The Strange Odyssey of Poland's National Treasures, 1939-1961
The Strange Odyssey of Poland's National Treasures, 1939-1961

Author: Gordon Swoger

Publisher: Dundurn

Published: 2004-10-01

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1770701745

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Strange Odyssey of Poland’s National Treasures, 1939-1961 tells the story of the Polish national treasures –their evacuation from their homeland under perilous conditions after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 and their subsequent removal to western Europe and then to Canada. At the end of the war two Polish governments, a Communist one in Warsaw and a non-Communist one in London, vied for control of the national treasures. Before long the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, the RCMP, and the Canadian and Quebec governments all became involved in the desperate hide-and-seek confrontation between the two Polish governments. Eventually, in February 1961, the release of the historic treasures was negotiated and they were returned to their native land, twenty-two years after their wartime departure. It was indeed a long voyage home!

Plunder
Plunder

Author: Menachem Kaiser

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1328506460

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A New York Times Critics’ Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Biography From a gifted young writer, the story of his quest to reclaim his family’s apartment building in Poland—and of the astonishing entanglement with Nazi treasure hunters that follows Menachem Kaiser’s brilliantly told story, woven from improbable events and profound revelations, is set in motion when the author takes up his Holocaust-survivor grandfather’s former battle to reclaim the family’s apartment building in Sosnowiec, Poland. Soon, he is on a circuitous path to encounters with the long-time residents of the building, and with a Polish lawyer known as “The Killer.” A surprise discovery—that his grandfather’s cousin not only survived the war, but wrote a secret memoir while a slave laborer in a vast, secret Nazi tunnel complex—leads to Kaiser being adopted as a virtual celebrity by a band of Silesian treasure seekers who revere the memoir as the indispensable guidebook to Nazi plunder. Propelled by rich original research, Kaiser immerses readers in profound questions that reach far beyond his personal quest. What does it mean to seize your own legacy? Can reclaimed property repair rifts among the living? Plunder is both a deeply immersive adventure story and an irreverent, daring interrogation of inheritance—material, spiritual, familial, and emotional.

Poland's Last King and English Culture
Poland's Last King and English Culture

Author: Richard Butterwick

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 9780198207016

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Poland's Last King, Richard Butterwick reassesses the achievement of Poland's most controversial king. He shows how Stanislaw August's radical plans for constitutional reform and the renewal of Polish culture were profoundly influenced by his admiration of England, and examines the successes and limitations of the Polish Enlightenment.

Poland
Poland

Author: William Richard Morfill

Publisher:

Published: 1893

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Treasure of the Ages
Treasure of the Ages

Author: Klym Polischuk

Publisher: Sova Books

Published: 2015-05-17

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13: 0987594338

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Behold the fury is raging… Under the glow of a burning red sky a fugitive from war learns of a malevolent serpent that once inhabited the caves outside Kyiv. In the dark ages of Ukraine a charismatic tribal leader defies supernatural sacrificial rituals and counsels his people to live in unity and peace so that a nation can arise. A cemetery in the old city of Khastiv stirs with the ghostly Haidamaka people who keep vigil every Easter, awaiting their promised liberator. In medieval Vinnytsia a powerful and sadistic monk mutilates local women, invoking the fury of the tormented villagers. On a quiet summer’s evening flickering lights reveal a mass of pilgrims paying homage with a prayer and song at a life-giving sacred well. A man returning to his homeland, ravaged by Tsarism and the Bolshevik revolution, visits the ruins of an ancient castle where treasure is said to be hidden for posterity, protected by ferocious flames. Treasure of the Ages invites the reader into a mystical, ancient world but one that also reflects the harsh reality of the lives of ordinary Ukrainians during the turbulent times of the socialist revolution that the author Klym Polischuk inhabited.

The Viking King’s Golden Treasure
The Viking King’s Golden Treasure

Author: Sven Rosborn

Publisher: Rivengate AB

Published: 2021-05-17

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9198678116

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A newly discovered material rewrites early Danish Viking history. In 2014 a 11-year-old girl, Maja Sielski, and her younger sister Julia, made a sensational discovery among their deceased grandmother's belongings. They found a small golden plate with a Latin script telling the story of the legendary Viking king Harald Bluetooth. It soon turned out that the golden plate was once placed in the king's tomb and this tomb contained world's largest known golden treasure of Viking-era. A transcript of a previously unknown chronicle, "Gesta Wulinensis ecclesiae pontificum" from the 990s has also been found. The manuscript was written by the king’s own priest Avico, probably in an attempt to canonize the king after his death in year 985. Avico has been in the service of the king since the 950s. His extensive account gives a remarkable and dramatic picture of the Viking age Scandinavia during the 10th century. Here is a story of the struggle for power and the foundation of the future dynasties in Denmark, Sweden and Norway as well as Viking raids in Ireland and England. The account also tells of the founding of the legendary Viking fortress of Jomsborg and the fortress’s powerful mercenaries. The book describes in detail these unique facts, but it also gives an overall picture of the Viking Age era for those who are not familiar with the subject. The Curmsun Disc The Curmsun Disc is a concave gold disc of a weight of 25.23 grams (0.890 oz) and a diameter of 4.5 centimetres (1.8 in). The Danish Viking king Harald Bluetooth and the name of the stronghold of Jomsborg is mentioned in the latin inscription on the disc. The disc was reportedly found as part of a Viking Age hoard discovered in 1841 in the cellar crypt of the ruined chapel at Groß-Weckow village in Pomerania. This location is just east of the bank of the river Dievenow and near the place where the semi-legendary Viking stronghold of Jomsborg stood between the 960's and 1043. According to the author the entrance to the crypt was accidentally discovered by a 12-year-old Heinrich Boldt (actor Ben Affleck's said-to-be maternal great-great grandfather), who was playing with some younger children at a construction site near the ruined chapel.