Treasure worth ₹2.87 crore with possible Nazi ties found by hikers in Czech Republic
Two hikers exploring the outskirts of a forest in the northeastern Podkrkonoší Mountains in the Czech Republic made an astonishing discovery when they unearthed a treasure trove valued at over ₹ 2.87 crore ($340,000), according to a report by the New York Post.
The Museum of East Bohemia, which has since taken possession of the find, confirmed that the trove included 598 gold coins, pieces of jewellery and tobacco pouches, collectively weighing approximately 15 pounds.
The coins are believed to have been 'hidden in the ground for over a hundred years' and date back to the period between 1808 and the early 19th century. Experts suggest they were likely buried sometime after 1921. The collection comprises currency from France, Belgium, the Ottoman Empire, and the former Austria-Hungary.
'When he [one of the hikers] opened it, my jaw dropped,' said Miroslav Novák, head of archaeology at the museum.
Describing it as a 'very specific set', local media noted that small markings on the coins indicate they were minted for use in the former Yugoslavia, which existed from 1918 until its dissolution in 1992.
Though the discovery was made in February, museum officials only made the information public last week. 'We will need to analyse the rest, but at the current price of precious metals, the value of the find can start at 7.5 million [Czech] Crowns ($340,000),' Novák added.
Experts are now working to uncover the origins of the buried treasure.
'To store valuable objects in the ground in the form of treasures, so-called depots have been a common practice since prehistoric times. At first, religious movements were more common; later it was property stored in uncertain times with the intention of returning later for it,' museum officials explained.
One prevailing theory suggests the treasure may have been hidden by retreating Nazi forces fleeing from the advancing Russian army towards the end of the Second World War.
'It is difficult to say whether this is the gold of a Czech who had to leave the occupied territory after the Nazi invasion of 1938 [or] the gold of a German who feared displacement after 1945,' said museum director Petr Grulich. 'It could also be stolen goods from an antique shop, but we are not inclined to this option.'
As investigations continue, the two fortunate hikers stand to receive 10 per cent of the treasure's value, in line with Czech law.
First Published: 3 May 2025, 12:53 PM IST
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The Hindu
12 hours ago
- The Hindu
A sunken ship and a sea of worries
E Sreenivasan, an 80-year-old fisherman, stands near a granite memorial as he recalls the fury of the sea 21 years ago. On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck the Indian Ocean coast with a ferocious intensity, uprooting trees, smashing buildings, and sweeping away thousands of people. At the fisher hamlet in Arattupuzha at the southern end of Alappuzha district in Kerala, the tragedy claimed 29 lives. 'They included three children from the same family,' he says, pointing to the memorial. Soon after the disaster, a 14-kilometre-long fortress-like seawall came up in Arattupuzha. It was created with concrete tetrapods, huge boulders, sand bags, and coir geotextiles. Two decades later, the people of Arattupuzha are relying on that seawall to protect themselves, their houses, and the coast from sea incursion. On May 25, the sea claimed a Liberian-flag container ship, MSC Elsa 3, which was carrying 644 containers, some of which had hazardous cargo; 367 tonnes of heavy fuel oil; and 64 tonnes of diesel. Since then, a large strip of the Kerala coastline has been littered with plastic, cotton, and other waste that washed ashore from containers that fell into the sea from the ship. While there has been no leakage so far, there are oil patches around the ship, the Kerala government said. Days after the ship sank, the government banned fishing within a 20-nautical-mile (about 37 km) radius of the wreck and promised to give 6 kg of free rice and ₹1,000 a month to each of the affected fisher families in the districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, and Ernakulam, stretching from the central to the southern part of the State. Sreenivasan is unhappy with the compensation. 'Each worker in the sector used to get ₹200 as daily compensation whenever the government banned fishing due to adverse weather or other reasons,' he says. 'The ₹1,000 that the government is giving now is a pittance.' Binu Ponnan, the Alappuzha district president of the All India Fishermen Congress, an organisation that works for fishers' welfare and rights, also believes that the compensation is grossly inadequate. 