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History's Secret Graveyard

Jaro Svěcený is out to find the Czech Republic's buried Nazi treasures - and he isn't alone. Meet the men with the maps.

History's Secret Graveyard
By Micah Jayne
Mon 7th Oct, 2002 [updated Tue 2nd Sep, 2008]		 Add to favorites email print this article Share on FaceBoook

For the first time in three centuries, sunlight splashes across the walls of the secret crypt under a disused church in the sleepy North Bohemian town of Zákupy. Three eager faces peer into the gloom, then recoil as a nauseating wave of gas rushes from the freshly opened cell. Tripod mounted lights reflect hints of dirty yellow as the men struggle to regain their composure and lower their video camera into the darkness.

That was 1990.

Twelve years later, Czech filmmaker and hunter of lost treasures Jaro Svěcený recounts the expedition from his flat in the fashionably rustic Podbaba district. "We aren't professional archeologists," admits the charismatic 55 year-old, who escaped communist Czechoslovakia in 1972 and became a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles. "We were naive, and we paid the price for it. Rotten skin turned to dust, trapped fluids and God knows what else was floating around in that place. We were all sick for a week, but this is what we found."

Svěcený points to an image on the television that is hard to discern in the glare of the late afternoon sun. He traces the outline of a yellow-green blur, then skips a few frames on the video until the picture sharpens: on the screen is a jewel encrusted crown flanked by grinning death heads.

"Maria Francesca de Tuscony, an Italian Arch Duchess, was brought to this town by her Austrian husband," explains Svěcený. "She fell in love with Zákupy, became sick, died and was buried here. This is her lost grave, and the grave of her husband."

According to Czech law, a 10% finder's fee is due to anyone who discovers such treasures. The Zákupy takings, judging from the video footage of the jewels strewn across the floor, would have been handsome. But unfortunately for Svěcený, the Czech government has neither the time to explore his claim, nor the money to pay him the promised fee. Twelve years after Svěcený's discovery, the Czech Ministry of Culture continues to postpone its official confirmation, and the hollow eyes of the skulls in Maria de Tuscony's tomb still gaze into the darkness. The jewels remain covered in dust.

The last time Svěcený inquired about the progress of his claim he was introduced to Jaroslava Bajerlova, an archivist for the ministry of culture. "She showed me to a basement room and pointed to the shelves," Svěcený recalls. "She was new on the job, and was required to familiarize herself with all the claims, some of which dated back to 1943, before assessing their legitimacy. She told me it would take her a 'few years' to get to mine." The average tenure of archivists seems to be about three years, and Miss Bajerlova has since disappeared from the ministry of culture without a trace. Although he is unlikely to see a monetary reward anytime soon, the discovery of the royal tomb served an even more important purpose for Svěcený. The Zákupy find proved the trust he placed in two shadowy "agents" - contacts he claims will guide him to more significant, and more gruesome, treasures.

Thanks to these anonymous men, who claim to be former agents of the Czech internal security force known as the CIS, Svěcený is now involved in one of the most high-stakes treasure hunts in Europe. His searches take him throughout the Czech countryside in pursuit of forgotten treasures buried in secret crypts. Every step is haunted by an incredible cast of commandos, Communists, double agents and, of course, Nazis.

"Spoils of War"
The anonymous "agents" - who Svěcený identifies as Mr. M.C. and Mr. Z.H. - whispered to him of secret bunkers constructed by Nazis. The bunkers, Svěcený is convinced, are the final resting place of thousands of documents, artifacts and pieces of art which were rushed from Berlin as it was surrounded during the final stages of World War II.

"The Czech lands were, at that time, the last stronghold of the Third Reich," confirms Dr. Jiří Bílek of the Czech Military History Institute in Prague. "Otto Skorzeny, one of Hitler's most trusted intelligence officers, oversaw the delivery of at least 540 crates loaded with these treasures."

As the Allies rapidly tightened the noose on the Third Reich, the Nazis scrambled to hide their stolen war booty. Skorzeny, in keeping with his reputation, guarded his trust well. Most of the bunkers were built by prisoners who were executed after completing the work, and all were rigged with elaborate booby traps.

