tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59181549588564025532024-03-16T14:50:20.205-04:00plundered arta perspective from the Holocaust Art Restitution Projectplundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comBlogger400125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-16165548406612974922024-02-04T09:04:00.000-05:002024-02-04T09:04:45.903-05:00Raging against the machine on a Sunday morning at the café<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />A Parisian curator once said about the Vichy regime: It was the revenge of good taste. You could apply this statement to Nazi cultural policy from 1933 to 1945. Restoring good taste in a society corrupted by Jews, Freemasons, Bolsheviks and sexual perverts, according to Nazi propaganda. La revanche du goût. The leitmotiv for State-sponsored plunder of art objects from collectors and dealers mainly of Jewish origin. This plunder lasted for 12 years and stretched throughout Europe, going hand in hand with persecution, racial extermination, and world war.<br /><br />Why are we still talking about looted art today? Because there really was no justice at the end of WWII for the vast majority of victims of cultural plunder.<br /><br />Why was there no justice at war’s end? Because the emphasis of restitution was on “cultural treasures”, on those art objects that reflected “good taste” and the cultural heritage of the despoiled nations at the hands of the Nazis and their local collaborators. Who owned those items, those “treasures”? The elite vicims of Nazism. All told, 5 to 10 per cent of the population of victims. What happened to the rest? They either received a check in the mail or their claims were never honored. Simple. It was not worth the effort of postwar governments, then and now, to search for their works of art because they did not rise to the standard of “treasure.” Who was in charge of the investigations? Curators, directors of museums, art historians, culture ministry officials, even art market players. Those responsible for shaping the cultural sphere of postwar societies.<br /><br />What does that tell us about justice following a genocide?<br /><br />If your art did not rise to the esthetic standard set by the government and the leadership of the art world and cultural institutions, it would never be recovered and instead would recirculate in the private art market with no chance for you to recover your family’s treasures.<br /><br />The law protects the current possessor. No law has ever been passed to treat victims of genocidal plunder with respect. There are no laws today that allow victims to recover their property. As it turns out, government officials and museum professionals are beholden to collectors and private art market operators. They refuse to take actions against them that might disrupt the free flow of art within and across borders.<br /><br />What does this tell us? Theft of art in the context of mass killings and genocide pays for itself. Restitution policies are shaped by perceptions of art and belie governments and elites’ obsession with what they perceive to be “high art” as the highest form of expression of who we are as “civilized” human beings. What really is an art “treasure” ? To date, no one can actually come up with an answer to that question.<br /><br />Art ownership is forever transformed by acts of plunder and genocide. The demand for restitution clashes with dominant ideas about the value and meaning of art in society, especially for those who have been given the power to shape the esthetics of our society. Woe on those who dared own art objects that did not fit the ruling definition of acceptable art which was then plundered and becomes forever lost in the maelstrom of the global art market for others to enjoy at the expense of the victims. We can legitimately posit that the global art market has been contaminated since the late 1930s with looted, unrestituted art,, coming from both Europe and the Far East.<br /><br />Can we then deduce that the art world tolerates plunder in the name of beauty and its possession? Perhaps, because, more than 30 billion of euros worth of unprovenanced art changed hands without anyone worrying whether it was stolen or not.<br /><br />We need to ask ourselves, therefore. Why do we behave in this manner with art? Why do we tolerate the worst excesses and abuses in order to own, view, and enjoy art objects?<br /><br />What is so complicated about the physical return of a stolen object to its rightful owner? Why does that very act generate so much passion, so much venom especially from the irate current possessor who feels more victimized than a survivor of genocide and victim of cultural plunder?<br /><br />Is it a symptom of irrepressible narcissistic behavior that seems to pervade today’s elites?<br /><br />What is it about art that it can generate so much irrationality amongst those who own it, those who curate it, those who steward it? Why does their ethical compass go haywire in the presence of an object that they covet, even if it origins clearly betray acts of illicit transfers of ownership due to conflicts, social upheavals, international conflagrations or outright acts of genocide?<br /><br />WHY?<br /><br />Why do governments do nothing to set examples and enforce ethical behavior in the art world?<br /><br />Thou shall not possess, display, or trade in stolen art. That should be the mantra and yet it is rarely applied.plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-54898491508451393282023-11-12T16:11:00.000-05:002023-11-12T16:11:02.734-05:00Revisiting the numbers gameby Marc Masurovsky<br /><br /> Since 2011, the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) has periodically addressed the problematic of quantifying the thefts of art works, art objects, and other items of esthetic value, looted between 1933 and 1945 under National Socialist rule, during WWII and the Holocaust. After the conflict, there was no internationally-sanctioned and organized audit of cultural losses suffered by the victims of National Socialist and Fascist aggression on the European continent. Therefore, experts and amateurs alike have wallowed in the murky waters of estimations of human and material losses from 1945 to the present.<br /><br />Regarding the scale of human losses, the international community accepts that between 45 and 55 million men, women, and children lost their lives as a direct and indirect result of the continental conflagration between September 1, 1939, and May 8, 1945. That figure includes the six million Jews targeted for physical extermination by the Nazi government. The continental theater of operations included 15 European countries (and North Africa) which were directly involved either as a result of being militarily occupied by Axis powers, annexed by Nazi Germany, or allied to the Axis: Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Soviet Union, North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia). <br /><br />Wherever the German Army and the Nazi political and security apparatus went, there followed intense repression, the physical eradication of local populations accompanied by systematic, State-sponsored acts of plunder and illicit displacement of individual and communal properties. <br /><br />By the time Nazi Germany agreed to terms of unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945, the Allies had realized that “art treasures” (museum-quality objects) were systematically looted across Axis-controlled Europe, stored away in gigantic depots or sold on the international art market to replenish the Reich’s warmongering coffers. Allied focus on “art plunder” went hand in hand with “rescuing the treasures of Europe” and returning them to the countries from which they had been forcibly removed. In and of itself, this task was barely manageable, but if you factored in “everything else” that was stolen, the task was simply unmanageable and would have required several decades of full-time focus by myriad specialists from the victorious nations to sort out what had been stolen by 1945, what was recovered, and what was still missing as of Victory-Day (V-E-Day).<br /><br />The ex-Soviets always wanted to do things their own way, which, if you look back at the consequences of WWII on the Soviet Union’s infrastructure, human and industrial capital and cultural infrastructure, you might understand some of their reasoning. Their losses for the period of 1941-1945 are estimated in the millions. One snapshot of these staggering figures can be best summed up by their estimation of museum losses: 1,129,929 units of conservation comprising objects, rare books, manuscripts, as well as archival collections.<a href="https://lostart.ru/fr/svodnyj_katalog/">https://lostart.ru/fr/svodnyj_katalog/</a><br /><br />Some more elliptical estimates suggest that <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/records-and-research/documenting-nazi-plunder-of-european-art.html">20% of European art</a> was plundered “from Jewish collectors and other individuals and organizations.” We don’t know what 100% amounts to, which would represent the universe of “stealable” European art. Hence, the 20% ratio seems a bit vapid and lacking substance. <br /><br /><i>We still don’t really know…</i><br /><br />In the media-hungry and attention-starved world that we all bask in, there has developed an insatiable appetite to provide numbers that explain the true extent of the plunder and what is still missing. These valiant self-interested pronouncements do not usually come from historians and experts who, for professional reasons, are reluctant to venture in such murky and troubled waters. They emanate from politicians, international personalities, media hounds, and anyone seeking attention for not more than 3 minutes but whose pronouncements will live on forever as random digital factoids on the Internet which end up restated and reposted blindly and thoughtlessly. Repeated enough times, they are <b>true.</b> Fact-checking, go take a hike!<br /><br /><i>So, what’s the problem exactly?</i><br /><br />In November-December 1998, an international conference dubbed the Washington Conference on Holocaust-era Assets took place in Washington, DC. It brought together under one roof 44 nations and a smattering of NGOs to assess where we were with respect to honoring postwar claims for compensation and restitution submitted by Holocaust victims’ families to the governments of their adopted countries and against the main architects and perpetrators of the horrors unleashed upon them and their families—Germany and its allies. Although the results of the Washington Conference were mixed, a set of eleven principles was released on its last day to guide the art market and governments on how to address the possibility that looted art objects may have entered public collections and businesses and how to resolve these claims to everyone’s satisfaction (one would only hope…). These principles avoided mentioning anything about the private art market and—in true diplomatic verbiage—kept the notion of plunder at its vaguest and limited the main perpetrators to “the Nazis.”