'The government must sanction at least ₹10,000 per fisher's family per month, to help them overcome the lull in the sector following the sinking of the ship,' he says. The sinking of a ship On May 24, the 27-year-old vessel, owned by the global shipping giant Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), departed the recently inaugurated Vizhinjam port in Thiruvananthapuram and was en route to Kochi. For the crew of 24 — comprising a Russian captain, 20 Filipinos, two Ukranians, and a Georgian — the journey was supposed to take a day. By afternoon, the 184-metre-long vessel began developing a starboard list ('tilt' in common parlance) when it was sailing off the Thotapally coast, according to defence sources. By 3.15 p.m., the list had increased to a frightening 30 degrees. Containers began to slide off the ship. The crew sent an SOS message, prompting the Indian Coast Guard to depute three relief and rescue ships and a Dornier aircraft, and the Indian Navy to send two ships. At around 5:15 p.m., Kerala State Disaster Management Authority member-secretary Shekhar L. Kuriakose issued a series of audio clips warning the public about potentially dangerous cargo in the vessel. Fighting poor visibility, strong gales, a sea swell, and the debris and containers floating around the vessel, the rescuers brought 21 members of the crew to Kochi. Warnings were issued to other merchant vessels to stay clear of the area, add defence sources. On the morning of May 25, shortly after the last three crew members were rescued, the ship capsized and sank, along with the containers. Fisherfolk say they were not worried about the incident until reports about a pollution scare came out and led to a fall in demand for fish. On May 27, an order issued by the principal bench of the National Green Tribunal in New Delhi pointed out that the ship was carrying hazardous materials such as calcium carbide, oil, and other items. These could seriously impact the marine and coastal environment and affect the biodiversity and water quality of the area, it said. 'On account of wave, wind and current actions of the waters, these pollutants can travel to other coastal parts of the country, including Lakshadweep islands, affecting them. The impact on the Lakshadweep island will be severe as the island coastal water has high bio-diversity with corals,' the bench said. A few days later, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan held a press conference. He quashed speculation that fish caught off the coast of Kerala was inedible. He said that the containers carrying the highly flammable calcium carbide, stowed away in the ship's cargo hold, remained submerged and posed no immediate threat. The MSC has appointed the U.S.-based firm, T&T Salvage, to handle the environmental clean-up operations. T&T will help mitigate the risks posed by the calcium carbide and rubber compounds in the containers in the vessel. Sources in the Mercantile Marine Department say that different types of equipment were mobilised for the recovery. These include bollard-pull tug boats, underwater scanning and mapping machinery, oil-spill response and fuel retrieval apparatus, among others. 'We have many other worries' While the precise number of containers that fell into the sea is yet to be ascertained, the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services has warned that 45% of them could be washed ashore. Sreenivasan is not perturbed about the containers. Instead, he worries about the 'hundreds of tonnes of mineral sand that are being mined every day' from the coastal areas in Kerala's southern districts, for commercial use. 'Indiscriminate mining has led to a fall in catch of many fish varieties, and sea incursion,' he says. Ponnan, from the All India Fishermen Congress, says the waste and pollution threat from the ship is only the latest in a series of problems that the fisher folk are facing. 'Sand mining over years has severely affected the coast. Chemicals, sewage, and other waste are dumped into the sea from the State's coast. The government must take steps to prevent all this since it has been affecting the fisheries sector and the fragile marine ecosystem,' he says. Ponnan says officials have so far failed to clear the non-biodegradable and other waste that was washed ashore from the ship. 'The authorities must also publish the precise location of the shipwreck and the fallen containers, so that damage to boats and fishing nets can be prevented even after the fishing ban is lifted,' he says. He also believes that sections of the media must show restraint in covering the episode. 'Many people are reluctant to purchase fish from these areas because of media coverage of the issue. This is despite the fact that incidents of 'fish kill' (in which dead fish are found in large numbers in specific areas) have not been reported anywhere along the Kerala coast after the sinking of the ship,' he says. B. Sasi lives in Purakkad in Alappuzha district and owns two fishing vessels. Driving past the coastal road on his two-wheeler with a packet full of freshly caught fish, he dismisses concerns about environmental pollution. 'Reading and seeing some news reports, people got scared that fish from the sea may be contaminated. But they were scared for barely a week. The price of kilimeen (pink perch) had nosedived to ₹30 after the ship sunk, and has now gone up to ₹190 per kg. The price of matthi (sardine) has risen from ₹15 to ₹300, and ayila (mackerel) is selling for ₹220 a kg,' he says, adding that the sea is vast and is able to handle upheavals. After the ship sunk, fisher welfare organisations in several areas began hosting 'fish festivals' across the coast. These were aimed at reassuring people that fish caught in the area are safe to eat, and to reinvigorate the fish market. In the northern part of Kollam, in the Alappad Azheekal harbour, trawlers and other vessels land one after the other, most of them bringing in freshly caught prawns. The catch is cleaned and stacked in plastic containers, before being taken to markets and eateries. K.C. Sreekumar watches the workers. He used to be known as an environmentalist, but prefers not to be addressed as one now. He says, 'There is little left of nature now, so there is hardly any reason to be referred to as an environmentalist. I was also a fisherman, but I took a break from it due to some health issues.' He says the price of fish will probably increase in the next few days as the government has imposed curbs on fishing. Sreekumar says soon after the ship sank, most sections of the media began speaking of 'threats' to the fishing sector and of 'pollution' in the sea without any thought or research. 