Following in the footsteps of his ancestors, he returned to Poland. He did not expect to visit the Riese Nazi complex [FRAGMENT KSI¡¯KI]

A personal, brilliantly told story of a young Canadian writer about an attempt to regain the family property in Sosnowiec, which belonged to his grandfather before the war, who later survived the Holocaust. The unexpected discovery that his grandfather’s cousin, a forced laborer at the secret Nazi Riese complex in the Sowie Mountains, designed as the headquarters Hitler, left memoirs, leads the author to enter the environment of Silesian treasure hunters. In the book, he poses questions about what the tangible and intangible heritage of the family is and how it affects today’s identity of its members” – the description comes from the publisher.

Menachem Kaiser, “Looting. A History of Family Property and Nazi Treasure”, trans. Monika Skowron, Publishing House, KARTA Center Foundation – excerpt from the book:

I first heard about Riese in 2015, when Piotr Koper and Andreas Richter, who were called “explorers” and “treasure hunters” in the media, announced to the world that, using radar technology, they had discovered the location of the so-called Golden Train, a legendary railway vehicle full of looted gold that the Nazis hid in the mountains near Wałbrzych. […] Treasure hunters from all over Poland and from abroad flocked to the place. Representatives from Israel, Germany and Poland met to decide who legally owned the gold. The army was involved. Journalists from all over the world, including the editors of “The New York Times”, “The New Yorker”, the BBC and “National Geographic”, flocked to Wałbrzych. […]

Although I have been to Poland a dozen times and conducted research related to World War II over the years, I have never come across anything like Riese, secret Nazi tunnels, treasure, the Golden Train… It was as if I had stumbled upon an alternative Poland whose history flowed in a different mode, in a different atmosphere. […]

I was captivated. I wanted […] see Riese, visit alternative Poland. Part of the charm was just how weird it all was. But not only that – it was more than just curiosity. […]

I contacted Joanna Lamparska, an expert quoted in almost every article about the Golden Train and Riese. I asked if she would be my Silesian guide. She agreed and a few weeks later, together with my friends Jason and Maia, we met Joanna in a supermarket parking lot in Wrocław. She introduced herself to us, we introduced ourselves to her, got into her safari-ready Land Rover and hit the road. There was no inaugural talk by the guide. […]

The first stop related to Riese in our itinerary was Soboń, the smallest and most difficult to access complex. Joanna organized two explorers, Andrzej and Janek, who were to be our guides; we had an appointment at a local restaurant. […]

Joanna described Andrzej and Janek as “very serious prospectors.” They were respected, boasted of discoveries large (entrances, shafts) and small (firearms, typewriters, World War II currencies), had the necessary equipment, knowledge, determination, fitness, chutzpah, time, and an obsession with what I quickly learned was much more than a weekend hobby.

Andrzej announced that it was time to visit Soboń. Maia and Jason went with Joanna in her Land Rover, but I, at Joanna’s persuasion, got into Andrzej’s car with Janek and Andrzej. […]

Hilly forests around; a path strewn with stones and logs, cut with deep holes. We drove to a small clearing and parked. I got out of the car and started looking for any clue – a ditch, say, or an unnaturally flat ground – that there was an underground complex here. […]

Joanna stopped next to us. Maia and Jason got out of the car and started looking for the tunnel just like me. Three misfit American Jews vainly sweeping the woods in search of a secret Nazi tunnel: Andrzej and Joanna, toying with our disorientation, allowed us to remain in dismay for a few more minutes. Then they took us maybe 15 meters further and with obvious pride – they were Silesians, the secret belonged to them – they showed the entrance to the tunnel. Of course we missed it: we were looking for the entrance to the subway, and it was merely a ventilation duct […].

Photograph from the book ‘Plundering. History of Family Assets and Nazi Treasure’ photo. Jason Francisco

Photograph from the book ‘Plundering. History of Family Assets and Nazi Treasure’ photo. Jason Francisco

We returned to the Land Rovers and geared up. Joanna took two pairs of rubber dungarees from the trunk, one for me, one for Jason, and a couple of army flashlights (Maia, afraid of tight spaces, would stay upstairs with Joanna). Andrzej and Janek took out wellingtons, headlamps and sweaters from their trunk. […]

We huddled together and Andrzej made a short speech about safety: we stick together, Andrzej stands in front, Janek stays behind, don’t split up. Kapewu? Kapewu. Then Andrzej showed us a map of the complex.

Our route was simple: we enter the tunnel through the second entrance, follow the corridor to the very end – about 170 meters – then turn around and leave.

