The map in query. Photograph: Sem van der Waal
A map which can present the place Nazis buried hundreds of thousands of euros value of bijou, watches and diamonds which they stole from a financial institution in Arnhem has been made out there to the general public on the Nationwide Archive from Tuesday.
Hundreds of things are have been added to the general public archives in The Hague, together with the map and different paperwork purporting to point out the situation of the treasure trove within the Betuwe area of Gelderland.
The gold, valuable stone and different valuables have been stolen from a department of the Rotterdamsche Financial institution in Arnhem by German troopers, who raided it after the constructing took a direct hit in 1944. They made off which their haul hidden of their garments and later buried it in 4 munitions containers within the neighborhood of Ommen, Omroep Gelderland reported.
The story got here to mild shortly after World Warfare II, when German soldier Helmut Sonder made an announcement to investigators about being in conjunction with the street and watching ‘three of our troops… burying 4 containers with useful objects corresponding to golden watches and jewellery with valuable stones’.
Sonder went on to inform Dutch civil servants that the solders had stolen their treasure in Arnhem a while earlier than he got here throughout them. ‘They mentioned that they had picked up the issues when a financial institution secure had taken a direct hit and the jewellery and so forth was scattered throughout,’ the Telegraaf quoted the official assertion as saying.
The assertion led to a serious hunt for the treasure in June 1947 however with out consequence. Sonder was concerned and gave instructions which have been then made into the map which has now been made public. It exhibits the place the containers are speculated to have been buried, subsequent to a poplar tree.
A second try to search out the treasure additionally failed, and Sonder’s tip was formally described as ‘handled’ and despatched with the remainder of the file to the archives, the Telegraaf mentioned.
Particular
‘It’s will get your juices going,’ historian Joost Rosendaal, who was not conscious of the story, advised Omroep Gelderland. ‘It’s a very particular map and that’s particular. However lots is unclear and there are lots of questions.’
Ommen was a battle zone on the time the haul was mentioned to have been buried. ‘It may very well be that the treasure was buried and dug up two days later,’ he mentioned. ‘I’d not be in any respect shocked if it has disappeared.
Different objects now accessible to the general public embrace ministers from ministerial conferences in 1997 and paperwork about ‘issues’ at internment camps the place Dutch nationals who sided with the Nazis have been positioned after the struggle.
The nationwide archive incorporates 137 kilometres of paperwork, 15 million pictures and almost 300,000 historic maps and drawings and 800 terabyte of digital information. It’s accessible to everybody who desires to do analysis though some objects are stored secret for as much as 75 years
