        Having an interest in history, I remember classes in both high school and university that discussed the movement of valuables during World War II. When countries in Europe, either as Allies or Axis powers, were close to being invaded valuables were loaded up and sent somewhere safe, only to be lost to time.
               A fantastic example of this in the then - Soviet Union was of the Amber Room. The room was built in 1701 and were installed at the Berlin City Palace within Prussia (Germany didn’t exist yet). Upon a visit by Peter the Great of Russia in 1716, the panels were presented as a gift to solidify a Russo-Prussian alliance against Sweden, and the Amber Room was constructed in Catherine Palace. It took over ten years to construct a room which covered over 590 sq ft and contained over 13,000 lbs of amber!
               The room wasn’t moved when the German invasion began of the Soviet Union, instead it was covered by mundane wallpaper. The Soviets didn’t have time to move the amber and feared it would crumble.
               The Nazis seized the amber panels and transported them for storage in Konigsberg, but towards the end of 1944 the city was heavily bombed by the Royal Air Force and in 1945 further damage from an advancing Red Army destroyed the Amber Room. A replica has been created and in 2003 it was dedicated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder during the 300th anniversary of the city of Saint Petersburg.
               Was the Amber Room really destroyed though or did it make it out of Konigsberg?
               Recently in the news was another example of valuables being hidden and lost. This time the items weren’t taken and later destroyed, but a train, filled with gold, was said to have gone missing in the southwest of Poland. The Nazis had attempted to move several tons of gold in 1945 as the Red Army continued to get closer it was sent away.
               This train was also rumoured to contain the aforementioned Amber Room, which also disappeared during World War II, as proof of its destruction was never actually verified.
               The gold train, however, never reached its destination and tales were spun. Both of these topics have also been made into popular historical fiction novels.
               Two individuals claimed to know where the train is and only gave up the whereabouts when it was agreed that they were entitled to 10 percent of the value of its contents, which otherwise belong to the state treasury.
               The duo had been searching for the train for years and finally discovered a train, buried 70 metres underground. Nazis had built underground infrastructure to guard themselves from Allied air raids. Many tunnels run underground from Ksiaz Castle through the nearby Owl Mountains and were supposedly built for the Nazis arms industry and the Castle was to be converted to a hotel for Nazi officials. If Hitler were to stay there, then the underground system was a way to escape if need be. This was named Project Riese and today three of seven sites within it are open to the public, but the majority has remained unexplored.
               A Nazi military train has been discovered in the tunnels near Walbrzych by the Poland and Czech Republic borders.
               Historians were split between those who believed a treasure train existed and those who did not, which makes this find an exciting one and I can’t wait to find out what is housed in this long forgotten train that has lay buried for seven decades.
