A group of explorers has begun digging in southwestern Poland in a quixotic search for a buried Nazi train said to be filled with stolen gold, gems and artworks — despite experts’ doubts that the train even exists.
The excavation, involving heavy equipment near a railway line between the cities of Walbrzych and Wroclaw, started nearly a year after two treasure seekers, Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter, created a frenzy by claiming that they had located the train. According to local lore, it disappeared in 1945 in a secret tunnel system as the Soviet Army advanced west toward Germany. Geologists and engineers at the Krakow University of Science and Technology expressed profound skepticism.
“We intend to find a railway infrastructure, an inlet to a railway tunnel, and inside this tunnel, we hope to find the train,” Andrzej Gaik, a spokesman for the treasure hunters, told reporters at a news conference here on Wednesday. “But what we will find on the train — that, we don’t know.”