Among the fated cargo packed into the crates were stacks of documents - including lists of Nazi sympathizers and research detailing efforts to produce chemical and nuclear weapons at the Kaiser institute in Berlin. "The Nazis knew the war was over, and the smart ones had already arranged new lives for themselves in Argentina and elsewhere," Svěcený explains. "They hoped to one day return and use their treasures to rebuild the Third Reich."

Possibly included in the spoils are literally thousands of priceless objects of Czech historical value stolen from around the country. During the Nazi occupation they were kept in the Heeresmuseum, the building which now houses the Czech Military History Institute. According to a 1997 Belgian study on the "Spoils of War," a proposed move of the museum's contents to Vienna by train would have required 200 carriages, or roughly 7 freight trains.

A hint of this booty was recovered in 1946, when U.S. commandos raided a vast, secret bunker complex in Stěchovice, a village 30 kilometers south of Prague. Guided by a Nazi POW, they managed to remove 32 crates containing documents and Czech national artifacts before being caught by the Communist secret police and forced to return the loot.

Svěcený is realistic about the contents of the documents. "Most of the data could not possibly have any scientific value today, and ethical problems with using it would arise in any case. Its greatest value would be to fill the huge gaps we have in our histories, especially having to do with the last days of the Third Reich."

Few realize that the Czech lands were the stage for much of World War II's last act. Scores of discoveries, reports and rumors support Svěcený's conviction that the Czech Republic is littered with buried Nazi secrets. Although treasures are occasionally discovered, finding the gold at the end rainbow is usually a fruitless and dangerous undertaking. Svěcen? hopes that his web of informants and extensive research will prevent him from repeating the sometimes-embarrassing mistakes of his predecessors, but the path remains clotted with low ceilings.

Evidence presented to Svěcený by the Irish biographer Colm Lowery shows that the prominent Nazi nuclear scientist Dr. Hans Kammler oversaw the construction of the infamous "Richard" facility in Litoměřice, Northern Bohemia. Built with the blood of thousands of forced laborers, "Richard's" main purpose was to produce parts for Hitler's never completed "decisive weapon." Although efforts have been made to penetrate the control center of the facility, all have failed.

Indeed, trying to uncover the secrets of Nazi bunkers in the Czech Republic is risky business. One attempt made in 1962 triggered a poison gas booby trap set in 1945, while another required diffusing an elaborate system of explosives. Official opposition to the exploration of these sites is another hurdle Svěcený and others must constantly clear.

So why go through all the trouble? In every treasure hunt, a Holy Grail emerges, a single object of such astounding value or power the mere suggestion of it will lure men to their deaths. For Svěcen?, and every other treasure hunter following the Nazi trail, this Grail is undoubtedly the "Chamber of Amber," considered one of the most valuable of all unrecovered war booty. The trail has grown cold on this priceless treasure, and little hope now remains of finding the 22 hand-carved amber panels stolen from St. Petersburg. Two of the most likely hiding places are thought to be Stěchovice and the the German passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk by a Soviet submarine just off the coast of Poland in 1945, killing nearly 8,000 passengers and crew.

This September, a team of divers working with Svěcen? visited the ship's resting site in the Baltic Sea, where they found nothing except proof that the ship had long ago been plundered by the Soviets.

Empty eye sockets balefully watched the team make their descent, and the skeletal fingers pointed the divers back to dry land, back to the Czech Republic and the bunkers of ?těchovice.

It's Cucumber Season

The Czech media has been obsessed with the search for Nazi secrets in the Czech Republic since the late 60s, when Helmut Gaensel, a Sudeten German turned double agent, first initiated a search of the Stěchovice bunkers. After the '89 revolution, Gaensel returned to Bohemia from his adopted home in Miami, Florida to continue his search. He claimed to come armed with "secret" knowledge extracted long ago from his years as a double agent.