<br /><br />Ronald Lauder, who, at the time of the December 1998 Washington Conference, was Chairman of the Board of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the chairman of the recently-established Commission for Art Recovery (CAR), proclaimed that <a href=" https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/assets/heac4.pdf#page=27">110,000 art works were still missing</a>, half of the total number that was allegedly stolen (or 220,000)-- a figure advanced without a hint of critical insight as to its veracity and on what facts it rested. He also placed a value on the missing works: <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2022/698872/EPRS_BRI(2022)698872_FR.pdf">10-30 billion dollars (1998 value).</a> This would assign an approximate value per object of 100,000 dollars, give or take 50,000. The average value of art objects looted from Jewish owners could be estimated grossly at between 5 and 10,000 dollars (1998) and that is still an uneducated guess. Only 5 to 15%--again, uninformed guesses based on years spent reviewing restitution claims and Nazi inventories of stolen property—reached or exceeded the values hypothetized by Mr. Lauder.<br /><br /><div>Mr. Lauder's estimates pale against those proffered by the<a href="http://surfacefragments.blogspot.com/2011/05/art-belongs-to-humanity-looted-nazi-art.html"> Polish government.</a> They estimate that their battered nation alone lost 600,000 works of art, many of which remain unrecovered. <br /><br />Since 1998, the London-based Art Loss Register (ALR), one of the most important proprietary (privately-owned) databases of stolen art in existence today, proffered an estimate of <a href="https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/a-famous-masterpiece-looted.html">200,000 stolen works of art</a>, and even averred that 170,000 had been recovered and therefore that would leave only 30,000 still gallavanting about and waiting to be plucked for a handsome finder’s fee. These figures are astounding for several reasons: 1/ they are unjustified and unverifiable; and 2/ they presume a rate of restitution of more than 85%! A rather extraordinary feat which, it too, is surreally wrong. Of course I invite you all to fact-check this and contact ALR directly to verify or infirm the above. <br /><br /><b>600,000 art objects stolen, 100,000 still missing</b><br /><br />This formula, backed up by no scientific research or historical documentation, has been the most popular mantra proffered by government officials, reporters, and restitution lawyers.<br /><br />The most notable proponent of this statistic is Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, currently Special Advisor on Holocaust Affairs to the US Secretary of State and an internationally-recognized authority on the diplomacy of reparations for Holocaust victims. He first posited (as far as we can tell) these figures at an international conference held in Prague (Czechia) in June 2009. Mr. Eizenstat repeated those figures as recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/arts/design/five-countries-slow-to-address-nazi-looted-art-us-expert-says.html">as 2018</a> which were reported in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-trade-in-or-possess-art-stolen-by-the-nazis/2019/01/02/01990232-0ed3-11e9-831f-3aa2c2be4cbd_story.html">2019 by the Washington Post.</a> <br /><br />These figures have also been repeated in the following media outlets:</div><div>-<a href="https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-mystery-of-the-amber-room-the-worlds-greatest-lost-treasure">history.co.uk, </a><br /><a href="https://time.com/5553894/nazi-looted-painting-returned/">-Time Magazine,</a> <br /><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nazi-looted-paintings-new-york-museums-180980587/">-the Smithsonian Magazine in 2022,</a> <br /><a href="https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/a-race-against-time_swiss-urged-to-provide-missing-links-to-nazi-looted-art/37087348">-Swissinfo.ch</a><br /><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/nazi-looted-art-why-are-restitutions-still-the-exception/a-46507241">-Deutsche Welle</a><br />The DW article contradicts itself when, in the same breath, it posits that 5 million artworks changed hands illegally. Which is it?<br /><a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nazi-art-restitution-20181213-story.html">-The LA Times,</a> whose editorial board actually wondered whether the estimates might be much higher.<br /><a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/05/02/719367874/jewish-family-loses-legal-battle-to-recover-painting-stolen-by-nazis">-National Public Radio</a><br />-and, of course, t<a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/germany/">he US Department of State</a><br /><br />Other far-flung estimates include:<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/usergallery/OQKCByqsin4_Jg">-30,000</a> looted art works are still missing<br /><a href="https://historycollection.com/10-pieces-art-stolen-nazis-still-missing-today/">-10,000</a> works are still missing<br /><br />How do we stop the misrepresentation of one of the most heinous crimes committed against culture, against humanity as part of a genocide of the Jewish people?</div><div><br /></div><div>When someone asks you how many objects were looted during the Nazi years (1933-1945), </div><div>1/ you do not to provide an accurate figure because there is none. </div><div>2/ You do not know how many objects have been recovered, </div><div>3/ you do not how many have been restituted, and how many are still missing, regardless of style, value, and importance to art world denizens. </div><div>4/ you must err on the side of caution and state in all seriousness:<b> between six and ten million.</b></div><div><br />For more clarifications, see:<br /><br />30 May 2011<br /><a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2011/05/analysis-of-address-by-ambassador.html">Analysis of an address by Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat at Prague in June 2009</a></div><div>21 April 2015</div><div><a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-illusion-of-numbers.html">The illusion of numbers</a><br />10 May 2015</div><div><a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-day-after.html">The day after...</a><br />23 May 2018</div><div><a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2018/05/some-frequently-asked-questions.html">Some frequently asked questions</a><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-22976260547263764412023-10-26T10:06:00.002-04:002023-10-26T10:06:53.083-04:00The monetization of recovered Jewish assets<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br /><div>The idea is not new and evolved at the end of WWII, when Allied forces and local resistance and partisan units stumbled on mountains of looted Jewish property, consisting of household goods, decorative objects (including furniture and textiles), musical instruments, libraries, works of art (paintings, works on paper, sculpture, etc.), precious stones and jewelry, precious metals, and financial instruments.<br /><br />These recoveries across Central and Western Europe created an urgent need to identify who the despoiled owners were, find out if they were alive, if family members and relatives could be identified and located to claim the property. This part of the story is well-known as it involves civilian and military efforts to oversee the collection, identification, and repatriation of this found property with a view to its restitution to rightful owners. These procedures were mostly carried out in zones of Europe not occupied or dominated by Soviet military and civilian authorities.<br /><br />The burdensome aspect of the mission as outlined above soon proved to be too much for the agencies responsible for overseeing this massive task of identification, cataloguing and shipping of recovered Jewish property. In order to make this problem go away, why not sell it all off? The question was reasonable in light of the chaos and confusion reigning in recently-liberated European countries, the desire of survivors to get on with their lives, and the need for governments to rehabilitate their destroyed nations and stimulate the economy by whatever means possible.<br /><br />If one were to sell off this property, who would administer the process? Who would receive the funds? In what capacity? The answer was fairly simple: if the property was known to have come from Jewish owners, whether or not they could be identified, then Jewish organizations would oversee the sale of these assets and redistribute the proceeds to those who needed the funds most—survivors and their families who were dispossessed of everything that they owned. <br /><br />The monetization of looted Jewish property recovered by Allied forces started in earnest in mid-1946 after the Paris Reparations Conference where Jewish organizations and agencies would oversee the disposition of recovered Jewish property for the benefit of surviving Jewish communities and their members. It was one thing to sell household goods, clothes, linens, furniture, musical instruments with no apparent artistic value, books and jewelry. But what about works of art and artistic objects with market value that belonged to collectors, dealers and businesses steeped in the art world of the interwar years? Should they be treated as bulk items regardless of who owned them and what importance or value they held? For efficiency’s sake, it was cost-effective to presume the owners dead, which eliminated the onerous and time-consuming task of actually finding them so they could collect their recovered property. <br /><br />Governments got in on the act, especially in Western Europe—the Netherlands, Belgium, and France—where public sales were held from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s during which more than 100,000 works of art and objects were sold off, a number of which were traceable to victims of Nazi persecution. Local government officials sometimes concocted elaborate schemes by which to divert thousands of works of art from Allied-run depots under the pretext that their owners had not been identified, label them as “heirless property” and sell them through a network of auction houses and businesses in Europe and the United States, the proceeds of which would benefit the organizations and individuals overseeing this effort as well as local public agencies and the victims’ heirs and relatives. The architect of one such a scheme, denounced by the US Department of State, was Dr. Philip Auerbach, a Bavarian official whose portfolio included reparations and restitution of looted Jewish property.