Re-displaying jewelry stolen from Dresden museum in 2019 heist: NPR

Jewels at the center of a multi-million dollar heist in 2019 — and recovered years later — have returned to display at the German museum from which they were stolen.

The Grüne Gewölbe, or Green Vault, museum in Dresden, Germany, announced this week that its exhibition of historical gems and other artifacts will reopen to the public “in almost all its glory.”

Marion Ackermann, Director General of the State Art Collections in Dresden, said: In a statement Translated from German, the regional court allowed the recovered items to be sent to the museum for display.

The jewelry is presented exactly as it was returned to [Dresden State Art Collections] “With barely visible damage, although restoration is needed,” Ackermann said.

Saxony’s state premier Michael Kretschmer said it was a “good day” for the German state in the eastern part of the country bordering Poland and the Czech Republic.

Some of the recovered jewelry was on display in a display case at the Green Vault on Tuesday.

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“In 2019, criminal gangs from Berlin seized our cultural heritage,” Kretschmer said in German. In a post on X“But we fought for our treasure!”

Located in the Royal Palace in Dresden, the Green Vault began as a project for house Precious metals, decorative arts and other objects collected by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and later King of Poland, between 1723 and 1729.

The brazen heist five years ago shocked the German public and sparked a massive hunt for stolen jewelry and antiques worth $123 million. – As well as those responsible for kidnapping them during the night raid.

authorities He said at that time Surveillance video shows two thieves entering the museum’s jewelry room and smashing through display cases with what appears to be a small axe.

The suspects managed to escape with a collection of valuable historical items, including a diamond-encrusted breastplate of the Polish Order of the White Eagle and a diamond-covered sword.

These two pieces were among a portion of the stolen items. It has been recovered. In Berlin by German law enforcement authorities in late 2022.

The whereabouts of other treasures remain unknown, such as Queen Amalie Auguste’s large chest bow, made of 611 small diamonds in silver and gold, and an epaulette featuring so-called Saxon white diamonds.

The Green Vault Museum in Dresden has reopened, with some of the stolen jewels on display. Other pieces are still missing.

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Last year, five men They were sentenced. The defendants were sentenced to several years in prison for their involvement in the robbery, and admitted to setting fire to a nearby circuit breaker panel to cut off power to the area and using a hydraulic cutting machine to break into the museum.

The men belong to the so-called “Remo clan,” a family crime network with Arab roots operating in Germany and linked to other robberies in the past.

Ackermann said an international committee of experts will meet to discuss how to recover the recovered jewelry.

“The collection of Baroque jewelry in the Jewelry Room is unique in the world,” Ackermann said, adding that museum officials “have not lost hope that they will one day be able to display the remaining jewelry here in the Green Vault.”