'But the same media often ignores the indiscriminate dumping of untreated pollutants by factories, other establishments, and households into water bodies and the sea off the coast of Kerala,' he complains. Sreekumar echoes Srinivasan in saying that mineral sand mining has made matters worse. He says there is fear that 'a Somalia-like situation' will occur a few decades down the line, due to the unregulated exploitation of coastal and marine resources and worsening instances of pollution. 'All these are impacting the State's once-thriving fisheries sector despite all the talk of a blue economy,' he fears. V. T. Sebastian is general convener of the Chellanam Kochi Janakeeya Vedi. This is a group of organisations that is spearheading the demand for robust seawalls along the Chellanam-Kochi coast to prevent the sea from destroying more houses in the area. Sebastian says people are fortunate as the containers and pollutants from the vessel stayed clear of the Kochi coast. 'Still, danger lurks in the form of many tonnes of colourless plastic nurdles that spilled out of many of the containers in Kerala's southern districts. The ones on the coast can be cleared, but the rest would have ended up in the sea. Some people fear that fish may eat the nurdles and this may in turn pose a severe health hazard to the people consuming those fish,' he says. Already, many people are refusing to eat fish and this is affecting the livelihood of fishers, he says. 'Apart from increasing compensation for fishers' families, the State and Centre must also salvage the containers that toppled into the sea and those that remain on the ship. Otherwise, these will pose dangers in the long term to fishers and others who consume fish. The government must also inspect sea water samples every day to rule out contamination,' he says. Apart from Kerala's southern districts, there has been a lull in demand for fish in Kochi, says Ajith, a retail fish seller from Vypeen island, located off the Kochi coast. 'Many households have stopped consuming fish. But hotels and canteens continue to buy seafood,' he says. Compensation to fishers The Kerala Matsyathozhilali Aikya Vedhi (KMAV), a trade union of fishers, has demanded that MSC compensate fishers whose livelihood has been affected over the past fortnight. KMAV president, Charles George, asks why the vessel that ought to operate amid waves that can rise up to 15 m in height tilted on May 24 and sank on May 25 after encountering waves of a much lower height, of about 3 m. 'The ship sank less than 30 km off Thotapally, while the shipping channel is located 50 km away. In this situation, the captain ought to have been arrested and the operator company held accountable for the pollution. The Centre must take steps to ensure that the company pays compensation to fishers affected by the incident,' he says. George points to similar incidents in the Philippines, South Korea, and France where operator-owner firms 'paid compensation' to the affected people and for cleaning and restoring the marine environment, as per norms laid out by the International Maritime Organisation. KMAV secretary, N.A. Jain, says he is concerned about ensuring the safety of the 3,800 trawlers, over 1,000 fibre boats, and over 500 inboard fishing vessels operating off the Kerala coast. He demands that the State government prevail on the Centre to ensure that ships operate 50 km away from the State's coast, to prevent sinking incidents nearer to the coast, as well as the collision of ships with fishing vessels. While the Directorate General of Shipping and the Mercantile Marine Department attributed the sinking to technical failure in ballast-water management, which ought to ensure the ship's stability, senior officials of fisheries and marine research institutions say three committees, each headed by civil servants, have been formed to assess the damage caused by the shipwreck to the marine environment and to the fisheries sector. 'A joint report will be submitted to the agencies and research institutions concerned. As of now, there is no cause for alarm since marine pollution beyond the threshold would have resulted in 'fish kill', which has not been reported so far along the Kerala coast,' says a high-ranking official from one of the institutions. However, the State government must salvage the cargo and oil from the container vessel that sank. It must also incentivise people and agencies who collect plastic and other waste that were washed ashore, and send the waste for scientific recycling, he adds. The Chairperson of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board, Sreekala S., says there is no 'alarming' presence of pollutants in water samples that have been collected from the coast. 'Efforts are being made to collect samples from the vicinity of the sunk vessel and analyse them,' she says.