<br /><br />Since then, the physical restitution of individual art objects to their rightful owners has coexisted somewhat uncomfortably with the pressure exerted by Jewish groups to treat these objects as “wholesale items” to be disposed of expeditiously for the benefit of Holocaust survivors and their kin.<br /><br />Over time, this duality in treatment of recovered Jewish property looted by the Nazis has shaped the cross-generational debate on restitution of looted art vs. reparations. The end result of this duality has been a general indifference across Jewish communities towards repeated efforts by individuals and entities to recover their looted cultural property once it was identified in a particular location. Since the 1950s, the absence of support and lack of empathy towards individual claimants seeking the return of their looted art has been nothing short of astounding. <br /><br />One can only speculate that unsuccessful claims filed against current possessors of looted Jewish cultural property might have had more positive outcomes had Jewish groups and communities lent their active and vocal support to these claimants as part of a general movement to seek justice and closure for crimes committed against Jews during the Nazi era. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-24456931296850878912023-10-14T17:03:00.000-04:002023-10-14T17:03:01.907-04:00865 kilos of art flown into Barcelona<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGYLDpu0fC4EAASgqtbztccYv4mMuR8EqS2aR_e3bDc9-gw-loKLyBxDfCbK9z5KKhAnybaXkKrBq9CEl6BpLuuBKAtSc7OZLrugExdTKhfhD68ARx1bCvV_AFAvcMDSxAv23QLBNMC1993jBHmJwW9hepmK6uEPel-Bmd_frpP7Ua_Dph1ExP1SJqdOg/s3833/Spain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3833" data-original-width="3016" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGYLDpu0fC4EAASgqtbztccYv4mMuR8EqS2aR_e3bDc9-gw-loKLyBxDfCbK9z5KKhAnybaXkKrBq9CEl6BpLuuBKAtSc7OZLrugExdTKhfhD68ARx1bCvV_AFAvcMDSxAv23QLBNMC1993jBHmJwW9hepmK6uEPel-Bmd_frpP7Ua_Dph1ExP1SJqdOg/s320/Spain.jpg" width="252" /></a></div><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />There are historical documents that tend to capture the imagination and leave us dangling for answers and solutions. However, archives can be fickle, in that they are structured like labyrinths of clues, false leads, erroneous analyses and deductions, amongst which one finds pure gems. You just have to endure the pain of hitting your head against a brick wall one too many times until, at the last minute, when you are ready to throw in the towel, you read a document with a throw-away sentence or paragraph on page 20 and you have that aha moment. Yes!<br /><br />Nothing like that has occurred so far—no aha moment—with the contents of a very strange headless document, unsigned and hiding in plain sight (others have already read it, but they seemed unable to digest it in any meaningful way!). This 11-sentence long document was drafted on 19 March 1945, with a handwritten indication that the intelligence actually dates to the period of 16-28 February 1945.<br /><br /><div>It speaks of<a href="https://www.fold3.com/image/270257149"> 865 kilos or 1907 pounds</a> (a truckload) of “objets d’art and pictures which have recently arrived in Barcelona on the Lufthansa airline in two consignments. The rest of the cargo was destined for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid courtesy of the Spanish Ambassador to Berlin, Ginès Vidal y Saura.<br /><br />Apparently, another plane flew in carrying “5 crates of religious objets d’art” which were “consigned to the German Embassy in Madrid, courtesy of the German Reich." When the rats abandon ship, they usually take their loot with them or whatever they can grab at the last minute and leave Dodge City, in this case, Berlin, en route to “freedom” in Franco Spain.<br /><br />This very brief raw intelligence note was tucked into a folder of the Roberts Commission (Record Group 239) regarding goings-on in Spain during WWII. The Roberts Commission collected raw information from US, British and other Allied agencies about the illicit movement of art works and objects as well as their handlers across Axis-occupied Europe flowing into so-called “neutral countries” like Spain and perhaps even ending up in the United States.<br /><br />The preceding document was a report dated 20 August 1945 from the Art Unit of OSS to a member of the Blockade Division at the Foreign Economic Administration regarding art smuggling “in the Iberian peninsula.” The following document was handwritten by <a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/rousseau-lt-theodore-jr">Theodore (Ted) Rousseau, Jr. (1912-1973)</a>, one of the key members of the <a href="https://dfs.ny.gov/consumers/holocaust_claims/the_allies/roberts_commission ">MFA&A squad </a>in Western Europe. His jottings pertained to Lufthansa cargo flights landing in Barcelona in February 1945. One of them—<a href="https://www.fold3.com/image/270257152">dated 10 February 1945</a>—contained unknown cargo. The others were filled with mail, newspapers and spare parts for Lufthansa planes. <br /><br />And that’s it.<br /><br /></div><div>In order to confirm if this document related to an authentic, verifiable event, one would have to follow the trail in the bowels of the records of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services/Record Group 226) for Spain in 1945 and a deeper dive into the Roberts Commission records (Record Group 239) since not all of its records were digitized. There’s no other way. That requires a series of trips to the National Archives, College Park MD, where the OSS records and those of the Roberts Commission are kept.</div><div><br />If the document relates to an actual verifiable event, the prospect of nearly 1 ton of works and objects of art arriving in Barcelona in February 1945 is a symbolic reflection of the extent to which Franco Spain was used as a transit or destination point for looted art coming in from all over Europe.<br /><br />Happy hunting!<br /><br /><b>Other relevant digital sources:</b><br /><br /><a href="https://gatopardoblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/20/t-u-v-the-factual-list-of-nazis-protected-by-spain/">“The factual list of Nazis protected by Spain”</a><br /><br /><a href="https://gatopardoblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/17/gines-vidal-y-saura-embajador-espanol-en-berlin-y-excelentisimo-ordinario-de-arte-expoliado-por-los-nazis/">« Ginès Vidal y Saura, embajador español en Berlín y excelentísimo ordinario de arte expoliado por los Nazis »</a><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-25102134642291400342023-10-09T16:04:00.000-04:002023-10-09T16:04:01.286-04:00 Nazi looted property in the United States in the 1930s<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist movement came to power in Germany on 30 January 1933. The subsequent Nazi era lasted until May 9, 1945, when the National Socialist Third Reich signed an unconditional surrender to the combined Allied military forces which brought an end to a six-year global military conflict known as the Second World War (1939-1945).<br /><br />In the winter of 1933, there were at least 400 American companies and businesses operating inside Nazi Germany, most of which were subsidiaries of American-based corporations. There were also American-based banks and financial firms as well as businesses displaying, buying and selling art objects. For Americans, Hitler’s coming to power was but a hiccup, for otherwise it was business as usual. For the Jews of Germany and for American Jews, Hitler’s arrival was cause for concern and rightly so.<br /><br />America’s borders remained open as well as Germany’s. Therefore trade relations between the US and Germany were maintained even if the political checkerboard had changed radically and Germany’s priorities were rooted in a deeply racialist, white supremacist and antisemitic ideology.<br /><br />The first expropriations of Jewish property began several months after the Nazis took power. The first forced sales accompanied these expropriations in the form of auctions taking place across Germany. Items sold included everything that one could find in a Jewish household, including art objects, precious metals like gold and silver, furniture and decorative objects. <br /><br />Tourists continued to flock into Germany, despite the economic depression that was engulfing the US, but those who had deeper pockets than the average working person could still afford to “have a good time” in Germany. Tourists usually bring back souvenirs so it’s no surprise if some of the more enterprising ones attended auctions where Jewish property was being sold willy-nilly.<br /><br />Art collections were being sold under duress. Their owners were persecuted for being Jewish, deprived of an income and therefore forced to sell their belongings in order to fund their exit from Nazi Germany. Their property was dispersed among the local population but it was also acquired by foreign visitors who had a special interest in the art objects and the decorative pieces offered for sale. This illegal outflow of Jewish property reverberated inevitably into the countries of origin of these foreign buyers who returned home with their acquisitions. <br /><br />As a growing number of Jewish collectors and dealers were being forced out of their professions and obliged to sell their inventories, gallerists and dealers in neighboring countries and the United States saw their demise as a business opportunity for them to acquire at depressed prices items of value which could then be resold for a hefty profit in due course.