Europe | For whom the bell is sold

Going for a bong: the global trade in church bells

Germany once looted church bells. Now it sends them overseas

12th August 1945: Collection of some 3,000 church bells taken by the Germans from churches in Germany dumped in the docks area. A British soldier in the foreground gives a perspective on their size. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Grzegorz sonnek, the pastor in Radoszowy, a small town in south-western Poland, was surprised to get a letter from a German parish offering to send him a bronze bell. The church’s oldest parishioners still recall the day Nazi troops stole the town’s 400-year-old clanger. Now Mr Sonnek says he is planning a special mass, in October, to celebrate its homecoming.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Going for a bong”

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