The Wire
2 days ago
- The Wire
An Exhibition in London's Imperial War Museum Breaks the Silence on Sexual Violence in Conflict
Everybody knows it happens; nobody talks about it. Sexual violence seems to be endemic to conflict and war. Men in uniform, with guns and a sense of entitlement, acting when formal and informal policing of conduct is absent, have at times been prone to perpetrate rape. It is, says Charu Lata Hogg – founder of the All Survivors Project which supports efforts to eradicate conflict-related sexual violence and support survivors – a reflection of 'toxic gender norms'. The Imperial War Museum is currently hosting the first major exhibition in any western museum on sexual violence in conflict. It aims to break the silence and deepen understanding of this gendered aspect of war and civil upheaval. The museum has long had an admirable focus not simply on military strategy and the hardware of war, but its social aspects and the hardships inflicted on civilians. 'Sexual violence is a devastating aspect of conflict and very difficult to talk about,' says Upcraft. 'This silence creates significant barriers to recovery, justice and lasting change'. Part of the purpose of the Imperial War Museum's new exhibition, 'Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict', is to contribute to the demands for change in the fight to banish sexual violence in conflict. Displays include testimony of survivors It's not straightforward curating exhibits about an issue so intimate and concealed. As you can imagine, there aren't many artefacts which speak to the subject of sexual violence. So the displays are largely of documents, drawings, posters and art, along with testimony of survivors and the words of experts and activists. These are often deeply unsettling. The Japanese army's forced conscription of 'comfort women' across south-east Asia during the Second World War, who were required to have sex with Japanese soldiers, is a deeply shocking example of wartime sexual slavery. But it is sadly not unique. The Islamist militants of ISIS imposed sexual slavery on Yazidi women in Iraq a decade ago in what has to be described as an attempt at genocide against a minority community. During the First World War, German soldiers perpetrated well-documented sexual violence against women in occupied Belgium. A generation later, the soldiers of the Soviet Red army stood accused of widespread rape as they pushed Hitler's troops back towards Berlin. While women have been the principal victims, men too have suffered sexual abuse and humiliation in war, as evidenced by the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib at the hands of members of the US military in 2004. South Asia's painful experience of rape and abduction is not reflected in the exhibition to any great extent. But the scale of sexual violence in Bangladesh in 1971, and amid the communal violence and commotion which accompanied Partition in both Punjab and Bengal, are among the most terrible examples of men seeking to humiliate the 'other' – the enemy, the rival community, the contenders for land or status – or seeking revenge by violating the bodies of the 'other's' women. The war in Ukraine has again made the issue of sexual violence in conflict tragically topical. President Zelensky has talked openly, and with deep anguish, about the rape of Ukrainian women by the Russian military. Also Read: Reform UK's Local Election Win Could Be a Turning Point for British Politics In the Gaza conflict, and in Sudan's civil war, we have also witnessed appalling incidents of rape and abduction. Awareness of the issue is increasing, but the prevalence is not diminishing. This is a brave initiative by the Imperial War Museum. As the lead curator, Helen Upcraft, says: 'Survivors face immense challenges in sharing their stories, while the public lacks the knowledge or language to talk about these issues with confidence.' Yet the exhibition feels a little tentative and tucked away. There is no curatorial centrepiece; no image, or item, which lingers in the mind; no abiding sense of shock and outrage. As for addressing the scourge of sexual violence, Christina Lamb, a globetrotting correspondent who has written a powerful book about 'what war does to women', makes the most powerful point in one of the videos displayed. To tackle the problem, perpetrators need to face justice because at the moment there is 'no price to pay – [the rapists know] nothing's going to happen to them'. Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict , a free exhibition, is at the Imperial War Museum, London, until November 2. Andrew Whitehead is a former BBC India correspondent. London Calling: How does India look from afar? Looming world power or dysfunctional democracy? And what's happening in Britain, and the West, that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This fortnightly column helps forge the connections so essential in our globalising world. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
Time of India
2 days ago
- Time of India
The world is full of unexploded bombs
