Plunder by Menachem Kaiser (english novels for students txt) 📕

For forty years my father ended havdalah in the standard way: he put out the candle, drank the wine, got on with his week. But then he watched the video and saw his father do something different: he saw his father dab three drops of wine on his eyelids, put three drops of wine in his pockets. My father said, That’s right, my father used to do that, I remember now.

10

Long ago, in the Owl Mountains, lived a man who possessed vast treasures, which he secured in his underground lair. Every New Year’s, when the clock struck twelve, he opened the door to the lair and allowed anyone to enter and take as much treasure as they could carry. But the door remained open only as long as the twelve chimes of the clock—​then the door shut, and the greedy ones were locked inside the mountain.

It is believed that in the early 1990s a great treasure was discovered in the Jeleniogórska Crevice, between Lubomierz and Radomice. The treasure included silver dishes, antique jugs, Turkish sabers, gold, and precious stones.

A year later, the voivode of Jelenia Góra received an anonymous letter offering information about the treasure in exchange for half its value and a guarantee of amnesty regarding the objects already sold. The voivode did not respond.

In 1993, the Wrocław-based Polish Exploration Society claimed they had discovered a large tunnel in the crevice, and that it contained gold, jewelry, amber, and the corpses of murdered German military officers, including a general in whose uniform were three Fabergé eggs. One of those eggs was reportedly later found in the home of Waldemar Huczka, a Romanian mayor from Nowa Sól who had been murdered. This discovery came to be known as “Hitler’s Sesame.”

Many explorers believe there is still a great deal of undiscovered treasure in the crevice. Others claim that Hitler’s Sesame was a hoax, fabricated in order to camouflage illegal treasure trade by former Communist officers.

In the fifteenth century, a group of robber knights terrorized the Przygórze region, attacking merchants and travelers and plundering with impunity. No one knew where the robber knights’ hideout was; no one even knew what they looked like. Occasionally, however, a group of well-dressed young men would come to the tavern, order an extravagant amount of food and drink, and dance with the girls.

Kinga was the most beautiful of the girls, as well as the best dancer. The mysterious young men would court her, prevail on her to come with them to their castle, but Kinga would always refuse. Kinga and a group of peasants, suspecting that these young men were in fact the robber knights, concocted a scheme to track down and raid their hideout.

The next time the young men showed up in the tavern and asked Kinga to come back with them to their castle, Kinga agreed.

They climbed the mountain, walking carefully between the rocks, and soon reached a small castle. One of the men whistled a melody, and the door opened. It was an old castle, but cozy and well appointed, and full of swords, shields, and loot.

Unbeknownst to the robber knights, a large group of armed peasants had followed them—​Kinga had worn sharp heels that left marks in the wet ground. When the peasants came upon the castle they waited for Kinga’s sign. Finally, when it was nearly dawn, Kinga appeared in one of the windows. She stretched her arms and said, “Oh, everything is so far away from here!” This was a sign that the robbers were tired.

The peasants stormed the gates. A fierce battle ensued, but the robber knights were tired and drunk, and soon all were killed or wounded.

All of the robber knights’ treasure was seized by the peasants, except for two golden boxes, which could not be found, even after the castle was demolished.

Two hundred years later, an old sorceress claimed the golden boxes could be found in the following manner: on Christmas night, a virgin bearing a torch can go to the castle ruins, alone, and at the spot where the treasure lies, the flame will point downward.

None of the local girls was willing to attempt this.

In 1948 Russian engineers traveled throughout Silesia in order to measure uranium levels inside abandoned German mine shafts. The results were very promising, and new shafts were quickly opened in Kowary, Kletno, and Miedzianka; within a few years, more than a hundred miles of mining drifts were being exploited for the metal.

The miners were paid extremely well, but worked under severe conditions, and under strict secrecy and security; some of the mines were officially listed as “paper factory.” Thirty minutes before the end of their shift, the miners would carefully dust off, unroll their cuffs, turn out their pockets; at the gate they would each be checked by a soldier with a Geiger counter. If a speck of spoil was found anywhere on his body, the miner would be taken away, and would not return.

Great wealth came to the mining towns. There were new movie houses, community centers, homes, and motorcycles. But the miners suffered from black lung and cellular degeneration: the rock dust they breathed in contained radon, a product of decayed radium. Many children were born with tumors and disfigurements.

Cistercian Anselm recorded the following in a tavern in Reichenbach (Dzierżoniów) in 1524:

One morning in 1483, a Corwin named Georg von Stein, known as the Prague Cleaner, arrived in Rogowiec. The robber knights Niclas and Hanz Schellendorf and their band of hard men, upon hearing of von Stein’s arrival, shuddered in fear—​von Stein and his army had a reputation of great strength and mercilessness.

Soon von Stein’s messengers delivered the conditions of our surrender. We were to abandon the castle and leave the area until the following evening.

This caused a great uproar, as there were many precious treasures in the cellar. The robber knights did not want to abandon their loot.

In the end, they decided to save their own lives, but hid the treasure well.