tunnel, part of the Nazi Germany “Riese” construction project, pictured near an area where a Nazi train is believed to be, in Walim near Walbrzych southwestern Poland, August 31, 2015. “It’s so exciting and we count on success”.
Following the new claims, treasure hunters arrived from across Europe. Polish authorities have nonetheless seemed eager to check every possibility of recovering treasures that have sparked imaginations of local people for decades. Slowikowski, a retired miner who searched for the train in 2001, believes the Nazis blew up the entrance to the train’s tunnel.
Local folklore said an armoured train had been carrying gold from what is now the Polish city of Wroclaw as the Soviet army closed in.
Koper insists that “there is a tunnel and there is a train”, and that the results are skewed because of different technology used, The Telegraph reports.
Moreover, historians are anxious that Poland’s ruling PiS party might attempt to make it more hard to discuss the responsibility at least some Poles had in Nazi crimes.
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He thinks it is impossible that a secret railway tunnel could have been built into the hill near railroad tracks in frequent use.
