Trove of gold and jewellery 'hidden from the Nazis' is found buried

Daily Mail​

29-04-2025

A treasure trove of gold and jewellery has been found buried on the side of a mountain in what historians say could have been an attempt to hide it from invading Nazis. Hikers came across the 15.4lb (7kg) hoard worth over £250,000 ($300,000) after taking a short cut on the wooded slopes of the Czech Republic's northeastern Podkrkonosí Mountains.
'For certain the coins are solid gold. 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 (£250,000/ ($300,000). The historical value of the treasure, however, is incalculable.'
Although the discovery was made in February, museum officials have only now made the information public. Experts are now trying to determine how the treasure ended buried up on the side of the mountain. Nowak said: 'To store valuable objects in the ground in the form of treasures, so-called depots have been common practice since the 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.'
One theory is that the treasure could have been hidden following Nazi Germany's annexation of the parts of the country collectively known as the Sudetenland in 1938. After the Munich Agreement of September 29 that year, the majority of Jews and 200,000 Czechs moved to the interior of the country to escape the anticipated persecution in the territories annexed by Hitler. Another theory is that it could have belonged to Germans who were ousted by Stalin's communists at the end of the war. Museum director Petr Grulich said: '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, the gold of a German who feared displacement after 1945, or Jewish gold. It could also be stolen goods from an antique shop, but we are not inclined to this option.'
Numismatist Vojtěch Brádle said: 'The treasure was hidden in the ground for a maximum of slightly over a hundred years. 'According to the dates stamped, it contains coins from 1808 to 1915. 'These are Austria-Hungary and Franz Joseph I. I found out that these coins did not travel from the Vienna mint to us, but to the Balkans. And there, after the collapse of the monarchy, in the then Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, marks, so-called countermarks, were minted.'
'This marking was still used there during the 1930s. So we know that the coins were in Serbia sometime in the 1920s and 1930s, but we have no idea how and when they got to eastern Bohemia.' He added that for some time the coins were used as part of a necklace or headdress typical of Balkan costumes.