An old map believed to show where German soldiers hid millions of dollars worth of treasure during World War II sparked the imaginations of amateur treasure hunters in the Netherlands this week, Reuters reports.

Armed with metal detectors and shovels, enthusiasts broke into small groups to roam the fields around Ommeren, an eastern Dutch village of about 400 people, after the country’s National Archives published a map on Tuesday.

Officials of the institution said that it probably indicates where the Nazi soldiers hid 4 large boxes of diamonds, rubies, gold, silver and all kinds of jewelry that were stolen after the explosion at the bank in August 1944. .

The map was obtained by the National Archives of the Netherlands from a German soldier shortly after the war, and the institution was tasked with identifying German assets in the country after its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1945.

Nazi treasure map published three quarters of a century later

The file containing the map was released this week after the maximum 75-year period it could have been kept secret expired.

Although the existence of the treasure has never been fully confirmed, the institute made several unsuccessful attempts to find it in 1947.

“We don’t know for sure if the treasure existed. But the institute has carried out numerous checks and found this story to be reliable,” Anne-Marike Samson, spokeswoman for the Dutch National Archives, told Reuters.

But Samson says it’s possible that, if the treasure was indeed real, it was discovered shortly after the war, before the Dutch agency began its own investigation.

But the low probability of discovering valuable things did not stop modern amateur “archaeologists”.

People from all over Holland came to look for treasures

“I see groups of people with metal detectors everywhere. Like many others, the news of the treasure made me look for it,” Jan Hensen, 57, told Reuters during a break in the search.

“I think the probability that the treasure will still be here in 70 years is very small, but I want to try,” he added.

Klaas Tammes, the former mayor of the village of Ommeren, who now heads the foundation on whose land the treasure is supposed to be, says he has seen people from all over the Netherlands come to the site to try to find it.

“A map with lines of trees and a red cross marking where the treasure should be hidden excites the imagination. But whoever finds something should let us know, so we’ll see. But I wouldn’t expect it to be easy,” he told Reuters.