<br /><br /><div>Likewise, German art dealers, collectors, museum curators and art historians who had established productive relationships with their counterparts in the US crossed the Atlantic in search of good deals, especially Old Master paintings, on behalf of their wealthy clients. The lines were continually blurred between American and German art world personalities owing to their symbiotic business and scholarly relationships. The same can be said about American university professors and researchers who continued to exchange data and research with their German colleagues and even fostered exchange programs that saw American students and professors spending time on German university campuses after Hitler’s rise to power.<br /><br /></div><div>As the years progressed and the ensuing repression intensified against Jews in Germany, an exponential mass of high-value tangible assets changed hands from Jewish to non-Jewish ownership through a pseudo-legal process known as “Aryanization,” a direct result of anti-Jewish laws being enforced to the letter by Nazi administrators. Corporate boards were purged of their Jewish members, while business continued to flow between American subsidiaries, their German clients and the Nazi State. Profit before people. A well-known adage that witnessed a perverse application in the antisemitic German world.<br /><br />By the late 1930s, Germany had brazenly announced its true colors: territorial expansion and elimination of Jews from all walks of life. Genocide was around the corner. Faced with an appeasement-oriented world that wanted to keep Hitler at bay without antagonizing him, Nazi Germany took it as an invitation and absorbed its neighbor, Austria, in an “Anschluss” in early March 1938, followed a year later by a so-called “police action” against Czechoslovakia which resulted in the disappearance of that country and its replacement with a "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." Similarly, Austria became Germany’s new province of Ostmark. <br /><br />If one surveys the New York auction world as of the mid-1930s, one is likely to read about objects coming out of privately-owned Jewish collections which were subjected to seizure and forced sales. German dealers and collectors, specializing mostly in 20th century art, emigrated to the United States bringing with them parts of their inventories which, if scrutinized properly, would have revealed the presence of objects acquired from Jewish collectors and artists who were subjected to duress and forced to sell, or that they had acquired at “Jew auctions.” These objects in turn were displayed in New York galleries and other American cities with few questions asked about provenance. We call it willful ignorance.<br /><br /></div><div>Lastly, American businessmen were accustomed to travel to European art fairs and pick up merchandise for their businesses back home and they would sign trade agreements with local European partners including German ones. The Leipzig trade fair, for instance, was flagged by the US Treasury Department as an international event which was suspected of offering for sale expropriated Jewish household goods, including textiles (rugs and wall hangings). This is just one of many instances of how easy it was for foreign businessmen to acquire property displaced from Jewish owners without their consent.<br /><br />Jewelry was the easiest commodity to move from one border to the next due to its small size. As Jewish jewelers and precious stone brokers were put out of business, their inventories were cast wide on the market and often ended up across the ocean. Although extremely difficult to trace back to original owners, these luxury items were dispersed in urban centers along the East Coast of the US.<br /><br />In summary, art, decorative objects, jewelry and textiles were some of the many categories of objects which made their way to the United States in the 1930s, unbeknownst to the buyers who had no idea that they had once belonged to a Jewish owner suffering under the Nazi yoke and forced to sell them in order to stay alive. But for how long?</div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-30136697155291470632023-10-08T13:12:00.000-04:002023-10-08T13:12:04.380-04:00A brief overview of the art trade between New York and Latin America between 1940-1945<i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">by Marc Masurovsky</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></i><div>The United States entered the Second World War after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941. Up to that point, it had remained ostensibly neutral, American companies continued to operate through their subsidiaries in Axis-occupied Europe and Nazi Germany.<br /><br />When the US first entered the global conflict in late 1941, its primary focus was on Japan and its military campaigns against the Pacific Islands and the Asian mainland, with China taking the brunt of its assault in what appeared to be a systematic attempt to eradicate the local Chinese population and deprive it of its cultural heritage.<br /><br />The art market has demonstrated time and time again how impervious it is to mass unrest, domestic and international conflicts, including all-out war. Trade between the Western Hemisphere was effectively hampered with the European continent and the US’ closest ally, the United Kingdom. A naval blockade was established in the north Atlantic, whose purpose was to screen maritime shipping lanes in order to prevent the Axis from engaging in economic and commercial ventures as well as exporting agents and military assets.<br /><br />How did this affect the New York art trade? It must have put a crimp in its style, of that there is no doubt. But one of the hallmarks of a successful art business is to continually expand and strengthen its rolodex of clients, regardless of where they might be based. <br /><br />Based on US postal censorship intercepts which have been publicly available for decades at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, one can paint a clearer picture of how New York art galleries benefited from the new conditions brought about by global war.<br /><br />In short, New York galleries and collectors were in regular contact throughout the war, from 1940 to 1945 and beyond with galleries, collectors and dealers in 12 Latin American countries and two island nations (Curaçao and Cuba). The Latin American countries included from north to south:<br /><br />Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. <br /><br />While New York galleries and collectors had a very difficult time doing business directly with their contacts on the European continent, those Latin American countries and islands served as transit areas and willing intermediaries for their transactions. And so, Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico were the chosen transit points for works and objects of art streaming out of Europe to be traded locally and/or shipped to the United States for display and sale.<br /><br />It is impossible to assess the total volume of objects that flowed out of Europe into Latin America and from there to the United States, but some gallerists like the Koenigsbergs who were based in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Mexico City (Mexico) did a bustling business, with shipments of hundreds of objects arriving into Mexico City at a time. Local auction houses were more than happy to disperse these European objects as there was a willing clientele avid to purchase them. </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-28859889838970323762023-09-24T21:57:00.003-04:002023-09-25T13:22:43.063-04:00Smuggling lines along the Western Spanish border with France in the 1940s<div>by Marc Masurovsky</div><div><br /></div>In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, Axis criminals and profiteers engaged in murder, extortion, torture, theft, executions, black market operations, and espionage activities during the German occupation of those countries. In the face of Allied military successes and faced with bolder Resistance operations, they looked to Spain as a refuge. For that, they needed cash and connections to cross into Spain and resume their activities or go into hiding. These individuals often carried fungible items like currencies, securities, gold (preferably) and silver bars, gold coins, precious stones, jewelry, works and objects of art. They even brought cars to sell them for a quick infusion of pesetas. <br /><br />In order to ensure trouble-free border crossings, it helped to be on familiar terms with the police, the military and the border force which required the recruitment of reliable locals to help ferry these people and their looted property into Spain. Added to that mix the complicity of security services, government officials, businessmen, “notaires” and lawyers to shield you from trouble and officialize future commercial and financial transactions. The local populace staffed the smuggling chains. To the extent possible, local and provincial officials ensured the smooth functioning of these semi-clandestine operations for a fee. In this regard, local Falangists and members of the Guardia Civil were of assistance.<br /><br />The main open crossing point for Nazi war criminals, Fascists and economic collaborators (with a little help from French and Spanish police and military) lay between Hendaye, Pyrénées-Atlantiques (France) and Irun, the Basque Country (Spain), and from there to San Sebastian—about 20 km south of the border. That ended in August 1944 when the Allies pressured Spain to put an end to the northward traffic in wolfram, a strategic ore used by the Nazis in the production of steel alloys for their war effort. The closure of the official Franco-Spanish border placed the clandestine routes across the Pyrenees in the spotlight.<br /><br />These routes ran across the western Pyrenees (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), linking French hamlets and small villages to localities in Navarre and the Basque country, within a 50 km radius. Based on Allied intelligence sources, these clandestine cross-border routes were used most often: <br /><br /><b>1/ Dantxarinea, France (or Duncharinen)—Elizondo, Navarre, Spain—Doneztebe-Santesteban (Spain) </b><br />This route ran an estimated 40 km by road.<div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qT7MJHtc7gB2gNMN3_LcBtu2S4JvZdqi5gvYbyLyTglP7bu-dZn0VidlV1272nghY7-bgjVkpV1btknF_0N9xPyYSevQTQeCs0EwWTf8F-TkKQ6uc_0ifO5Obn5fYDybl1tnHsekHPj4mcpkcEtBYxMccx1mATmIvdWSEwmNStaZK4bb5nqzIEh5-ss/s1626/route%201.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="1626" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qT7MJHtc7gB2gNMN3_LcBtu2S4JvZdqi5gvYbyLyTglP7bu-dZn0VidlV1272nghY7-bgjVkpV1btknF_0N9xPyYSevQTQeCs0EwWTf8F-TkKQ6uc_0ifO5Obn5fYDybl1tnHsekHPj4mcpkcEtBYxMccx1mATmIvdWSEwmNStaZK4bb5nqzIEh5-ss/s320/route%201.