Nazi governor-general Hans Frank
The case hinges on a letter found this year within the archives of the former communist security services.
Dated 1986, the six-page epistle was discovered by an archivist of Poland’s state-sponsored Institute of National Remembrance (IPN).
The unidentified informant addresses a colonel of the security services, announcing “facts from the past in connection with documents of the highest importance.”
According to the author, in January 1945, a troop of Poland's official wartime underground army (AK) hijacked a Nazi convoy that was travelling from Auschwitz to Berlin.
The column was acting on the orders of notorious governor Hans Frank, Hitler's top henchman in the so-called “General Government” of occupied Poland.
The author of the letter reveals that the convoy was carrying archives of the Krakow Gestapo in ten boxes, and that these had been held at on the terrain of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The mysterious letter-writer claims that the documents contained detailed “personal records” on “Gestapo informers” as well as on “people of German origin who were not being evacuated with the German army,” likewise material relating to the pre-war Polish intelligence network.
By January 1945, the war was all but lost for the Germans, and the Soviets had already taken a vast swathe of Poland.
The author of the letter explains that owing to the fact that the Red Army was sweeping across Poland – and the concomitant lack of trust towards the Soviets – the Polish resistance fighters decided to hide the archives amidst sealed boulders in the whereabouts of Krakow. The informant provides the precise location.
According to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Marek Lasota from the Krakow branch of IPN has confirmed that some Nazi files - ear-marked to be transported to Krakow - had never been found
Likewise, he has revealed that IPN will decide next week when to investigate the site, which is being kept a secret until the operation is over.
Apparently, the collapse of the Iron Curtain prevented communist agents from following through the investigation.
The unsigned letter-writer revealed himself to be a family friend of the Polish resistance commander who had hidden the files. Before dying in the 1970s, the commander, named Migocki, had entrusted his son with the details of the operation.
However, when the son and his friend pin-pointed the boulders some years later, they found that they did not possess equipment capable of opening the rocks.
Whether the entire letter is an elaborate hoax or an extraordinary lead that could locate priceless documents may yet become clear over the coming month. (nh/pg)