Poland's Gold in 1939: How the National Treasure Escaped Across Half the World

In September 1939, as German bombs fell on Poland and the Red Army advanced from the east, a group of officials from the National Bank of Poland, two former ministers, and an Olympic champion transported the entire nation's treasure by buses, trains, and ships. The gold passed through Romania, crossed the Black Sea on a civilian tanker, traveled by train through Turkey and Syria, sailed across the Mediterranean on French ships, and then got stuck for four years in a fort deep in Africa.

This is one of the most extraordinary operations of World War II, yet few have heard of it. We recount it based on the exhibition catalog from the National Bank of Poland, studies from the IPN, and the memories of participants. Along the way, we debunk three popular myths: about exactly 75 tons, about gold that financed the Polish army, and about gold that "returned" to Poland in 2019.

Treasure worth 463.6 million zlotys and a dispute over its weight

One number is consistent across all sources: the gold reserves of the National Bank of Poland were worth 463.6 million zlotys, or about 87 million dollars at the time. Janusz Wróbel (IPN), "Wartime Fate of Polish Gold". About 193 million zlotys were stored in the central treasury at Bielańska Street in Warsaw, around 170 million zlotys in branches in Siedlce, Brest, Zamość, and Lublin, and just over 100 million zlotys in banks abroad. NBP, exhibition catalog "Wartime Fate of Polish Gold", text by Prof. Wojciech Rojek.

The weight is more complicated. The number 75 tons is often cited, including by the IPN. IPN, announcement of the funeral of Matuszewski and Floyar-Rajchman. The National Bank of Poland refers to "nearly 80 tons". NBP, "Gold as a Component of Foreign Reserves". Prof. Rojek states 79.5 tons as the total weight of all reserves from August 1939, including deposits abroad. Meanwhile, Zygmunt Karpiński, a member of the board of the National Bank of Poland, wrote about 95 tons, of which about 75 tons were in the country. PAP (dzieje.pl) on the evacuation of gold. These versions contradict each other, so the most honest statement is: several dozen tons of gold were evacuated, according to various sources from about 60 to about 75 tons.

Before the war, there were considerations to transport the gold to the West by LOT Polish Airlines planes. The idea was abandoned because the necessary formalities for stopovers in Scandinavian countries could not be arranged. Deputy Prime Minister Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski was also concerned that the gold might be seized abroad. In the summer of 1939, part of the gold was therefore distributed from Warsaw to branches in the eastern part of the country. IPN, Wróbel.

Buses, air raids, and an Olympic champion at the wheel

On September 4, 1939, three men appeared before Prime Minister Felicjan Sławoj-Składkowski: Colonel Ignacy Matuszewski, former Minister of Finance, Colonel Adam Koc, former President of the National Bank of Poland, and Major Henryk Floyar-Rajchman, former Minister of Industry and Trade. They referred to authorization from Deputy Prime Minister Kwiatkowski. The Prime Minister issued them special passes guaranteeing the assistance of all state authorities. IPN, Wróbel.

That same night, the gold began to leave Warsaw by buses from the State Security Printing Works. The first batch reached Lublin, and the vehicles returned for the rest. The roads were blocked by fleeing refugees, and columns were attacked by aircraft. On the night of September 7-8, 30 buses and cars transported the gold from Lublin to Łuck. There, Colonel Koc organized the transports, and the section from Łuck to Śniatyn at the border with Romania was led by Floyar-Rajchman. Krzysztof Kopeć, "To Save the Gold", Przystanek Historia (IPN).

Halina Konopacka, the "Double Gold"

One of the approximately 40 buses carrying gold was driven by Halina Konopacka, the wife of Matuszewski and Poland's first gold medalist at the Olympics, winning in discus throw in Amsterdam in 1928. From September 9, she drove the bus from Łuck to Śniatyn, and then sailed with her husband to France. IPN, exhibition "Halina Konopacka". She was referred to as "double gold". In 2020, a commemorative plaque was unveiled on the building at Filtrowa Street 69 in Warsaw. IPN, unveiling of the Konopacka and Matuszewski plaque. She always appeared at competitions in a red beret, and in Amsterdam, she was declared the miss of the games. NBP, exhibition catalog.