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div><br />Two men, Andres [Andreas] Lazaro, from Elizondo, and Elso, from France, managed a “chain” for ferrying goods from France to Spain for the account of German interests. It is worth noting that Elizondo was also used as a local turnstile for smuggling gold acquired in the Western Hemisphere and ferried across the border to France as well as Nazi looted gold coming into Spain. <br /><br /><b>2/ Bidarray [Pyrénées-Atlantiques] (France)—Errazu [Erratzu] [Navarre] (Spain)</b><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRII3eyMX_hFrw_OyMpMKrYmdN7-HIxxEcLOCFhDqQO3aECiNDHlozbZzRSDnc8Ova_9TJV-zHkSZdFoRnUNVfM-99QIyb1nOv3Tz6zecrlvMLQG_N3Vdev5Cno_jZqmPcptsLYBDM3_fShI5IsSzAIHGKu8ONAPa7EPXLw_hAX-cDPa_kXG4fViZxTQ/s1282/route%202.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="1232" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxRII3eyMX_hFrw_OyMpMKrYmdN7-HIxxEcLOCFhDqQO3aECiNDHlozbZzRSDnc8Ova_9TJV-zHkSZdFoRnUNVfM-99QIyb1nOv3Tz6zecrlvMLQG_N3Vdev5Cno_jZqmPcptsLYBDM3_fShI5IsSzAIHGKu8ONAPa7EPXLw_hAX-cDPa_kXG4fViZxTQ/s320/route%202.png" width="308" /></a><br /><br />After safe passage from Bidarray to Erratzu, Spanish police picked up clandestine border crossers, took them to Elizondo and from there to Santesteban.<br /><br /><b>3/ Otxondo/Espelette (between the Basque Country and France; on the French side)—Elizondo (Spain)</b><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD7g46LXZzj-6PqMMSeCb8zVf2jv0udXE3GQFwwJ175T95vJ7QnxpLzw0xWn2-CQAmKc3mOlWDtC2aj2cPnjC4foTv5WyGWmV5pMz2MOreqwmxbUCwU2BAlykuSWY0kS1SOiSKZdkrxd7uJ-Kqcs9ibmPErBVq_FMXHzp_-BtiEg7_Fnz25TRGDSffs_I/s1052/route%203.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1052" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD7g46LXZzj-6PqMMSeCb8zVf2jv0udXE3GQFwwJ175T95vJ7QnxpLzw0xWn2-CQAmKc3mOlWDtC2aj2cPnjC4foTv5WyGWmV5pMz2MOreqwmxbUCwU2BAlykuSWY0kS1SOiSKZdkrxd7uJ-Kqcs9ibmPErBVq_FMXHzp_-BtiEg7_Fnz25TRGDSffs_I/s320/route%203.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For unknown reasons, this route was cited by Allied intelligence as a favorite of smugglers.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><b>4/ Anduitzem Borda farm (Sare, France) –Bera (Vera del Bidasoa, Spain)</b></div><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvokY138CVTiikDoiK90qdVT_6QFlP1Y81AApL37WUoCvhVevQuDPXUytNktye8rTHu6yqVXWKoC2Y5ZJ5pDH5jyP0u7x7dkjt9tyPr0-zuzffcjAIU8UT3jhH7_mNMLVSFQ9nFEnjQQ3ktCHhmwYBvwpQLNkCGaZE3Wk7A4Jz8uJ00INgDrlYwKTtiDo/s1444/route%204.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="874" data-original-width="1444" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvokY138CVTiikDoiK90qdVT_6QFlP1Y81AApL37WUoCvhVevQuDPXUytNktye8rTHu6yqVXWKoC2Y5ZJ5pDH5jyP0u7x7dkjt9tyPr0-zuzffcjAIU8UT3jhH7_mNMLVSFQ9nFEnjQQ3ktCHhmwYBvwpQLNkCGaZE3Wk7A4Jz8uJ00INgDrlYwKTtiDo/s320/route%204.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /><div>This line started at the Anduitzem Borda farm in Sare, France. and extended to its end point, the village of Vera del Bidasoa, Spain. It was organized for the Germans by a member of the Guardia Civil named Marquez who lived in Bera (Vera del Bidasoa). It is likely, although not confirmed at this point, that those who were ferried to Bera were taken to Donetztebe/Santesteban.<br /><br /></div><div><b>5/ Eraso-Alcasena line</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKSPJoYUR2rOMdnZOOalOng5Wf-ib9I3lFq8ynnKXBEyFdH4OxXoljoJ49uKR8xsh7UwcaRCC-Oyp97dx5qboEqAA0Vzw5QRCWcYoojCewpNgI9GhCJJhEEyCyf6tWq27fuz6F6DJFzyo1FLphWMqRZgfWetgh79Ywm1zMkVkWjdKssGHRwziPKCXyuZ4/s1280/route%205.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="588" data-original-width="1280" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKSPJoYUR2rOMdnZOOalOng5Wf-ib9I3lFq8ynnKXBEyFdH4OxXoljoJ49uKR8xsh7UwcaRCC-Oyp97dx5qboEqAA0Vzw5QRCWcYoojCewpNgI9GhCJJhEEyCyf6tWq27fuz6F6DJFzyo1FLphWMqRZgfWetgh79Ywm1zMkVkWjdKssGHRwziPKCXyuZ4/w320-h144/route%205.png" width="320" /></a></div><div><br />The Eraso-Alcasena line was used to smuggle gold obtained in the Western Hemisphere at reduced rates and sent illegally to France where higher prices could be obtained. It ran through Elizondo since Señores Miguel Eraso and Alcasena hailed from Elizondo and participated in the smuggling of Nazis and others into Spain through their home town. </div><div><br />Wolfram, a critical ore to manufacture steel allows, was also smuggled through Elizondo into France for German account. Eraso was the main point of contact here. In 1945-6, gold acquired in Western Hemisphere ports with US currency and brought back by sailors to the Iberian Peninsula was sold in Bilbao and from there conveyed via Barcelona and Irun into France where rates are allegedly higher making this illegal gold trade highly profitable.<br /><br />Miguel Eraso was involved in some manner with this activity and enjoyed close ties to Spanish military authorities along the border. The vicar of Erratzu/Errazu, Padre Apesteguia, was allegedly involved, as well as a cattle dealer named Acien, based in St-Etienne de Baigorri.<br /><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center;">Here are some tentative findings:</span></div><div><br />Elizondo served as a nerve center for much of the smuggling activity in the Navarre region. The main originating points for the smuggling activity were situated within a 35 km radius from Elizondo. Sare (France) is 31.7 km from Santesteban, assuming it was a destination point for activity generated at Sare. In more general terms, Santesteban/Donetztebe acted as some kind of temporary transit station before people/goods spread out to other parts of Spain—Bilbao, Barcelona, Madrid, etc. <br /><br />Elizondo appeared to be a transit point for Nazis and other “obnoxious” individuals crossing from France into Spain. These people were greeted by Spanish soldiers who then took them to Elizondo and from there 14 km west to Doneztebe-Santesteban.<br /><br />More to follow…<br /><br />Sources:<br /><br />Records of the Office of Strategic Services (RG 226)</div><div><br />RG 226 M1934 Reel 17 NARA</div><div><br /></div><div>RG 226 Entry 108b Box 220 NARA<br /><br /> </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-70827350797341333962023-09-21T12:28:00.002-04:002023-09-21T17:33:13.913-04:00Solidarity is an aspiration devoutly to be wishedby Marc Masurovsky<br /><br />If you search for a definition of the word “solidarity”, this is what you find:<br /><br />“Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.”<br /><br />In other words, “solidarity” requires unity of feeling or action amongst individuals and entities that share a common interest and support one another. It also implies that they all work together to achieve a common objective. Let’s apply the concept of “solidarity” to the interwoven notions of cultural plunder, art looting, and the restitution, repatriation, return of those plundered cultural goods to their rightful owners, be they individuals, groups, entities, or governments.<br /><br />Past history teaches us that governments, entities, groups and individuals have systematically deprived others of their artistic, cultural and religious objects for a variety of reasons, ranging from greed and avarice to naked hatred of the rightful owners for reasons of race, gender, creed, and/or ethnicity. The international community, in all of its wisdom and desire to improve the lot of people around the globe, has agreed that it is wrong, illegal, and immoral to steal artistic, cultural and religious objects. If one does this, justice needs to prevail in part through the recovery, restitution, repatriation of these objects to their rightful owners.<br /><br />Colonial expansionism unleashed cultural and other heinous crimes against communities living in areas coveted by the colonialists, resulting in the deprivation of life, identity, and culture for millions of people around the world. Successive wars fueled by racial and ethnic hatred of others have provoked the deaths of tens of millions of individuals and the outright theft of the property of those who were targeted for physical elimination and removal from the surface of Planet Earth. Make no mistake, these conflicts are still with us today and they are always accompanied by crimes against the culture, identity, and beliefs of the victims (case in point: the 1990s wars in the Western Balkans, and currently in Libya, Ukraine and Yemen.)<br /><br />Since the 1990s, individuals and entities have come forward to hasten the restitution and/or repatriation of these looted objects wherever they may have ended up, either in private hands or in State-controlled collections and institutions. They focus separately on:<br /><br />-the confiscations of Jewish-owned property displaced by the Nazis and their allies between 1933-1945; <br /><br />-the expropriations of indigenous cultural objects through colonial conquest and occupation;<br /><br />-the systematic illegal extraction of archaeological objects from source nations; and <br /><br />-the plunder of Native American communities and First Nations in North America.<br /><br />We have identified four categories of looted or plundered cultural goods:<br /><br />1/ goods forcibly removed from geographical areas targeted for seizure and exploitation by colonial powers;<br /><br />2/ goods forcibly removed by State authorities, with the help of military, police, and parastatal forces, from communities living within State borders;<br /><br />3/ goods forcibly extracted from the territories of nations for ideological or commercial reasons under the cover of military conflicts or civil strife;<br /><br />4/ goods forcibly removed from their rightful owners during acts of genocide, most notably during the Nazi era, the Holocaust and World War II.<br /><br />Until the early years of the 21st century, there was no perceptible dialogue between the advocates of justice and restitution representing these four groups of looted cultural goods.<br /><br />Archaeologists and so-called source nations worked in their corner, denouncing the irreparable loss of antiquities which ended up inevitably in private and public collections. Mainstream domestic and international Jewish organizations were never keen on seeking the actual physical restitution of objects plundered from Jewish victims between 1933-1945, preferring instead global schemes by which victims and their families would receive the equivalent of a “check in the mail.” Indigenous communities plundered during periods of domestic territorial expansionism and national unification (some call it “progress”) were left to their own devices for decades before there was widespread outrage at their plight. The systematic and on-going looting of their communities continues to benefit private collectors and cultural institutions worldwide. Advocates and organizations representing these four categories have worked separately in their silos, competing against one another for the attention of private donors, foundations and governments to enlist their aid in furthering the cause of their “clients.”