The entrance was low and narrow enough that you had to lie on your back, put your feet inside and push your body forward and down. […]

And so we found ourselves in the Soboń complex. How can I describe it? The fastest and the most specific: it was as you can imagine. By that I mean it was very much like a tunnel: damp, cold, dark, only wide enough to walk in pairs, and low enough to touch the ceiling, which was like the walls of rough rock; the tunnel was unreinforced, endless. Deep mountain cave. We went up a slight slope, then went down a slight slope, crossed a puddle up to my belly button. Then for the first time I felt the thrill that Andrzej, Janek, Joanna and other treasure hunters and hunters were addicted to: it is impossible not to feel a real quivering excitement when wading in waist-deep water in a hidden tunnel, the weight of water squeezes the waist in dungarees the daylight coming through the hole behind the back disappears.

We got out of the puddle, went even deeper into the tunnel. Even with my untrained eye, I could easily see that construction had suddenly stopped: there were remnants of drilling and blasting everywhere—holes into which sticks of dynamite had been shoved; rebar sticking out of the walls and a ceiling waiting to be concreted, which never happened; here and there railroad tracks bolted to the ground. Probably to take the rubble away with carts. As we walked, Andrzej made a comment which Jason, with his rudimentary knowledge of Polish, hesitantly translated. We passed a gate set in a row of bricks. Inside, Andrzej said, there was a warehouse: a storage place for probably dynamite, maybe weapons. We passed under several A-shaped wooden scaffolds, blackened with age but still looking sturdy; they vaguely resembled religious props, striking man-made constructions set against a backdrop of cold rock.

[…]

So far I’ve limited myself to a physical description: I want you to be able to imagine it. However, a specific description is far from sufficient. There are images, but there are also impressions. Because this place, Soboń, this abandoned underground complex, made no sense. He wasn’t holding up. You crawl into a carefully planned and designed albeit infinite Nazi tunnel in a mountainside, your mind keeps working, trying to digest but failing to quite grasp the rationality, the motivation, the narrative. The man was overwhelmed by the mystery of this place. All right, a very tunnel tunnel and so on, but what for? Why is there a tunnel in the middle of the forest? For what purpose? The secret of the tunnels, which on the Internet seemed like a harmless curiosity and eccentricity, now that I had donned my rubber dungarees and inch by inch I squeezed inside, touched the rock walls and walked under the A-shaped scaffolding and waded through waist-deep puddles, ducking under rebar and looking at the dynamite recesses – he was so blunt. What was going on here? What were they trying to achieve? And besides, a mystery that is itself a mystery: Why don’t we know? How is it possible that such an enterprise remains beyond historical knowledge?

I was beginning to understand where the obsession came from. […]

Photo from the book ‘Looting. History of Family Assets and Nazi Treasure’ photo. Jason Francisco

It didn’t take long to reach the end of the tunnel. An unexpected plane of unexploded bedrock – you could clearly see how abrupt the interruption was. Andrew unhooked the stained-glass lantern from his belt, set it on a ledge, and took a lighter and a heater from his pocket. He lit it and put it in the lantern. The effect – considering that we were 170 meters in the ground – was staggering. Pink and yellow lights swirled on us and on the rock.

Photo from the book ‘Looting. History of Family Assets and Nazi Treasure’ photo. Jason Francisco

[…]

After Saturday, we all went back to the restaurant where we initially met to talk, drink and relax. […] We had a thousand questions for Andrzej and Janek – about their work (they were electricians by profession), about treasure hunting, Riese and so on. […]

Jason, Maia, and I sat and waited until we could ask Joanna what she and Andrzej were talking about. […] Their conversation in Polish flowed over me like a duck, but I still picked up something from Andrzej’s almost impenetrable speech – I kept hearing my name (which Andrzej, as far as I knew, didn’t know). “Language Polish, Polish, Polish, Kaiser, Polish, Polish.” The first time I assumed I misheard. The second time I asked Maia and Jason if they heard the same thing – they said they probably did, but they weren’t sure. The third time they admitted they heard it.

I stopped the exchange to ask Joanna:

– Does Andrzej say “Kaiser”? Because I can still hear it.

“Yes,” she confirmed. – He repeats “Kaiser”. He is referring to Abraham Kajzer, a concentration camp prisoner, very famous among treasure hunters.

The Kajzer, she explained, somehow – while working in Riese’s numerous locations – managed to keep a diary, which was published in Poland in the early 1960s. Thanks to the details it contained – descriptions of the camps, workplaces, building materials, digging methods, plans – it became a mandatory reading treasure hunters. Everyone read it. […] The Kaiser’s diary, as I understood it, was the only primary source on the Riese project. […]

“Okay, interesting,” I said. “But why did the Kaiser leave now?” What did Andrew say about him?

Joanna explained that Kajzer appeared in the conversation because Andrzej was talking about forced laborers – victims of Riese, Jews – and Kajzer was a perfect example, even their spokesman. Conversation about Jewish forced laborers Riese is a conversation about Abraham Kajzer.

[…]

“You know,” I said, “my name is Kaiser.

– Ha-ha! But it would be – answered Andrzej, sipping his beer – if it turned out that you were related.

The cover of the book ‘Looting. The History of Family Assets and Nazi Treasure by Menachem Kaiser Publishing House KARTA Center Foundation