Gaensel's main source was one Emil Klein. Klein, who directed the Nazi effort in ?těchovice, was tortured for more than 17 years and released by the Czech secret police only after revealing the whereabouts of 15 crates of Nazi records. The crates were later recovered from the depths of "Black Lake" on the German border and found to contain details of successful Nazi assassination plots. Near the end of his imprisonment, Klein reportedly irritated his tormentors by reciting quotes from Goethe's Faust, a fact which Svěcený believes may hold clues in deciphering the mystery of the ?těchovice bunker. Gaensel was originally employed by the Czech secret police to enter the prison, befriend Klein and dupe him into revealing the whereabouts of the secret lists. Klein discovered the ruse, but befriended the Czech-German anyway, and Gaensel has been taking his alleged confidence to the bank since 1990, when a Dutch investor funded his return to Stěchovice.

The ante was upped when a colorful Czech named Josef Mu?ík showed up in town with a metal detector and a few friends in high places. A wildcard whose bold statements and bare-knuckle determination have since marked the parallel ?těchovice searches with Hollywood marketability, Mu?ík has not denied accusations that he once worked for the CIS. He has, in any case, demonstrated that he has access to certain secret documents. Countless interviews with Czech reporters show Mu?ík, decked out in military fatigues and gold chains, claiming to be "days" from a breakthrough discovery.

Gaensel and Mu?ík have set up permanent and competing paramilitary camps in the tiny holiday town, and busy themselves creating a media circus around their attempts to penetrate the bunker's secret. Oddly, the competitors have never stooped to deceit or sabotage. They have both remained models of civility despite the vast amounts of money they could be sitting on.

Ruined by the recent floods, Stěchovice now reveals little of the continuing drama it hosts. Man-made brush fires, set to clear fallen trees, scorch the banks of the Vltava and the thick white smoke casts the sleepy village in tones of gray. The Hotel Mandat, where Gaensel made his headquarters and hosted his opulent Thanksgiving Day parties, shows no sign of life. The only paved road into town was swallowed by the torrents and will likely remain impassible for months.

The Nazi-built dam, from which the floodwaters were finally released on Prague, looms above the town like an evil moon. Above the dam the only signs of life are infrequent chimneys of summer cottages poking through the thick canopy of spruce and fir trees. The locals sullenly avoid unfamiliar visitors. Asked if he knew anything about Nazi bunkers, one old resident just smiled and nodded into the dark, reflectionless waters of the lake.

"He'll Make You Famous"

At the center of this strange mix of history, Hollywood and high adventure is Svěcený himself. It is somehow fitting that a veteran of totalitarian control, California glitz and Czech bureaucracy should take on the search for Europe's stolen treasures.

Not content with hunting down Nazi secrets and filling in the blank spots in modern European history, Svěcený spends his spare time running an advertising agency, building and promoting a stock book of contemporary Czech artists and helping to run a "world music" venue in Prague's Podbaba neighborhood.

Although he has chosen to work without outside funding until all of his research is assembled, Svěcený has persevered in his efforts to document the hunt for Nazi treasures and has become a sort of "secrets" clearinghouse for information seekers worldwide. His professionalism and dedication have earned him the trust and confidence of everyone from ex-KGB agents to Holocaust survivors.

His schedule was adversely affected by this summer's flood, but it is clear that neither uncooperative weather nor an apathetic government will weaken Svěcen?'s drive. His dreams are haunted by 18th century arch-dutchesses, mad Nazi scientists, and twisted kilometers of hidden bunkers. Perhaps the underground labs and missing crates will one day be found, and perhaps Svěcený will be the one to uncover them. But as he knows all too well, "x" rarely marks the spot.

READERS' COMMENTS
"An interesting and informative article, covering a subject I have previously had no interest in at all. I hope to read more such fascinating articles on the same subject! One question it raised to my mind is "how many international treasures have yet to be located having been lost to the Nazis and their allies during the war years?" It is intriguing indeed to think that there exists an abundance of undiscovered material, and objects, dating from those dark days."
Alex Klaar
June 6th, 2006

"every one wants to be a treasure hunter and so would i."
colin mortensen
September 17th, 2006

"I absolutely thought this article was fantastic! I just got back from Germany and toured some of the bunkers and old nazi sites there just out of interest in history.

"I would LOVE to find an old nazi lab because there is no telling what type of technology they were working on. its bizarre!

"God Bless the Holocaust survivors!!!!"
kimberly cole zemke
August 6th, 2008
Article added on Mon 7th Oct, 2002 [last updated Tue 2nd Sep, 2008]

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