Roads, a note, and a false alarm

The NBP exhibition catalog collected memories from the children of bankers. Andrzej Mikołajczyk, who was 8 years old at the time, remembered that the column traveled at night with dimmed lights. When one of the cars cast a beam of light, everyone thought it was an air raid and jumped into the ditches. His father Henryk instructed his older daughter to record the departure times. Years later, her daughters found the note with those records. There.

Dubno, Śniatyń, and the last night in Poland

The convoy from Łuck traveled through Dubno. There, 3817 kg of gold worth over 22 million zlotys was detached for the Polish authorities. IPN, Wróbel. This part has a separate, little-known history, which we describe below.

On the evening of September 13, columns from Brest, Siedlce, and Zamość also arrived in Śniatyn, despite German air raids. The gold was transferred to railway cars. That evening, Floyar-Rajchman formally handed over command to Matuszewski, who continued to lead until France. He was assisted by Stanisław Orczykowski, the chief treasurer of the National Bank of Poland. Przystanek Historia (IPN). On the night of September 13-14, the treasure left Poland. PAP (dzieje.pl).

Sources differ on the number of crates. PAP reports 1208 crates in nine cars. The grandson of one of the bankers, Edmund Spychałowicz, cites based on family documents 1091 crates with bars and 95 bags of coins. NBP, exhibition catalog.

Romania granted 48 hours

Romania was neutral and under strong pressure from Germany. It agreed to the transport of gold across its territory on the condition that the transit would not last longer than 48 hours. The Polish ambassador in Bucharest, Roger Raczyński, obtained the consent. German envoy Wilhelm Fabricius pressured Romanian Foreign Minister Grigore Gafencu to consider the gold as war material and seize it, but to no avail. PAP (dzieje.pl). According to Forbes, Gafencu pretended to know nothing about the transport and promised an investigation, which bought valuable time for the Poles. Forbes.pl on the fate of Polish gold.

On September 15, the train with the gold arrived at the port in Constanța on the Black Sea. Przystanek Historia (IPN). That same day, Romania issued a decree to tighten its borders. According to the NBP, the tanker with the gold managed to leave Romanian territorial waters before the regulations came into effect. NBP, exhibition catalog.

It can be read online that the Poles bribed Romanian officials. We found no source for this. Documents speak of diplomatic pressure, a 48-hour limit, and Gafencu's delaying tactics.

Tanker Eocene and the sailors who fled

The gold was not transported by a warship but by the civilian tanker Eocene under a British flag, owned by the American oil company Socony-Vacuum. It was supposed to load oil, but British diplomacy directed it to Constanța. Marek Lipka, Polish Consulate in Istanbul, "Daily Sabah", 2025. Assistance in the evacuation was negotiated with the British by Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Szembek and Colonel Koc, and in Constanța, British consul Anthony Kendall assisted. NBP, exhibition catalog.

Captain Robert Brett recalled that the gold was loaded late at night in great secrecy. When Romanian officials delayed the departure, he darkened the ship and quietly slipped out of the port, not wanting to be interned. Captain Brett's memories recorded by his son (Seaham Past). In 1940, he described this story in the British press in an article titled "I Stole £21 Million from Hitler". Forbes.pl.

According to family accounts from the Mikołajczyks, the hired sailors, upon learning what was on board, were so frightened that they all fled, and the captain had to recruit new ones. The crates were loaded by bank officials themselves. The ship had no papers for such a cargo, and in Turkey, no one could disembark, so the Polish consul spoke with the bankers from a boat. NBP, exhibition catalog. These are memories passed down years later by the son of a participant.

The Germans knew about the transport, but not much. The German naval attaché in Istanbul reported on September 26, 1939, about "10 barrels of gold from the Polish state bank." Warship Research, letter from the German attaché from the Bundesarchiv. This is a significantly understated report.

By train through Turkey and Syria to Beirut

The Eocene reached Istanbul. Dates in the sources differ: September 16 according to the Polish consulate in Istanbul, September 19 according to Captain Brett. It is possible that the ship first anchored, and the gold was transferred later. Turkey proposed depositing the gold in a bank in Istanbul, but the Poles refused. "Daily Sabah".

