[CPProt.net] East Valley man returns spoils of WWII

[Museum Security Network / Cultural Property Protection Net (Ton Cremers)]

May 4, 2005 

East Valley man returns spoils of WWII  
By John Leptich, Tribune 

Frank Ellis admits he's a thief. "I know I stole it," Ellis said. "It was
pure theft. Remorse? Hell no. I was just liberating it." Nearly 60 years
after his deed, Ellis will return May 11 to the scene of the crime. 
 
The 89-year-old retired pathologist of Scottsdale will give back a
watercolor painting he took in 1945 from a home in Stiring-Wendel, France,
that was used as a medical aid station during World War II. 

Ellis will give the painting to the family of the late Jean Egloff. Ellis
was unable to find the painter's family until a friend tracked them down
last year. 

"Everybody took whatever struck their fancy," Ellis said. "It was liberating
stuff from the Germans. Those French spoke a German dialect. They were just
as much German as they were French." 

Ellis said he's not returning his booty because what he did gnawed at him
over the years. The painting was tucked in his footlocker and forgotten,
surviving about eight moves Ellis and his family made. 

"He didn't say a lot about it when we were kids, but I saw it," said Don
Ellis, his son, from Glendale, Calif. "I didn't find out about the
significance of it until we found an association for soldiers in the 70th
Infantry Division." 

Frank Ellis thinks the Egloff family is the painting's rightful owner. 

"I don't think it's valuable, maybe to that family," Ellis said. "I didn't
take it because it had great value. I took it because of the great contrast.
It showed a church, pretty flowers, green trees and a clean street with nice
buildings. When I looked outside that house, it was pure devastation from
the war. I thought it must have been a pretty place. I said that someday
after the war I would go back and see what it was really like." 

Ellis said he has several copies of the painting and has received current
photographs of the street. "There are cars there now," he said. 

Ellis said the painting was the last of the souvenirs he "liberated" during
the war. 

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