The Gold of the Bank of Poland — the destination of the SS Eocene

On 1 September 1939 the gold reserves of the Bank of Poland amount to roughly eighty tonnes — the official figure is 79,856 kg — equivalent to some 87 million dollars of the period and to nearly the whole of the Polish state's sovereign liquidity. The gold sits at the Bank's central headquarters in Warsaw, in ingots and coin. To lose it would be to bankrupt any future government-in-exile.

On 4 September 1939 at six in the morning, the Minister of Finance Ignacy Matuszewski — forty-three years old, a former colonel of military intelligence turned independent journalist — receives from Prime Minister Felicjan Slawoj-Skladkowski the order to evacuate the treasure. No road is safe: the Wehrmacht advances, the Red Army is massing in the south-east. Matuszewski entrusts the convoy to his wife, one of the most celebrated sportswomen in Poland — Halina Konopacka, the country's first Olympic champion (gold in the discus at Amsterdam in 1928), holder of a heavy-goods licence and an experienced driver. She takes command of a convoy of two Saurer trucks carrying fifty tonnes of gold packed in 1,200 sealed crates.

The convoy leaves Warsaw at eight in the evening on 4 September. The planned itinerary runs from Brzesc to Luck, then towards the Romanian border, the port of Constanta, and from there a ship for an Allied destination. On 8 September, near Luck, Stukas strafe the column and damage one of the trucks; Konopacka immediately organises the transfer of the load onto other requisitioned vehicles. On 14 September the Romanian frontier is crossed at Sniatyn. At Constanta the steamer SS Eocene, flying the British flag, waits for the cargo.

Matuszewski must decide on the ship's destination.