<br /><br />It is difficult to find instances of “solidarity” between these four categories and their respective communities, although, in theory, they agree on the common goal of restitution, repatriation, and return of looted objects to their rightful owners. Their professed mutual interest does not seem to include the possibility of reaching out to representatives of the “other categories.” Doing so would lead to a greater good by merging their separate agendas under the larger umbrella of a unified approach to the restitution, repatriation, and return of these objects to their rightful owners.<br /><br />The Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) was created in September 1997 to document Jewish cultural losses between 1933-1945 and the postwar fate of unrestituted looted objects. Our concern has always been to address in an open public discussion the question of cultural plunder in all its forms, regardless of when and where it occurred. More than 13 years ago, HARP crossed the bridge to get acquainted with the cultural heritage community, including archaeologists, anthropologists and other professionals documenting ancient cultures and the damage and destruction wrought upon them. One group stood out at the time—the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage and Preservation (LCCHP). An instant synergy evolved between HARP and LCCHP over issues of plunder and restitution. Our representatives participated in and attended seminars, workshops, and fora organized by LCCHP. This cooperation has since extended to the Antiquities Coalition. <div><br />Since 2013, HARP has forged ties with the Amelia (Italy)-based Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA). HARP has been teaching a one-week provenance research workshop during ARCA’s three-month annual certification program focused on Holocaust-era losses and postwar restitution, a novelty in an environment mostly populated by cultural heritage specialists, archaeologists, and art law/art crime professionals. <br /><br />HARP took interest in the continuing thefts of sacred Hopi artifacts from their communities in Arizona and New Mexico, the smuggling of these objects to France where certain auction houses sold these objects, in some instances, for tidy sums. All this under the nose of US Federal authorities. HARP advocated for the Hopi nation before an administrative court in Paris, not once, but six times, in a vain effort to stop these sales and return the sacred objects to their rightful owners. Although these battles were thankless, they helped make a point that, just because HARP specializes on Jewish cultural losses, it should not ignore the pain of other groups constantly subjected to similar forms of cultural plunder, largely unpunished. For the past ten years, HARP has forged ties with the Amelia (Italy)-based Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA). HARP has been teaching a one-week provenance research workshop during ARCA’s three-month annual certification program focused [use gerund] on Holocaust-era losses and postwar restitution, a novelty in an environment mostly populated by cultural heritage specialists, archaeologists, and art law/art crime professionals. <br /><br />HARP’s pivoting to a more ecumenical approach towards plunder and restitution has attracted some critics. A major Jewish organization once told HARP to remove the word “Holocaust” from its organizational name –HARP–because of our defense of the Hopi nation. That senseless comment signaled an unhealthy parochialism and reaffirmed our resolve to pursue a path towards a more universal approach towards cultural plunder. HARP defines cultural plunder as a universal crime against humanity and promotes an interfaith, inter-ethnic, inter-cultural, global discussion on how to prevent future acts of cultural plunder and protect all cultures from commercial and ideological predation while prioritizing Jewish cultural losses from the Nazi era. <br /><br />No other Jewish group seems willing to invest itself in an all-embracing dialogue about plunder and restitution. It reminds me of reports and correspondence written in 1940-1941 by officials of Jewish relief groups in France, pleading for assistance from non-Jewish organizations to help stranded, starving, interned Jews. The answer was always the same: you take care of your own, we take care of ours.<br /><br />We are now in the Fall of 2023. Why do we continue to live in our separate corners, looking askance at the “others”? What will it take to bring these four categories under one big tent and forge a common strategy whose sole purpose is the restitution, repatriation and return of these objects, regardless of where they were forcibly removed, regardless of who or what instigated these crimes, and regardless of when these crimes occurred?<br /><br /></div><div>The lack of solidarity will spell the long-term failure of these restitution and repatriation campaigns to the immense relief and delight of those who currently hold these looted objects and continue to acquire them despite the general outcry of such behavior. It’s a bit like the movie “Catch me if you can!”. Unfortunately, this is not a game. It’s about the destruction of society (and humanity) to the great benefit of the perpetrators and at the expense of you, me and them.</div><div><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-78052547481717156942023-09-15T15:48:00.003-04:002023-09-21T17:35:12.957-04:00A brief introduction to smuggling looted assets into Spainbt Marc Masurovsky<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eWFDgdgv3_ZAhHwR5mjrlXPlBHRnJnAdZniA74DZ_ZCOZUCkEaU8GZMiFNxc1GBDTENqh3oHPY4zRTQWl7MZ-YUHcEoExbrKPKOO7b6-2Ev6qLpfdgwOGS4X7et2O_ilFoups0mpRqVjIcNSx7locCd15zsCa9Im_TPN6H0gUOInvAMUK7sa2JhdgX4/s3076/_MG_0321.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2867" data-original-width="3076" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1eWFDgdgv3_ZAhHwR5mjrlXPlBHRnJnAdZniA74DZ_ZCOZUCkEaU8GZMiFNxc1GBDTENqh3oHPY4zRTQWl7MZ-YUHcEoExbrKPKOO7b6-2Ev6qLpfdgwOGS4X7et2O_ilFoups0mpRqVjIcNSx7locCd15zsCa9Im_TPN6H0gUOInvAMUK7sa2JhdgX4/s320/_MG_0321.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">France and the demarcation line (1940-1942)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>During the German occupation of Western Europe (1940-1945), one of the major activities of the occupying forces and their local collaborators was plunder, looting, outright theft of Jewish-owned property, regardless of its form and shape, from residential and commercial property deeds to industrial know-how (patents, licenses, royalty agreements and trademarks), to financial instruments (stocks, bonds, shares) to artistic, cultural and religious objects. Let’s not forget those highly fungible precious stones and metals.<br /><br />Regardless of the motivations for these wanton acts of thievery perpetrated on an industrial scale against their victims, the idea of monetizing this stolen property was high up on the looters’ priority list. An infrastructural web of connections was carefully woven, often aided by local and national police officials, fueled by pre-war business and political relationships, to allow for these transactions to take place for the benefit of the Reich and its collaborators. Oftentimes, this plundered moveable property was ferried across borders into neighboring countries that acted either as end points or transit centers for this property to move even further. Think Western Hemisphere, the Americas-North, Central, and South, and especially the islands lying between the Gulf of Mexico and the northern edge of South America.<br /><br />In the case of thefts committed in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, looters looked to the south to sell off or “dump” their loot. Precious stones looted from Dutch and Belgian Jews were very easily transported and promised lucrative payoffs. An exception: many works of art looted traveled to Germany and other “Germanophile” markets to be incorporated into museum collections or sold at auction. Otherwise, paintings and other works of art were taken through Belgium and France into Spain, Switzerland or Italy. The main way station for this movement was Paris, which behaved as an international turnstile based on connections between dealers, collectors, art world officials, intelligence agents and the like. These works would find their way to Swiss cities and banks or make their way further south across the Pyrenees [Pyrénées] mountains into northern Spain. <br /><br />The literature on the role of Switzerland as an endpoint for looted art is ample. On the other hand, Spain and Por<span style="text-align: center;">tugal, but mostly Spain, have been largely ignored as loci of such activity. We’ve heard of Axis war criminals, collaborators of all stripes and shades, making their way into Axis-friendly Spain governed by the iron fist of Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his Falange. These fugitives sought protection and shelter from prosecution and the justifiable wrath of the victorious Allied forces and national Resistance movements desirous to get their hands on these criminals and bring them to justice. </span><br /><br />What did these people carry with them? Little is known aside from well-documented cases like Alois Miedl, Goering’s personal banker and art agent in the Netherlands who almost single-handedly aryanized the famed Goudstikker collection. Lesser-known players have been largely ignored by the historical field. They turned out to be far more effective than Miedl (after all, he did get arrested at the border) to ferry looted goods into Spain. Still, it might be eventually worth taking a closer look at the Miedl case because he tapped into multiple networks of criminal gangs to ensure his flight to safety. In other words, even someone as important as Miedl was forced to rely on underworld figures and torturers to get across the Franco-Spanish border with his Dutch loot.