BNR Governor says film is needed about the Romanian Treasure evacuated to Moscow

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About the Romanian Treasure evacuated to Moscow should be written a simple book or made a film for Viasat History, as it is about the history of 92 tons of gold, National Bank of Romania Governor Mugur Isarescu said on Thursday at the “Cristian Popişteanu” Symposium on “The BNR Treasure evacuated to Moscow – a historiographical report and a case study”.

“I think we should write a book, with clear, with beautiful photos, or a film for Viasat History. It is the history of 92 tons of gold in coins. Until World War I it was the gold standard, not bullions, the gold reserves were kept in coins, so besides the value of 3 billion euros, there is also one billion euros in numismatic value,” Mugur Isarescu said.

The BNR Governor noted that “The Moscow II file was made here at the National Bank. We have absolutely no doubt” and it does not bring new elements, it only completes the information in the Moscow I file.

Mugur Isarescu said the two files raise a series of questions. Thus, Moscow I file raised the question of keeping it entirely with the original documents during the Soviet occupation period, given that Soviet councilors had free access to the bank’s building during that period. With regard to the Moscow II file, Isarescu said it may have been taken out of the National Bank in an attempt to save it.

In March of this year, the BNR said in a statement that it had recovered some documents from 1941, when bank representatives from that period made an inventory of the Romanian state’s leadership in the era regarding the Treasure sent to Moscow during 1916-1917.

A local from Brasov and an Iranian found in March, hidden in an 80-year-old vintage cabinet, the file that Marshal Ion Antonescu sent to Moscow to reclaim the Treasure of Romania.

The 200 original pages, plus a passport, were found in the double bottom of an old cabinet. The furniture had been rebuilt by an Iranian settled in Romania and sold to Attila Szocs, a Hungarian ethnic from Brasov. The two found the original documents and they have sent them to the National Bank of Romania in copies.

The file (photo 1)drawn up at the request of Marshal Ion Antonescu in 1941 contains a record of the Romanian Treasure evacuated in 1916-1917 (during World War I) to Moscow, plus other values ​​not known until now. In fact, no one knew until today that, confident that the Germans and Romanians would conquer Moscow, Antonescu had prepared these 200 pages to claim the Treasure.

During World War I, since Bucharest was occupied by German troops, the Romanian administration moved to Iaşi (north-eastern Romania), and with them, the most valuable objects which belonged to the Romanian state. Fearing an eventual German victory, the Romanian government decided to send the Treasure abroad.

Among the ideas considered was to send it for safekeeping to the vaults of the Bank of England or even to send it to the United States, but there was the problem of transportation, since Germany and its allies controlled most of Central Europe and sending it via Northern Europe was dangerous, as the Germans could have intercepted it, Wikipedia.org informs.

The decision had to be taken by the Romanian Prime Minister Ion I. C. Brătianu. Although the banker Mauriciu Blank advised him to send it to London or to a neutral country, such as Denmark, Brătianu feared the German submarines of the North Sea and chose another ally of Romania in World War I, Russia, using the argument that “Russia would feel offended if we sent it to England”.

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