Vecernje Novosti: KING PETER DID NOT STEAL SERBIAN GOLD

In April 1941 King Peter II Karadjordjevic fled the country and took with him the national gold – has been one of the most frequently used arguments against the royal family for the past 75 years. Starting from this claim, used for decades in post-communist historiography, Dusan Babac and Aleksandar Ognjevic wrote a book “Secrets of the Royal Treasures” in which they unmasked this decades-old myth and revealed that the fate of the gold and royal treasures were completely different.

After several years of research of domestic and foreign archives, the authors found out just how much gold the king and the government took in the evacuation, what was the fate of the treasures hidden in the monastery of Ostrog, what was the role of Germans, Italians, Americans, OZNA and UDBA in the dissemination of the treasure and what happened to the extremely valuable works of art and holy relics owned by the royal family.

– King Peter did not steal “the people’s” gold and did not live lavishly in exile. He had not exchanged one gram of gold! In the post-war years this story was systematically pushed by the opponents of monarchy and, like a mantra, transferred onto their descendants – says Dusan Babac.

– The Kingdom of Yugoslavia saw the beginning of the Second World War with stable reserves and just before the war planned how to keep the money and gold, and get them to safety. However, during the retreat towards Montenegro large emissions of banknotes had to be burned so that the money would not come into the hands of the occupiers. And it was a unique measure in the history of the monetary policy of a country.

The authors argue that everything that the king and other members of the royal family failed to take during the evacuation has been the subject of the occupiers’, and then organized state looting and pillage in the war and post-war years, to this day.

– The fact is that the members of the royal family were not particularly good keepers of their own heritage, so in the years of exile and destitution they were forced to sell almost everything they had – says Babac.

Between the covers of the book, “Secrets of the Royal Treasures” there is a much wider range of unknown data, which shed new light on historical events.

– Of the 204 crates of the National Bank branch office in Uzice gold, the Italians confiscated 179 with 8,393 kilograms of pure gold in April and May 1941 – says Babac.

– Of the remaining 25 crates, the Germans took four in the Ostrog monastery, eight was taken by the government, five by the General Headquarters, one was stolen, and five taken by OZNA after the war. After the Italian capitulation, the Germans seized the Yugoslav gold that was in Italy. In May 1945 American troops found it and confiscated it, but after the London Agreement returned it to Italy, and then all confiscated gold was returned to Yugoslavia on the basis of the Treaty of Peace.

After analysing the data which were obtained by the authors of the book, published by “Euro Book”, they claim that Yugoslavia after the war was returned the most gold, compared to all other European countries.

– Italy returned 8,393 kg, 2,172.87 kg was obtained from Germany, so the National Bank restituted 10,526.87 kilograms of monetary gold – say the authors.

– Not counting the gold from the London bank, about 11,000 kg, and what NBY sold for currency, about 20,000 kg, Yugoslavia had 41,666 kg of pure gold in the Federal Reserve in New York. But after the liberation, not all the gold was returned from New York.

The authors of “The Secret of the Royal Treasures”, reveal that the Americans conditioned the return of gold by paying compensation for the nationalized American property in Yugoslavia.

– Although socialist Yugoslavia reached agreements with many countries on compensation for nationalized property of their nationals in Yugoslavia, through many years of repayment instalments, the United States insisted on their enormous assessments of the nationalized estate of the Americans. It was many times larger than the socialist government assessment and amounted to 15,649.22 kilograms – explains Babac.

– The remaining 26 thousand kilograms was transported partly to Switzerland and partly to the NBY Treasury.

The governments in exile, led by General Simovic, Slobodan Jovanovic, Milos Trifunovic, Bozidar Puric and Ivan Subasic, according to the data acquired by Ognjevic and Babac, had spent about 28 million dollars. Of this money, during the war King Peter received an annual apanage of 30,000 pounds, Queen Maria 43,680, and Princes Tomislav and Andrej 12,000 pounds each.

– When monarchy was abolished in Yugoslavia, Peter II and the entire dynasty were deprived of all their rights. In the first years after the loss of the crown he lived off 40,000 pounds he received from his government and 30,000 of his savings. When these funds were exhausted in the early fifties, the king began to sell family treasures, some of which he brought out of the country – says Babac.