Rescuing Dresden's Cultural Treasures

As the clouds parted over central Europe on Thursday and the relentless rains gave way to summer sunshine, workers throughout the region were scrambling to save precious cultural treasures from rising flood waters.

In the baroque city of Dresden, government officials and volunteers worked into the night by candlelight at the Dresden Zwinger to carry paintings, porcelain and other historical objects to safety.

The flooding hit much of central and eastern Europe in the past days, leading to at least 85 deaths from the Baltic to the Black Sea and to billions of euros worth of damage to crops, buildings and infrastructure.

“When I came to work on Tuesday morning, no one realized that the situation would become so dramatic,” Helga Puhlmann, spokeswoman for the city’s art collection told the Berliner Zeitung. “Then suddenly, things got very serious.”

Home of the "Sistine Madonna"

Dresden’s Zwinger, a baroque palace, houses a porcelain collection, the collection of the Mathematical-Physical Salon, the Armoury Museum and most importantly, the Old Masters art museum whose showpiece is Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna” and whose collection includes many prominent works by Veronese, Tintoretto, Correggio and Annibale Carracci. It also houses paintings by van Dyck, Vermeer, Dürer and Rembrandt among others.

By Thursday, more than 4,000 paintings had been moved from basement storage rooms to safety on the upper floors.

Ground floor offices in the building – the most.famous late-Baroque structure in Germany – were evacuated. The Zwinger, whose name comes from a technical term from fortification design, was commissioned by August the Strong, elector of Saxony and also king of Poland and was modeled after Versailles.

The first sections of the Zwinger were completed in 1718, the product of cooperation between the architect Daniel Pöppelmann and the sculptor Balthasar Permoser.

Zwinger was in ruins after World War II

Like much of Dresden, the Zwinger was left in ruins after heavy American and British bombing at the end of World War II. It was partially reconstructed by the East German government prior to 1989, and reconstruction efforts continued after German reunification.

Next door at the city’s nearly restored Semper Opera, firefighters were pumping floodwater from the basement in an effort to prevent further damage. And workers at the city’s beloved Frauenkirche (Women’s Church), in the midst of a massive reconstruction project, were also feverishly pumping water, trying to prevent the basement flooding from moving upwards.

Experts warned, however, that flooding along the Elbe River could grow worse as the torrents of the flooded Czech Vltava River pour into the Elbe.

Flooding eases in Prague after 200,000 evacuated

The Vltava River jumped its banks in Prague on Tuesday, and the swollen waters forced what Czech officials said was the largest evacuation effort since World War II. More than 200,000 people have been moved from their homes this week.

By midday Thursday, officials said that the worst of the flooding in Prague was over and that the water level was beginning to drop.

The Czech capital is normally packed with tourists at this time of the year. A typical visit includes stops at the Old Town Square, which features the city’s famous 15th Century Astronomical Clock that stages a puppet showlike production when it chimes every hour; the Jewish Quarter, which houses some of Europe’s oldest synagogues and a historical Jewish cemetery; and the 14th Century Charles Bridge.

But on Wednesday and Thursday, the city’s historic downtown was nearly empty.

Czech officials said the old town area appeared to have escaped severe damaage.

Czech Deputy Culture Minister Zdenek Novak told Reuters: "There's a lot we can't see right now because things are still under water. We hope we don't lose anything, but at this point, we just don't know."

Officials of the Prague Zoo, meanwhile, were searching for a seal that swam to freedom when the floodwaters made their way to the zoo. Earlier, an elephant and a hippopotamus had to be killed after flooding reached the zoo.

The elephant became trapped in a flooded enclosure and officials said the animal could not be rescued. The hippo escaped from its cage and became so aggressive that zookeepers decided to put it down.