Jan Glazewski dug up the silver treasure buried as his family fled World War Two using a treasure map drawn by his own father, Gustaw
A stash of priceless treasure buried by a fleeing family during the Second World War has been unearthed almost 80 years later by the new generation.
The Glazewski family buried their silver and fled their estate in eastern Poland in September 1939 ahead of the advancing Soviet army, as their country was carved up between the Nazis and Stalin’s regime.
The family scattered, with the four sons starting lives in different corners of the world – but the legend of the family treasure was never forgotten by the Glazewski family.
The head of the family, Adam, stayed at the estate near Lviv – today part of Ukraine, in 1939 to face the Russians, who threw him off his land, and nearly executed him before his staff intervened.
Now, 80 years later, the hoard has been rediscovered by Adam’s grandson, Jan, using a treasure map drawn by his own father, Gustaw.
Mr Glazewski, 69, said: “My father was getting old and I kind of nagged him, I said ‘please draw me a map – one day I might be able to go to the estate and look for it’.
“He gave me that map in 1989, accompanied by some instructions, and he drew it from memory 50 years after he had left.”
Jan added: “The last sentence of these instructions said you must find our silver and my hunting guns.
“And when I read that, it was like a directive, and I got very emotional that I’ve got to fulfil this dream.”
Gustaw, who had settled in South Africa after fighting for the allies in the Second World War, died in 1991.
That same year Ukraine gained its independence, but it was another 10 years before Jan made his first visit to the former family estate.
And it was only in 2019 that he began his search.
It seemed an “almost impossible task”.
Mr Glazewski, a retired professor of environmental law at the University of Cape Town, said: “It was a needle in a haystack situation.
“On this map he drew where the original manor house was – it was destroyed by the Russians, by the way, but we found the foundations.
“But then there was a dotted line going across a cultivated field – today it’s just bush – it’s about 100 metres you had to walk, and then down a slope.
“And then his instructions said ‘where the forest starts, you must dig for our silver.’
“And, of course, 80 years later, which is when I was there, one doesn’t know whether the forest has receded or come up the slope.”
There was also the possibility that the hoard had already been salvaged.
Jan said: “I thought ‘look, this is a bit of a wild goose chase’.
“The people who worked there would’ve seen that all of the silver was removed, they would have put two and two together.
“They would have gone down the slope and found it.”
Assisted by his niece, Layla, and two Ukrainian metal detectorists, they beat the odds.
Jan instinctively felt that his father and uncles wouldn’t have gone too far down the slope, where it became steeper and more overgrown.
The metal detector proved he was right, coming to life over the treasure.
“I was very, very emotional,” he said.
Some of the items had been packed by Jan’s mother, who had passed away when he was just seven years old, and who had fled alongside Gustaw.
He said: “One of the things we pulled out was a jewellery box and inside were all kinds of trinkets.
“And my niece said ‘those were probably packed by your mother; that’s your mother’s jewellery.’
“So here I was, touching stuff that she had packed away 80 years previously. So it was a very emotional thing for me.”
There was even a Christening spoon engraved with his father’s name, and numerous artefacts bearing the initials of his grandmother, who died of Spanish Flu in 1918.
The retired academic has been told the hoard is worth thousands of dollars.
But to him it’s priceless – and he hopes some of the treasures will one day be exhibited in Ivano-Frankivsk, the closest town to the old family estate.
“It’s hugely meaningful,” said Mr Glazewski.
“It’s a kind of fulfilment of a life dream, as a little boy, of finding the treasure.
“But more importantly, it’s fulfilling a directive from my father.
“And it’s given me a great sense of satisfaction; I walk taller, I’m more confident.”
The four Glazewski brothers never saw their father again, who died in Lviv in 1961.
They only saw each other one time, reuniting in France in 1967.
Jan himself almost died before he could achieve his dream, being diagnosed with HIV after he was infected with contaminated blood products while being treated for haemophilia.
Now he has written down his story in a book entitled Blood and Silver: A true story of survival and a son’s search for his family treasure.
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