<br /><br />In the last years of the Second World War, southwestern France—an area bounded to the north by Bordeaux and to the East by Montpellier and to the South by the Pyrenees, had been teeming with French fascists, criminal elements who were making their way to Spain. Nazi security agents, Italian and Spanish fascists who worked side by side with Nazis and French fascists. In the midst of this beehive of terror and persecution, Allied agents together with Resistance elements did their best to provide some solace to refugees and victims seeking to make their way to Spain and to evade the dragnets established by local collaborators. They set up,at great risk, clandestine chains through which refugees and anti-Nazis could flee to relative safety. It was better to spend time in a refugee camp inside Spain than a jail cell run by Gestapo and Milice agents “up north.”</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Zx5fuNoB8cDIDkBp8tdvwge5U7FioK97zBA7FZGXIDvZCUR3KL_dU7Lv6Bgo_z-nMLQT9i_RUmqMVS0LGILE5p2DWMVZIeJlfsq83zVZDjdhUIjtUqhORqIQH3cGPvoDsqwP30Hm369okA-rCdFc9LWXRR2I0i56kQRkd3g6J-HuPJ8B_HLGo-84lKQ/s3072/DSC08865.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3072" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Zx5fuNoB8cDIDkBp8tdvwge5U7FioK97zBA7FZGXIDvZCUR3KL_dU7Lv6Bgo_z-nMLQT9i_RUmqMVS0LGILE5p2DWMVZIeJlfsq83zVZDjdhUIjtUqhORqIQH3cGPvoDsqwP30Hm369okA-rCdFc9LWXRR2I0i56kQRkd3g6J-HuPJ8B_HLGo-84lKQ/s320/DSC08865.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Southwestern France</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />In setting up these chains, it was critical to know which village, which hill, which crossroads were safe for travel away from prying eyes. Was the mayor in cahoots with the enemy? How about the local police? The priest? The judicial authorities? The baker? Not knowing was the bane of the victims and their protectors—resistance fighters and Allied agents. As you can imagine, many clandestine operatives were unmasked and arrested. Their resilience and persistence eventually saved many lives. How did one get across a porous border where no one could be trusted? As you can imagine, the odds favored the perpetrators by a long shot. <br /><br />Smuggling goods and people across the border was a profitable way of life on both sides of the Pyrenees. Entire hamlets supplemented their meager resources with these clandestine acts. As long as there was an exchange of money, locals were at your service, as long as the risk could be mitigated. Knowing this, it was not very difficult for fleeing war criminals, underworld figures, intelligence agents, and economic collaborators to make full use of the “friendly” atmosphere that reigned all along the French and Spanish sides of the Pyrenees, viz., the Basque and Catalan regions separated by a mountain chain. One still had to be careful with whom one did business and in whom one put one’s trust because he/she could turn on a dime, or a franc, or a peseta, and your luck would end there. As a general rule, you were in far more trouble if you were caught on the north side of the border than on the south side. Lastly, the political reliability of the individuals running these smuggling chains ensured the temporary safety of their clients, long enough to get them to a secure area.<br /><br />To be continued….</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-58587473955645486312023-07-22T18:08:00.002-04:002023-07-22T18:08:25.287-04:00The Khmunu Manuscript<br /><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9UctdM5N9X-sd9tDByBYFFXyppS2F09Q7ZHqj4utGH5hEwei2qZ5R2SxSqnZSWAMAUE4TKEoAWiUbolVTDwHb46AjAspPqbHTdBjfD9WehrpjY_XYYV2u2qMNveAGDuh-LQIBUQ2LDjUsi9cR7neV0_-VUU_6CAgXpNG7H49tLnxdXSTFmA0NuTHLHg/s570/KhmumuManuscript-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="570" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy9UctdM5N9X-sd9tDByBYFFXyppS2F09Q7ZHqj4utGH5hEwei2qZ5R2SxSqnZSWAMAUE4TKEoAWiUbolVTDwHb46AjAspPqbHTdBjfD9WehrpjY_XYYV2u2qMNveAGDuh-LQIBUQ2LDjUsi9cR7neV0_-VUU_6CAgXpNG7H49tLnxdXSTFmA0NuTHLHg/s320/KhmumuManuscript-570.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of the Khmunu Manuscript</td></tr></tbody></table><br />One of HARP’s goals is to break down the research silos that separate Holocaust researchers from cultural heritage protection specialists and experts on “indigenous” and “colonial” objects. For that reason, we endeavor periodically to showcase items which do not fit into the “Nazi-era paradigm” and see what we can learn from their fragmentary and oh so incomplete histories. Can the methods used to tease out ownership details from items displaced during the Nazi era help us with fleshing out the fragmented stories surrounding archaeological, indigenous and colonial objects? <br /><br />Every object with cultural, artistic, and/or religious value and significance, has a history as it travels through space and time with human assistance. Ownership trails are difficult to reconstruct in the absence of written documents. Yet, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Strategies developed in the course of several decades to elicit the troubled past of countless objects displaced during the Nazi era are readily applicable to other objects displaced under different circumstances but nevertheless suffer the same fate as they become commodified and monetized on the international art market.<br /><br />In the case of papyri, ancient handwritten scrolls produced thousands of years in ancient Egypt. If we scratch the surface of the international papyrus trade, we note similarities with the trade in Old Masters and similar art objects.<br /><br /><div>Let’s now take a look at one such manuscript, referred to as the “Khmunu Manuscript” while scholars have described it as a “Handbook of Ritual Power.”<br /><br />The “Khmunu Manuscript” or “codex” consists of love spells and other incantations. It was published in its deciphered and annotated form in 2014 as the “Handbook of Ritual Power,"<a href="https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503531700-1 "> the first volume in a series entitled “The Macquarie Papyri” released by Macquarie University in Sydney (Australia).</a> In 2018, another researcher who worked on a papyrus fragment at Macquarie University discovered that it too was <a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/10/02/egyptian-papyrus/?Exc_D_LessThanPoint002_p1=1">a love spell. </a>He wondered whether this fragment could have also come from the “Handbook of Ritual Power.”<br /><br />The manuscript’s author(s) is (are) unknown. <a href=". https://www.seeker.com/ancient-egyptian-handbook-of-spells-deciphered-1769302292.html In 2018">It is estimated to be approximately 1300 years old</a> and handwritten in ancient Coptic script. The use of language traces its origins back to <a href="https://www.livescience.com/48833-ancient-egyptian-handbook-spells-deciphered.html ">Upper Egypt, possibly near Hermopolis Magna, modern-day Al-Ashmūnayn.</a><br /><br /><a href="https://maskofreason.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/the-khmunu-manuscript/">One blogger </a>alleges that the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition of 1929-1939 (Black dates its discovery to 1929) while exploring around the temple of Thoth <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Hermopolis-Magna">at Hermopolis Magna (“Khmunu”, the City of Eight)</a>. If so, how and when did the manuscript reach Europe? If the manuscript was discovered during the German Expedition, how and when did it reach Anton Fackelmann and his nephew Michael in Vienna (Austria)?</div><div><br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Xz6vhVufz73zZruRI_OXecpehHNIzSdlx6yIGVOzk6CpZiX10wxCX-PibEu-pw1iQNHPiTMepBZ_Nb6sMyHpJw6N1OEm8YLJzabBnccFFHVHLTRvBf4xReqGnZanqCzURQPnFmHmHtypmGjJo5RVG_-n9oKOTipixGR359squQEhBOYgYLrzy-OWckc/s440/Hermopollis_Basilica.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="292" data-original-width="440" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Xz6vhVufz73zZruRI_OXecpehHNIzSdlx6yIGVOzk6CpZiX10wxCX-PibEu-pw1iQNHPiTMepBZ_Nb6sMyHpJw6N1OEm8YLJzabBnccFFHVHLTRvBf4xReqGnZanqCzURQPnFmHmHtypmGjJo5RVG_-n9oKOTipixGR359squQEhBOYgYLrzy-OWckc/s320/Hermopollis_Basilica.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view of Hermopolis Magna</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />There is no indication of the date of exportation of the manuscript from Egypt. Neither is there any evidence as to when the manuscript crossed into Austria and reached the Viennese market.<br /><br />It suffices to say that the provenance record for this and many other papyri is sadly lacking. In the case of the Khmunu Manuscript, we can establish for certain that the manuscript was in the hands of Michael Fackelmann (Vienna) as late as 1981. He may have come into possession of it in the 1970s.<br /><br /></div><div>In late 1981, the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, acquired the manuscript from Michael Fackelmann. The relationship between Macquarie University and the Fackelmann family dates back to the 1960s and 1970s during which time the University acquired many papyri. <br /><br />By Anton Fackelman’s own admission, he dealt directly with “mummy looters” in Cairo and perhaps elsewhere in Egypt. This fact alone has raised eyebrows about the ethics of Fackelmann’s collecting habits and whether it is safe to acquire any papyri from the Fackelmann family. If “mummy looters” represent one of the few ways by which to acquire papyri in Egypt, then the bulk of the international papyrus trade should be questioned as a hotbed of illicit activity.<br /><br />One of the Fackelmann family’s strongest critics is Dr. Michael A. Freeman, who describes himself as <a href="https://www.michael-a-freeman.com/research">a “Greek historian and manuscript researcher” </a>working at Duke University. [link to Freeman’s page at Duke] Freeman reports how, in January 1969, <a href="https://classicalstudies.org/fackelmann-papyri">Anton Fackelmann acquired papyri from a “mummy looter.” </a><br /><br />“Dr. Anton Fackelmann claims, for example, that he extracted P.Duk.inv. 34 and 16 other pieces of early Ptolemiac papyri from the chest of a mummy purchased from a mummy looter in Faiyum, Egypt in January 1969. Among these papyri are five documents verifiably dateable to the early Ptolemaic period, ca. 256 BCE (P.Duk.inv. 23, 24, 25, 26, 28). If one takes Fackelmann at his word—that is, that his papyri were all extracted from the same Ptolemaic mummy—this would date all 17 pieces of the cartonnage archive to the mid-third century BCE.” Freeman’s critique is largely based on the dating methods Fackelmann used to prove that some of the papyri were from the early Ptolemaic period, which would increase their value. As Freeman states, “Early Ptolemaic papyri were exceptionally rare and difficult to acquire in the 1960s-70s.”