the Amber Room

WRITER'S NOTE

In researching this novel I traveled throughout Germany, to Austria and Mauthausen concentration camp, then finally to Moscow and St. Petersburg where I spent several days at the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Of course, the primary goal of a novel is to entertain, but I also wanted to accurately inform. The subject of the Amber Room is relatively unexplored in this country, though the Internet has recently started to fill that void. In Europe, the artifact holds an endless fascination. Since I do not speak German or Russian, I was forced to rely on English-version accounts of what may or may not have happened. Unfortunately, a careful study of those reports reveals conflicts in the facts. The consistent points are presented within the course of the narrative. The inconsistent details were either disregarded or modified to suit my fictional needs.

A few specific items: Prisoners at Mauthausen were tortured in the manner depicted. However, Hermann Goring never appeared there. Goring and Hitler's personal competition for looted art is well documented, as is Goring's obsession with the Amber Room, though there is no evidence he ever attempted to actually possess it. The Soviet commission for which Karol Borya and Danya Chapaev supposedly worked was real and actively sought looted Russian art for years after the war, the Amber Room at the top of its wanted list. Some say there is, in fact, a curse of the Amber Room, as several have died (as detailed in chapter 41) in the search--whether by coincidence or conspiracy is unknown. The Harz Mountains were extensively used by the Nazis to hide plunder, and the information described in chapter 42 is accurate, including the tombs found. The town of Stod is fictional, but the location, along with the abbey that overlooks it, is based on Melk in Austria, a truly impressive place. All the stolen art detailed at various points in the story is real and remains among the missing. Finally, the speculation, history, and contradictions about what may have happened to the Amber Room noted in chapters 13, 14, 28, 41, 44, and 48, including a possible Czech connection, are based on actual reports, though my resolution of the mystery is fictional.

The Amber Room's disappearance in 1944 was a tremendous loss. At present, the room is being restored at the Catherine Palace by modern-day artisans who are laboring to re-create, panel by panel, magnificent walls crafted entirely of amber. I was fortunate to spend a few hours with the chief restorer, who showed me the difficulty of the endeavor. Luckily, the Soviets photographed the room in the late 1930s, planning on a restoration in the 1940s--but of course, war interfered. Those black-and-white images now act as a map for the re-creation of what was first fashioned more than 250 years ago.

The chief restorer also provided me with his insight into what may have happened to the original panels. He believed, as many others do (and as postulated in chapter 51), that the amber was either totally destroyed in the war or, like gold and other precious metals and jewels, the amber itself commanded the greatest market worth. It was simply found and sold off piece by piece, the sum of its parts far greater in value than the whole. Like gold, amber can be reshaped, leaving no trace of its former configuration, so it is possible that jewelry and other amber objects sold throughout the world today may contain amber from that original room.

But, who knows?

As Robert Browning was quoted saying in the narrative: Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

How true.

And how sad.