
A man looks at a poster reading "Census of Jews" displayed
in an exhibition at the Shoah Memorial in Paris, Feb. 12. The
French state prepares to give back seven stolen Nazi-era paintings - four of which
are in the Louvre - to two Jewish families,
after a decade-long tug of war. It ends years of struggle for the two families,
whose claims were all validated by the French prime minister last year. (AP
Photo/Jacques Brinon)
The French government has
announced that seven paintings seized by the Nazis from Jewish collectors and
art dealers in France during World War II are to be returned to their
rightful owners.
Three of the paintings are kept in the illustrious Louvre, while four others hang in French
national museums.
They were part of a massive
haul of 100,000 art works stolen in France by occupying Nazi forces during WWII at the behest of leader and failed art student Adolf Hitler.
The return of the paintings
marks welcome progress in a decades-long battle waged by the descendants of the
Jewish owners whose collections were plundered during the occupation.
The French government
recovered about 60,000 art works following the war, of which about 45,000 were
returned to their rightful owners, and another 10,000 were sold on the open
market. But at the time, ownership of the balance could not be traced – many of
the owners had perished in the Holocaust – and the search for their descendants
effectively ceased in 1950.
But Puerto Rican journalist and
author Hector Feliciano ignited an explosive debate in France in 1995 with the
publication of his book, “The Lost Museum,” in which he listed the looted art
then hanging in French museums and accused the government of not doing enough
to track the art works’ proper inheritors.
The French government had “stonewalled” Feliciano's research at the time and he was forced to turn to U.S.
archives to complete his book.
The French government finally
relented and staged an exhibition of more than 1,000 of 2,058 pieces then housed
in its national collections.
Six of the seven paintings to be returned –
all 17th and18th century works with religious themes –
will be returned to 82-year-old American Thomas Selldorf, a grandson of businessman
and art collector Richard Neumann, who first fled Vienna for Paris, then Spain,
before finally landing in Cuba.
The other painting by Dutch
artist Pieter Jansz van Asch will go back to the family of Czech banker Josef
Wiener who died en route to a Nazi concentration camp in 1942.
The London Times today reports that British officials say they are ready to accept new claims for looted art in its collections. Arts Council England’s senior policy adviser
Gerry McQuillan said a British panel had already returned seven looted paintings since
2001.
Elsewhere around the world descendants of the rightful owners continue their pursuit.
Bill
Schiller has
held bureau postings for the Toronto Star in Johannesburg, Berlin,
London and Beijing. He is a NNA and Amnesty International Award
winner, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow from the class of '06. Follow him
on Twitter @wschiller
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