On the Asian side of Istanbul, the gold was placed on a special train. The train traveled through Ankara, the Taurus Mountains, and Adana, and on the evening of September 22, it reached the border with Syria, then a French mandate territory. There. In the Lebanese Rayak, the gold was transferred to a narrow-gauge railway and reached Beirut on September 23. Przystanek Historia (IPN). Matters in Turkey were handled by Ambassador Michał Sokolnicki and Consul Władysław Rychlewicz.

French ships and the treasury in Nevers

From Beirut, the gold was taken by three French warships: the cruiser Émile Bertin and the destroyers Vauban and Épervier. Matuszewski did not agree to send everything on one ship. The cruiser sailed on September 23, and the two smaller ships on October 2. NBP, exhibition catalog. On each ship were Polish officials who guarded the crates.

The gold was placed in the treasury of the Bank of France branch in Nevers on the Loire. It formally remained under Polish control, and the crates were continuously supervised by employees of the National Bank of Poland. There. According to the IPN, the operation was completed on October 5, 1939. Przystanek Historia (IPN).

Gold that got stuck in the Kayes fort

In May 1940, the Germans attacked France. On May 22, the Polish government asked the British to transport the gold to America. Przystanek Historia (IPN). The French delayed, and according to Forsal, they first demanded the return of 500 million francs loaned to Poland in September 1939. Forsal.pl.

On June 16, 1940, the gold was loaded onto the French auxiliary cruiser Victor Schœlcher in the port of Lorient, along with Belgian gold. That same day, Marshal Pétain's government was formed, which decided on capitulation. The ship was supposed to sail to the USA but docked in Casablanca and then in Dakar. On June 30, director Stefan Michalski, the only Pole escorting the gold, telegraphed from the British consulate in Dakar that the gold had been seized by the French. PAP (dzieje.pl).

The French authorities in Vichy transported the gold about 800 km inland to Kayes in present-day Mali. Przystanek Historia (IPN). In September 1940, the Free French under General de Gaulle attempted to seize Dakar and declared the return of the gold to the Poles, but the attack failed. General Władysław Sikorski reportedly said: "I see no possibility of recovering the gold." Forbes.pl.

The process in New York and the return of gold to the Poles

The Poles resorted to a weapon that Vichy did not expect: the American court. On September 3, 1941, the New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell sued the Bank of France. The court imposed a lien on the French gold worth 64 million dollars in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. NBP, exhibition catalog. The lawsuit was filed by trustees because neither the National Bank of Poland nor the government could sue directly. Forsal.pl.

After the Allies landed in North Africa, the situation changed. The French first denied that Polish gold existed at all. In December 1943, a Polish-French agreement was reached in Algiers, and in March 1944, the court in New York dismissed the case. In early 1944, director Wiktor Styburski and treasurer Orczykowski arrived in Kayes, and the gold was transported to Dakar. NBP, exhibition catalog. The French National Liberation Committee even considered delaying the release of the gold, anticipating that after the war, a government supported by Moscow would claim it. Ultimately, they fulfilled their commitments.

In 1944, the gold was distributed: it arrived in New York on April 4, was transported in small batches to London on ships escorting convoys from May to August, and in the fall, part was sent from London to Ottawa. By the end of 1944, the gold of the National Bank of Poland was worth 398 million zlotys and was mainly held in the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and the Bank of Canada. There.

Bankers in the resistance and families left at the border

• Families through the fields: before the border, some general forbade taking the families of employees. The families of bankers then crossed into Romania on foot through plowed fields. One of the wives was pregnant and had a two- or three-year-old child.
• Meeting at Gare du Nord: Edmund Spychałowicz had to leave his wife and two daughters in Warsaw. He brought them to France through Germany, Austria, and Italy. They met in February 1940 at the Paris Gare du Nord station.
• A twelve-year-old and watermelons: Jaś Dreżewski traveled on a bank bus without his father. He waited by the Dniester, bought watermelons, and on September 18 saw Soviet tanks. He found his father after seven days in Chernivtsi when he called out in the crowd: "Is there perhaps Jasiu Dreżewski here?"
• Theft in Chernivtsi: on the night of one of the bank trucks, 2 million zlotys in 500-zloty banknotes were stolen. Later, five-hundred-zloty notes were scattered along the road.
• Network F2: employees of the National Bank of Poland who got stuck in France co-created the intelligence network F2. Zdzisław Piątkiewicz was its head from 1943, Henryk Mikołajczyk ran the cipher office, and Bolesław Kaliszuk installed radio stations.

