The library of the Jagiellonian University holds thousands of historic manuscripts as well as several very important Polish cultural artefacts; however, it's their collection of priceless German treasures that's under dispute at the moment. Because within the library's highly secure, temperature-controlled vault that's closed to the public lie Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major, Beethoven's original copy of the third movement of the 8th Symphony, manuscripts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and several other historic manuscripts by some of Germany's greatest minds.
These monuments of German culture have been called "the last German prisoners of war" by German press, but Polish authorities have no intention of giving them back. The manuscripts, part of the Prussian Library collection in Berlin, were left behind in the Benedictine monastery at Krzeszow, formerly Grussau, where they were hidden for safekeeping as the Allies advanced on Berlin. When the Germans fled the Red Army, the manuscripts remained, and the territory became part of Poland after the war. In 1945, a team of Polish librarians found this part of the collection, and saved it from inevitable looting by taking it to the Jagiellonian Library for safekeeping.
The German government is pressing for the return of these manuscripts. However, the Polish government cites that in nearly six years of German occupation during World War II, Poland lost an estimated 22 million books and hundreds of thousands of art works, most of which have never been returned. It is a bitter struggle that has been going on for nearly 15 years, and it seems an end is far from sight. |