[paganel]

> No surprise there. So it was their wealth, not gold per se, that made their move safer and restarting easier.

If you're wealthy but cannot easily carry said wealth with you across borders or conflict lines or hide it from a kleptocratic Government then there's not that much that you can do.

Case in point, the high middle classes from my Eastern-European country, who after WW2 were wiped clean by the Government in just a couple of years, the result of industry and real estate nationalizations, combined with a forced revaluation of paper money. Holding gold could have protected one against all this, at least partially.