All these stories come from memories collected in the NBP exhibition catalog. After the fall of France, Matuszewski went to the USA, co-founded the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York, and died in 1946. In December 2016, his and Floyar-Rajchman's remains were brought from New York and buried at the Military Powązki in Warsaw. IPN. Halina Konopacka died in 1989 in Daytona Beach, Florida. IPN.

Almost 4 tons from the Romanian monastery

The gold detached in Dubno, about 4 tons, went to Bucharest. About a ton was sold, and the rest was deposited in the National Bank of Romania. At the end of the war, the Romanians hid about 3 tons of Polish gold in the Tismana monastery in the mountains. NBP, exhibition catalog.

The communist authorities of Poland learned about this gold only in October 1945. In the summer of 1947, Romania agreed to release it. LOT Polish Airlines estimated the flight at 2.6 million zlotys, so military planes were used for just under 650,000 zlotys. The gold landed in Warsaw on September 18, 1947. Henryk Mikołajczyk, who transported the gold in 1939, flew with it on a Dakota. Over the Carpathians, the engine began to choke, the pilot was sweating, and Mikołajczyk imagined how the highlanders were collecting bars in the bushes. There.

The gold did not support the Polish army

A popular myth suggests that the rescued gold financed the Polish Armed Forces in the West. This is not true. IPN historian Janusz Wróbel writes that the government in exile treated the gold as a national treasure for post-war reconstruction and rejected ideas to liquidate it to support the government and military. PAP (dzieje.pl), quote from Wróbel.

According to Prof. Rojek, the National Bank of Poland sold gold worth 41.9 million zlotys to the government, mainly for war expenses, which is about 9% of pre-war reserves. By December 1943, 38.5 million zlotys had been used, and the rest was returned to the bank. NBP, exhibition catalog. The Polish army in the West was mainly supported by British loans. Przystanek Historia (IPN).

What the communists did with the gold

In July 1945, the Western powers withdrew recognition of the London government and recognized the Provisional Government of National Unity, which claimed the gold. Przystanek Historia (IPN). In 1946, People's Poland reached an agreement with Great Britain. The USA and Canada unblocked deposits in 1946, but the new authorities left the gold in those banks.

The National Bank of Poland states directly: the gold never physically returned to the country and was entirely utilized by the authorities of People's Poland. It was sold or used as collateral for loans, and when loans were not repaid, the collateral was lost. NBP, "Gold as a Component of Foreign Reserves". The exception was smaller batches, such as the gold from Romania in 1947. The custodian of the gold was Hilary Minc, and the money mainly went to heavy industry and armaments. Przystanek Historia (IPN).

After the currency exchange in 1950, the value of the gold of the National Bank of Poland in the books "shrunk to 11.8 million zlotys". In 1952, the bank that saved the gold was declared liquidated. NBP, exhibition catalog.

The gold from 2019 is different gold

In 2019, the National Bank of Poland brought back about 100 tons of gold from the Bank of England. The operation was completed in November: eight flights of 1000 bars, police convoys, and helicopters. BullionStar on the NBP operation in 2019. NBP President Adam Glapiński stated: "For the first time since before the war, we have significant gold reserves in the country." aleBank.pl. The value of the imported gold was about 18.3 billion zlotys. money.pl.

It is often heard that in 2019, gold "returned from 1939" to Poland. This is not true. The gold of the National Bank of Poland was consumed by People's Poland. In 2019, gold was imported that the NBP purchased contemporarily, including in 2018-2019. The year 1939 is only a symbolic frame here.

Myths and inaccuracies about Polish gold

What could not be established

• The exact weight of the evacuated gold and the number of crates. Sources provide different values.
• Losses along the way. One of the IPN historians writes about discrepancies in the inventory in Dakar of over 10% against Poland. Prof. Rojek in the NBP catalog claims that no part of the reserves was lost.
• Some dates. Arrival in Istanbul (September 16 or 19) and recovery of the gold in Africa (January or late February and early March 1944).
• Payment to Turkey. A popular text claims that the Turks demanded 30,000 dollars for transport by rail, but we did not find this in other sources.
• How much gold the PRL authorities seized and transported to the country. Estimates are conflicting, and IPN historian Krzysztof Kopeć writes that a detailed account is not possible today.