Germany, Ecuador, Mexico, Switzerland. Now Poland, if a petition movement is successful, will repatriate its gold bullion reserves, currently held in the vaults of the Bank of England.
The group, Oddajcie Nasze Zloto (Give Our Gold Back), seeks the return of Polish gold from the Bank of England to ensure its “safety” and the economic security of Poland. Supported by organizations such as the Mises Institute of Poland, the Business Center Club, the Mint of Wroclaw, and others, the movement has attracted the attention of the Polish parliament. In response, the parliament has asked the president of the Polish central bank to ascertain the status of the gold and conduct an audit of gold assets in England.
The group’s Polish-language website is http://oddajcienaszezloto.pl.
As is so often the case with gold, the Polish gold bullion is weighted with symbolism and history. As the Nazis invaded from the west and the Soviets from the east on September 1, 1939, Polish treasury officials packed the country’s gold and sent it on a harrowing journey through Eastern Europe. While Nazi officials attempted to stop the gold in Romania, the treasure was smuggled aboard a British cargo ship, the S.S. Eocene, on September 15. The Eocene carried the gold safely through to Istanbul, where Turkish officials transferred the bullion to French ships bound for Paris and the vaults of the Bank of France. Upon the fall of France in 1940, the gold escaped Nazi hands yet again, ending up in England. It has remained in the vaults of the Bank of England ever since. Repatriation will close the circle that began on that terrifying September day fast fat burning.
From a Polish perspective, the return of its gold would restore the loss of an asset ripped away by the trauma of the Second World War. But the movement has other, more significant implications. Poland is only one of several countries that have or are seeking to reclaim their physical gold from Western custody and bring it within sovereign borders, as WealthCycles.com has reported previously here and again here. Likely the closest parallel, however, is the Swiss Initiative, WealthCycles first reported on back in March. The push to return Poland’s gold is evidence that yet another national economy no longer trusts the current management of the world economy nor the global fiat currency system. The move seeks to provide a hard money asset to secure the Polish economy against future upheavals—a vote of no confidence in the existing monetary system nor in the future of global economic policy.
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