Despite decades of rumors and amateur searches, the train’s existence has never been proved.
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“I’m sure there are a lot of critics and skeptics, and at this point the authorities in Poland, they are one of those”, Noack said. The team is expected to announce findings in coming days.
The pair began the treasure hunt on Tuesday with a team of researchers and volunteers, despite warnings that it could be a pointless mission.
However, Prof Janusz Madej from Krakow’s AGH University of Science and Technology said its geological survey of the site had found no evidence of a train.
The explorers – led by Piotr Koper from Poland and Andreas Richter from Germany – said ground-penetrating radar results were “very promising”. “We are hoping to be successful”.
At the height of the frenzy previous year, the World Jewish Congress reminded Poland’s authorities in the case of a discovery of a treasure-laden train, any valuables belonging to Jews killed in the Holocaust must be returned to their rightful owners or their heirs.
Legend holds that the train was armed and loaded with treasure and disappeared after entering a complex of tunnels under the Owl Mountains, a secret project known as “Riese” – meaning “giant” – which the Nazis never finished.
Poland’s government has passed a new law outlawing terms such as “Polish death camps” as references to Auschwitz and other concentration camps run by Nazi Germany when it occupied the country during World War II.
Richter and Koper past year reported finding soil anomalies that hinted at the train’s existence.
The armoured train is thought to have been travelling from what is now Wroclaw before going missing near Ksiaz castle – two miles from Walbrzych.
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Poland fears that younger generations across the world will falsely assume that the country had a hand in running the concentration camps – Auschwitz, Treblinka and other camps – as foreign media has often referred to the Nazi camps as “Polish”.
