WARSAW, Poland -- A leading Polish cultural official said Thursday that he is "convinced" of the existence of a Nazi treasure train that has been missing for 70 years and which two men claim to have found recently.
Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski also warned treasure hunters in southwestern Poland to stop looking for the "so-called 'gold train'" because it could be mined and dangerous.
Since the end of World War II, Polish legend has said a German train filled with gold, gems and armaments disappeared near the city of Walbrzych, close to the Czech border while fleeing the Red Army in 1945. Fortune-hunters have looked for it for decades, and in the communist era, the Polish army and security services even carried out apparently fruitless searches for it.
This month two men, a Pole and a German, said they found a train with armaments and valuables, leading to hopes it could be that long-lost mystery train.
So far, no evidence has been offered to the public of the train's existence. However, Zuchowski did hint that there's something to the men's claims and the Culture Ministry announced it will hold a news conference on the topic today.
"In connection with the published information referring to the find of the so-called 'gold train' in the region of Walbrzych, an increase in the activity of treasure hunters has been observed," Zuchowski said in a statement. "I am appealing to people to stop any such searches until the end of official procedures leading to the securing of the find. Inside the hidden train -- of whose existence I am convinced -- there could be dangerous materials from the time of World War II. There is a great chance that the train is mined."
The train probably would have been fitted with explosives to deter intruders, Walbrzych Council Chairman Jacek Cichura told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
"We are on alert should we need to take any specific security measures," a police spokesman told Poland's TVN24.
Residents of the Owl Mountains area southwest of Wroclaw have traded tales for decades about a train with Third Reich markings passing through in early 1945 as the Nazis sought to carry off valuables ahead of the Soviet Red Army's advance.
Historians are throwing wet blankets on the claim, pointing out that there has never been any evidence found in the Nazis' usually detailed documentation of operations to give credence to the myth.
But officials in Walbrzych, near the Czech border, seem to be taking seriously the claim of the two men, who have retained a Wroclaw attorney to negotiate their offer of information on the train's location in exchange for 10 percent of the value of its cargo.
"This is a find of world significance, on a par with [finding] the Titanic," attorney Jaroslaw Chmielewski told Radio Wroclaw.
Chmielewski took his unidentified clients' claim to Walbrzych officials last week and has managed to convince them that the offer is worth passing on to Polish national authorities. Under Polish law, any valuables found from that era would be state property.
Walbrzych Deputy Mayor Zygmunt Nowaczyk told journalists Wednesday that he was referring the men's claim to the relevant officials in Warsaw.
"We believe that a train has been found. We are taking this information seriously," said another city official, council member Marika Tokarskai. "We assume they know what is inside."
Local lore has it that the train was taking the treasure -- most of it gold jewelry and fixtures seized from eastern European Jews and melted into ingots -- to German territory farther west to prevent its falling into the hands of the Soviet troops who would overrun the area within weeks. The train was said to have left Wroclaw, then known as Breslau and part of the Third Reich, and traveled through the Project Reise area before it vanished.
Reise, which means "giant" in German, was a vast complex of tunnels and storehouses under the Owl Mountains being constructed by slave laborers in the late months of World War II. It was never finished, but survivors of the Nazi work camps told tales of huge bunkers and passages cut deep into the mountains, stoking the legend and rumors that the gold-laden train pulled into one of the underground recesses for safety from aerial bombardment, or to hide the loot from the advancing Allies.
Public-safety officials in the area around Walbrzych have called in reinforcements to guard against treasure hunters thronging the tunnel network, some of which is open to the public as a historical site, but much more of which is sealed off and never explored.
The claim also has rekindled theories on the fate of the long-lost Amber Room panels that were plundered by a Nazi army force from Catherine's Palace outside Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1941. The panels were taken to Koenigsberg Castle and reassembled within weeks, but Adolf Hitler ordered all valuables removed from the Reich's eastern edge in January 1945.
The Amber Room at Catherine's Palace has been restored with new panels and sculptures. The whereabouts of the priceless 18th-century originals remain a mystery.
Information for this article was contributed by staff members of The Associated Press and by Carol J. Williams of the Los Angeles Times.
A Section on 08/28/2015