Yet another trove of treasures stolen and hidden by Nazis during World War II may soon see the light of day with the emergence of a decades-old diary of a Nazi officer, previously owned by a masonic lodge at the German town of Quedlinburger.
One such location is said to contain some 28 tonnes of gold; another holds "47 works of art thought to be stolen from collections in France, including works by Botticelli, Rubens, Cezanne, Carravagio, Monet, Dürer, Raffael and Rembrandt"; and yet another houses "religious objects stolen from around the world in an attempt to find evidence for Hitler's racial theories", the newspaper claims.
Roman Furmaniak of the Schlesische Brücke (Silesian Bridge) Foundation, the group which now owns the diary, explained that the Quedlinburger lodge actually turned over the document to them ten years ago.
"We are releasing information about the diary now as we wanted to wait until all persons who could be connected to the events and the diary had passed away, particularly officers of the Waffen SS. This was the wish of the Quedlinburger lodge," he said as quoted by the newspaper.
Furmaniak also added that the authenticity of the diary was verified by several German institutions, including the Department of Art History at the University of Göttingen, and that it is the lodge’s wish that the "possessions found are reunited with their heirs if this is possible".