The Polish gold, weighting some 65 tons and worth some $64 million in 1938 US gold dollars was evacuated from the Bank of Poland in Warsaw as the Germans aproached according to a pre-war plan and was moved to the intended "Romanian brigdehead" in southeastern Poland. Romania had friendly relations with both France and Poland at the time, and the pre-war Polish plan was to retreat with most of its forces decently intact to the southeastern part of the country, where they could be an army in being, supplied by France through Romania akin to how the Serb army had persisted at the Salonika bridgehead in ww1. However, the rapid collapse of the Polish armies, the failure of the Bzura Counterattack and the Soviet attack made this plan impossible to carry out. Instead what little the Poles could gather in the southeast, along with what remained of the air force (many of the pilots would make their way to France and then to Brtain) and the gold retreated into Romania.

The gold was moved to the French Levant and from there onward to France. The Polish government in exile was by all relevant parties acknowledged as the legal owner of this gold. On the 22nd of May 1940 the Poles asked the gold to be released since they wanted to transport it to USA and Canada for safekeeping. However, the French auxiliary cruiser Victor Schoelcher that had loaded the Polish gold was re-directed to Dakar. The Polish gold ended up with the French and Belgian gold in Dakar in French West Africa.

No-one told the Germans though (despite informing them of the French and Belgian gold), and it was not until September 1940 that they learned that the Polish gold was in French West Africa.

From now on a long wrangle between Vichy France and Germany ensued. The Germans demanded that the Bank of Poland existed and the gold should be turned over to it (ie into German control) while the Vichy government surprisingly denied that the Bank of Poland existed and did claim that the gold belonged to the Polish government in exile in London, or alternatively, to France for outstanding payments and debts from Poland to France.

It seems the Germans were not inclined to push the Vichy French too much over the issue - perhaps Vichy cooperation over the Belgian gold (worth some $269 million in 1938 gold dollars) was more important to the Germans.

The Germans did manage to get the Vichy to agree to ship the gold to France in late Summer 1942, however, by the time the Germans had arranged transport planes to lift the gold from Kayes (400km east of Dakar, where it had been moved just before the British attack on Dakar in 1940), Operation Torch was well underway. The Free French, now in control of French West Africa, agreed to release the gold to the Polish government in exile, which promptly had it shipped to New York.

The gold was not turned over to the new communist Polish government in 1945 but remained under control of the Polish government in exile until 1990 when it dissolved itself. However, most of it had been spent during the war to settle Polish debts and cover the costs of the Polish government in exile. How much still existed 1945 I am unable to find information on.