Gosfond*

by E.E. Rhodes

February 26 1945 [XXX Location redacted. West of Kiev]

Orders arrived this a.m. Dispatch from Moscow. West again. Good progress until lunchtime. Three bridges destroyed.

February 28 1945 [XXX Location Redacted]

Difficult encounters with refugees. Food in short supply. Weather has turned again. Submitted requisition for chains. Orders remain. Reported issues with looting. Slept with trucks on roadside.

March 6 1945

Schloss [XXX] already liberated. Have crated remaining papers. Infantry are using building for recreation. Library burned.

March 15th 1945

Reports of British troops 90km South-West. Orders to intercept any Monuments Men (MM) teams. Food shortages amongst troops. Have encountered small pockets of resistance. Mainly ecclesiastical. Monastery [XXX] treasury saved and crated for repatriation.

March 19th 1945

Orders from Moscow. New list. MM liable to arrive first. Petrol in short supply. Of utmost importance. Infuriating delay whilst papers were checked. Reported soldiers manning checkpoint for gross dereliction.

April 1st 1945

[XXX] Abbey Church. Necessary execution of looters caught red-handed. Local administration indifferent to our presence. Estimated number of items recovered (2nd quarter) approaching half a million. Inc. 120,000 books.

April 9th 1945

Close to German border. American guns heard in night. Bridges destroyed. Long detour. Six churches. Some good silver plate. One altarpiece. One wooden reredos. Fifteen icons. Displaced peoples.

April 25th 1945

Orders to intercept Frank and seize items stolen from Wawel. Progress hindered by refugees and shortages.

May 6th 1945

Frank reported captured Tergensee. Location of Wawel goods unclear. Orders remain.

June 25th 1945

Ordered return Moscow. Refugees. Food shortages. Petrol. Oil. Spares difficult to obtain. Allied forces ubiquitous. Some trouble.

July 8th 1945 - February 20th 1946

Cataloging of inventory [XXX Location redacted]. Poor records by some teams. Many items unaccounted. Or mislaid. (Query??) Received notice of new orders being issued.

February 21st 1946

New orders. Recovery of [XXX] items. List not to be committed to paper. Three teams to travel [exact locations redacted XXX].

March 5th 1946

Informant intelligence. Schliersee. Exercised caution on approach. House already empty. Note from MM. “Nice try.” Await new orders. Expect consequences of our failure. Detours anticipated.

*Gosfond, or Trophy Brigades, were the Russian equivalents of “The Monuments Men”, the Allied teams of men charged with trying to recover looted art and material culture during World War II. The Kremlin really wanted Da Vinci’s The Lady With An Ermine, which had been removed to Hans Frank’s family home in Bavaria.

There are an estimated 30,000 known pieces of art still missing, including work by Cranach the Elder, Dürer, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Holbein the Younger, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Gogh and more.

In times of war people go to extraordinary lengths to save their art and material culture, or seize and destroy that of others.

About the author

E. E. Rhodes is an archaeologist who specializes in antiquities theft, art crime, and the return of cultural property. Her prose work has been widely published and anthologized and has placed in seventy competitions. In 2021 two pieces were nominated for The Pushcart Prize, one for the Best Of The Net, and three for the BIFFY50 (Best In British and Irish Flash). She’s the Prose editor at Twin Pies Literary and teaches CNF for the Crow Collective.

About the illustration

The illustration is Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, painting, ca. 1490. In the collection of the Princes Czartoryski Museum, Kraków, Poland. In the public domain.