Chopin’s Heart

Chopin’s Heart – during his final days, famed Polish composer Frédéric Chopin, with fawning Parisian women fainting all around him, he made the gruesome request that his heart be taken from his corpse and sent back to his home country, knowing full well that his body would never leave Paris. Given Chopin’s popularity in his native Poland, the monument to his heart quickly became a rallying point for proud nationalists. During World War II, the Nazis, knowing the power the composer’s legacy held over the people, stole the heart (as well as outlawing playing his music). However, after the war they gave it back. The heart was reinterred in the church and remains there to this day, undisturbed until recently. In 2014 a secret Ocean’s 11 of church officials, scientists, and medical experts dug up the heart under cover of night. As evocative as the situation sounds, the group was actually just checking the container preserving the heart as they feared it might have cracked, allowing the heart to dry out and decay. Luckily Chopin’s heart isn’t beating, but it is still in great condition.