One of the three unexploded bombs from the Second World War is fenced off in Cologne (AP) Fifteen couples had been looking forward to the special moment when they would say "I do" for weeks. But their weddings at Cologne's historic town hall on June 4 were cancelled, since the building was right in the middle of an evacuation zone. But they were still able to get married, in a district town hall instead. Three bombs left over from World War II were responsible for the massive evacuation, the biggest since 1945. They were found during preparations for construction work on the city's Deutz Bridge. The US-made bombs — one 100-pound (45-kilogram) and two 200-pound bombs — both had impact fuses and could not be moved for safety reasons. They had to be defused on site, and thus it was necessary to evacuate several districts of the city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. Thousands evacuated Around 20,500 people had to leave their homes on Wednesday. Hospitals and retirement homes were evacuated, with people being moved to other facilities. Almost 60 hotels shut down, with guests being accommodated elsewhere. Bomb disposal is a mammoth logistical task, but Germany is very familiar with it. More than 1,600 bombs were defused last year in North Rhine-Westphalia alone. As construction work increases in the city, for example to put in new fiber optic cables, renovate bridges or improve the road network, excavations are bringing to light unexploded aerial ordnance that dates back to the 1930s and '40s. Major problem in Hamburg, Verdun, Poland Metropolitan regions such as Hamburg and Berlin were some of the main targets of Allied bombing during World War II. These places also saw civilian infrastructure targeted and so are particularly affected. In addition to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg is heavily contaminated. In 2024, explosive ordnance clearers found 90 mines, 48,000 grenades, 500 firebombs and 450 bombs weighing more than 11 pounds, as well as around 330,000 shells. The problem is also omnipresent in many neighboring countries. Unexploded ordnance from the two world wars is often found in France and Belgium, and particularly from World War I in the regions of Verdun and the Somme. Three years ago, the drought in Italy's Po Valley revealed unexploded bombs. In the UK in 2021, a German 2,200-pound aerial bomb was detonated in a controlled explosion in the southwestern city of Exeter and more than 250 buildings were damaged. The situation in Poland and the Czech Republic, where there are tons of unexploded ordnance from the two world wars in the ground, is also critical. In 2020, a 5-ton British-made Tallboy bomb was defused in the northwestern Polish town of Swinoujscie. Recently, there have even been fatal accidents in the Czech Republic. And in the Balkans, lives are in danger from unexploded ordnance that dates back to the wars of the 1990s and evacuations are a frequent occurrence. Deadly hazards in Vietnam, Laos, Gaza On the world's other continents, the situation is also critical. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, people continue to be killed by US-made cluster bombs that were used in the 1960s and '70s. According to the UN, 80 million unexploded ordnances remain in the ground in Laos, from 500,000 US attacks conducted covertly between 1964 and 1973. There are also tons of unexploded ordnance in Syria and Iraq, where masses of people are at risk of being killed or wounded. In neither country have ordnance disposal structures been developed sufficiently. The UN says that unexploded ordnance in the war-torn Palestinian territory of Gaza has already left behind deadly hazards, even as Israel continues to bomb the strip. A quarter of Ukraine contaminated The situation in Ukraine is dramatic. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of 2022, about a quarter of the country is thought to be contaminated with mines, cluster bombs and other explosive devices. Over half a million explosive devices have already been defused, but millions more remain. The humanitarian and economic consequences are enormous: hundreds of civilians have died, large areas of agricultural land are unusable, and crop failures are exacerbating the economic crisis. When the war ends, demining will be one of the tasks of the coming years. German federal states bear brunt of costs In Germany, where most of the bombs that are defused are from World War II and were made by the Allies, it is the federal states that bear the majority of the costs of their disposal. It is the German state that is responsible for German-made bombs going back to the era of the German Reich (1871 – 1945). Attempts to make it responsible for all the unexploded bombs in Germany have so far been unsuccessful. Last year, explosive ordnance disposal cost North Rhine-Westphalia €20 million ($23 million). While the costs rise, the technology used for bomb disposal has evolved. While in the 1990s, clearers still used their own hands, hammers, chisels and water pump pliers, today abrasive waterjet cutting is used to neutralize explosive devices. A waterjet cutter that is operated at a safe distance can cut through the explosive device and remove its fuse. Experts believe that there are tens of thousands of unexploded explosive devices, weighing up to 100,000 tons, in Germany alone. Even though modern probing and detection techniques and digitized aerial photographs can help to minimize the risk, every bomb disposal operation is a race against time. The older a bomb is, the greater the risk of corrosion and explosion. It is also more difficult to defuse an older bomb because of the chemical changes that occur over time inside the bomb itself, between the casing and the fuse. The defusing of the three bombs in Cologne is not just an operation that has disrupted weddings and people's daily routines but it bears witness once again to the destruction of war, whether in Germany or France, Vietnam or Laos, Syria, Ukraine or Gaza.
