[MSN] Government-backed company claims all Nazi loot from museums

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Government-backed company claims all Nazi loot from museums

If heirs cannot be found, the intention is to sell the works with 
proceeds going to Holocaust survivors

By Lauren Gelfond Feldinger | Posted 18 April 2007
JERUSALEM. An Israeli Holocaust restitutions com­pany is asking museums 
in Israel to hand over all unclaimed Nazi-looted art and objects held in 
their collections, starting with the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Since 1951, Israeli museums have held unclaimed works of art seized from 
European Jews by the Nazis.

But survivors of the Holocaust and heirs of Nazi victims still do not 
know the full extent of works held in Israeli institutions, says Avraham 
Roet, the director of the Company to Locate and Return Assets to 
Holocaust Survivors. “It’s been 60 years; survivors are dying daily, how 
much longer can they fight [for the recovery of their property]?” asks 
Mr Roet, himself a Holocaust survivor.

Since the assets recovery company was launched in November, it has 
focused on recovering land and money held by Israeli institutions but is 
now also focusing on the restitution of art and objects.

Mr Roet says that once he is in possession of works handed over by 
Israeli museums, his company is legally entitled to sell these to raise 
money for Holocaust survivors, if original owners or heirs cannot be 
found. Financed by government loans, the assets recovery company is 
expected to repay the loans in full using up to two percent of recovered 
assets, though it opposed this arrangement.

Israel Museum officials in Jerusalem say they were surprised to receive 
a letter from the assets recovery company a few weeks ago, demanding 
every unclaimed Holocaust-era object and work of art. “We are now 
studying the legislation,” says museum director James Snyder. He argues 
that no organisation can preserve, exhibit and publish works of art 
better than a museum.

Since its founding in 1965, the Israel Museum has held some 550 
paintings, drawings and prints, and several hundred Judaica objects 
looted by the Nazis from European Jews. These were shipped to Israel in 
the early 1950s by the Jewish Restitutions Successor Organizations 
(JRSO), an umbrella organisation consisting of American, European and 
mandatory-Palestine Jewish associations. The JRSO was named custodian of 
unclaimed Nazi-looted properties at the 1946 Paris Reparations Conference.

Two hundred of the JRSO paintings and drawings at the Israel Museum were 
originally in the collection of the Berlin Jewish Museum, destroyed 
during the war, though the Israel Museum has placed many of these on 
long-term loan to the new Jewish museum in Berlin, designed by Daniel 
Libeskind.

Of the Israel Museum’s additional 350 Nazi-looted works of art with no 
ownership records, the most important and best preserved paintings are 
either on display or on loan, including Egon Schiele’s Krumau-Crescent 
of Houses, 1915, and Marc Chagall’s Praying Jew, 1914. Fifty of the JRSO 
Judaica items are currently on display. According to the museum, most 
works that are currently in storage arrived in poor condition and are of 
little art historical value.

“It’s important for us to continue to hold these works. Museums are 
appropriate venues for such custodianships, and in this case we were 
charged to be custodians,” says Mr Snyder. “JRSO made a point of 
distributing cultural property with no prior ownership records to be 
held for the public good. The Egon Schiele, for example, belongs in a 
museum setting—especially in Israel—where it can be appreciated by the 
public.”

According to the Israel Museum, the arrival of the JRSO works in Israel 
was publicised at the time and resulted in the restitution of some 
works. To date, the museum has returned some 20 JRSO works to heirs of 
Nazi victims.

The museum has also returned two works it had not received from JRSO: an 
1897 Pissarro painting and an 1898 Degas drawing.

Because of an Israeli law enacted in January 2006 to create the assets 
company, Mr Roet believes that the JRSO mandate has now been superseded 
and the Israel Museum must list and display all works which could be 
claimed by Holocaust survivors or their heirs regardless of the works’ 
value or condition before handing them over.

Last month officials from the company and the Israel Museum met for the 
first time. The museum is continuing to catalogue its JRSO material, 
anticipating publication, and will share this information with the 
company, which will also make it public, says Mr Snyder.

A company official says that an inventory of the works in the Israel 
Museum would only be “a first step”.

http://www.theartnewspaper.com