<br /><br />A closer look at the ownership histories (provenance) of papyri acquired by Duke University reveals that from the 1960s on many papyri either came directly from the Fackelmann family or one of the Fackelmanns appears in the fragmentary chains of custody either in first or second position. More often than not, Anton Fackelmann appears after an “unknown source”. These provenance gaps (missing information in the chain of custody) beg questions like:</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqS82XvZjm9g4-mUACSWKzc_j4ey9WYP4uIs5XhJtpVTULDGSKpE-guq6oPcTUm_Dn7z-8mO4zaxntud2FDxvTV41A0I-zOgylf2fzLuYBleWgAOyjLe1YApP1uTqN-FB9D_3LDljQVgkw2JZ3sW9uaLobEyzok2pA22CjoDfwAuF0MQjqwuahisB9M0/s800/fackelmann-at-work-nag-hammadi.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="800" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqS82XvZjm9g4-mUACSWKzc_j4ey9WYP4uIs5XhJtpVTULDGSKpE-guq6oPcTUm_Dn7z-8mO4zaxntud2FDxvTV41A0I-zOgylf2fzLuYBleWgAOyjLe1YApP1uTqN-FB9D_3LDljQVgkw2JZ3sW9uaLobEyzok2pA22CjoDfwAuF0MQjqwuahisB9M0/s320/fackelmann-at-work-nag-hammadi.jpg.webp" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anton Fackelmann studying a papyrus</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />- Where, when and from whom did Anton Fackelmann acquire these items?<br /><br />- Were there no other intermediaries between the Fackelmann family and the “mummy looters”? <br /><br />- Have any documents been produced which detail the exportation from Egypt and importation into Austria of these papyri?<br /><br />In a more general way, Prof. Roberta Mazza (University of Bologna, Italy) points out the due diligence failures inherent to the global papyrology market and wonders how thousands of papyri were removed from Egypt in the 1960s and 1970s without any questions being asked about their provenance and origin by Egyptian officials and Western experts, collectors and, most notably, the museums that acquire and house them. Prof. Mazza describes<a href="https://facesandvoices.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/mummy-cartonnage-an-introduction/"> how mummy cartonnage has been exploited </a>as a source of papyri that eventually wend their way through looters’ hands into the clutches of Western collections. The papyri extraction process destroys the mummy cartonnage and, thus, a valuable piece of Egyptian cultural heritage. What is the value of mummy cartonnage when weighed against that of a potentially priceless fragment of papyrus? Who makes that decision? Is it in the interest of science or the interest of the individual collector or museum to acquire this fragment?<br /><br />Prof. Mazza charges these papyri collectors and experts with indulging <a href="https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:227697&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF ">in “colonial” behavior </a>at a heavy cost to Egyptian cultural heritage: “Western papyrologists, scholars and pseudo-scholars are destroying mummy masks and panels” much like Christian evangelical collectors like <a href="https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:227697&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF">the Green Family of Hobby Lobby fame</a> whose “search for papyri from mummy cartonnage is dictated by the wish to retrieve biblical manuscripts, and through them the word of God…” a specious reason if there ever was one.<br /><br />Whatever the motives behind this scholarly and pseudo-scholarly obsession with papyri, Western behavior has all the hallmarks of predation for the sake of acquisition and scholarship. How does this apply to papyri constantly appearing on the international art market? Buyer beware, chances are that they were looted.<br /><br /></div><div>In sum, the most reliable pieces of information in the history of the Khmunu Manuscript are:<br /><br />Ancient Egypt (maybe Hermopolis Magna)<br />Michael Fackelmann, Vienna (Austria)<br />Macquarie University, Sydney (Australia)<br /><br />The location of the manuscript in or near Hermopolis can be reaso<span style="text-align: center;">nably deduced based on the contextual information surrounding the papyrus.</span><br /><br />Less reliable is the information regarding its actual find and how it came into the hands of the Fackelmann family.<br /><br />Additional research requires doing a deep dive into the Fackelmann archives in order to sort out the transfer of the Khmunu Manuscript from Egypt to Austria. More generally, the international papyrus trade needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to ascertain how severe the problem is when it comes to the extraction and acquisition of papyri. A word of caution to those who have acquired papyri from the likes of Fackelmann. The absence of provenance is not a good sign and points to possible theft by “mummy looters.”<br /><br />Caveat emptor.<br /><br /><b>Sources for images:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>- Khmunu Manuscript pages were taken by Dr. Malcolm Choat, Macquarie University</div><div>- Hermopolis Magna photo courtesy of Wikipedia</div><div>- Anton Fackelmann photo courtesy of Claremont College Digital Library.<br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-58985054432655808032023-07-20T09:26:00.003-04:002023-07-20T09:26:42.928-04:00 The Auerbach Case: Part Four-Other views of Dr. Philipp Auerbach<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbTuqja6uLZjbD5qRg0-t3cbOD0fDe9ZH74MBXVeLZ0-6--Id7Z5OQli80DOdwKBpVc-QoMbxhMzyXBpiPC_W7vNF5-J9zZAVzMSnOjCpWy8pnaURW7W5Z7Jf2tqklb2q4nmH9h_2P2omN3l2aY4AzJeyrCKRVTgn_JwZI_LPO5Bjr0VWKAJmclMtoeI/s480/Ferencz.jpg.pagespeed.ce.GZmzva4c9V.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="298" data-original-width="480" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbTuqja6uLZjbD5qRg0-t3cbOD0fDe9ZH74MBXVeLZ0-6--Id7Z5OQli80DOdwKBpVc-QoMbxhMzyXBpiPC_W7vNF5-J9zZAVzMSnOjCpWy8pnaURW7W5Z7Jf2tqklb2q4nmH9h_2P2omN3l2aY4AzJeyrCKRVTgn_JwZI_LPO5Bjr0VWKAJmclMtoeI/s320/Ferencz.jpg.pagespeed.ce.GZmzva4c9V.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Benjamin Ferencz at the IMT, Nurnberg</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><u><a href="https://benferencz.org/stories/1948-1956/implementing-compensation-agreements/">Benjamin Ferencz, former prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal of Nürnberg:</a></u><br /><br />“One flamboyant German official, Philip Auerbach, in charge of compensation claims in Bavaria, was quite a bizarre figure. It was rumored that he had been interned by the Nazis because he was tainted by Jewish blood. It was known that he paid little attention to formalities. I always considered him neurotic. On several occasions he sought me out for a donation from the JRSO for some strange scheme he concocted. I always refused. I recall a detailed plan he had for shipping Hitler’s stolen art works to the United States for exhibitions in museums that would pay well for the privilege. The money would then go back to the compensation fund. He had the name of the ship, the museums, and the amounts payable. I was not really surprised when, after I checked it out, I learned that it was all a figment of his imagination. When he and the head of a local Jewish community announced that they were establishing a Jewish Restitution Bank to receive deposits from concentration camp victims, I immediately cabled Jewish organizations throughout the world to beware. Exactly one year later, the police closed down the so-called bank; the finances of the Auerbach office were under investigation, and he committed suicide. It was a crazy time with crazy people doing crazy things.”<br /><br /><u>Le Monde, 19 August 1952, “Suicide of a former Bavarian commissioner on refugee matters provokes general consternation. »</u><br /><br />Since Bavaria refused for a long time to elevate the Compensation and Restitution Office and its Director to a legally recognized status, Auerbach was not under any parliamentary oversight and did not benefit from a regular budget. He had to find another way to raise compensation funds using shortcuts and indirect pathways. “He reveled in using expedients, he had a predilection for shady and complex dealings, which allowed him to assert his authority and to engage in opaque and interwoven financial arrangements which would get him into a heap of trouble. No one contests these facts.”<br /><br /><b>Conclusion:</b><br /><br />Was Dr. Philipp Auerbach a victim or a criminal? Did he concoct his outlandish scheme to sell off confiscated Jewish paintings acquired for Hitler and Goering for the purpose of enriching himself? Or was it more of a case of using whatever means necessary to ensure that Holocaust survivors would receive their due, regardless of the legality and reasonableness of his tactics. As Benjamin Ferencz said, “it was a crazy time with crazy people doing crazy things.”<br /><br />One thing is certain: the Auerbach scandal exposed many of the fault lines that have since haunted the international debate over what to do with unclaimed Jewish cultural assets. Since Auerbach’s death in 1952, Jewish groups have never ceased to look at “unclaimed Jewish cultural assets” as fodder to be sold and monetized for the benefit of Holocaust victims’ heirs. It still remains that nothing is unclaimed unless you declare it to be so. And, if you do, under whose authority and on what grounds?<div><br /></div><b>Sources for Part One-Part Four</b><br /><br /><i>Primary sources</i><br /><u><br /></u><div><u>National Archives, College Park, MD</u><br /><br /> <i>Indemnisation des victimes du nazime</i>, 14 mars 1949, RG 59, Lot 62D4, Box 26, NARA<br /><br /><i>Eric Gration, secrétaire du bureau du Haut Commissariat américain en Allemagne, à George Eric Rosden,</i> 21 janvier 1950, Confidential, 007 Fine Arts, USACA, NARA; [Faison à Hanfstaengl, 11 juin 1951, RG 59 Lot 62D 4, Box 17, NARA<br /><br /><i>S. Lane Faison, Jr., HICOG, Prop. Div. OEA, Collecting Point Munich to Dr. Eberhard Hanfstaengl, general manager, Arcisstrasse 10, Munich,</i> 11 June 1951, Ardelia Hall Collection, RG 59 Lot 62D4 Box 17, NARA.<br /><br /><u>Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes (AMAE), La Courneuve, France</u><br /><br /><i>Doubinsky to Colonel Bonet-Madry, head of the French restitution mission</i>, Frankfurt, 25 May 1949, RA 237, AMAE <br /><i>Doubinsky to Valland</i>, 28 October 1949, RV 237, AMAE<br /><i>Rose Valland to Munsing</i>, 10 november 1949, Berlin, RV 237, AMAE<br /><i>Munsing to Valland</i>, 13 February 1950, RV 237, AMAE<br /><br /><u>Other archives</u><br /><br />Auerbach's rich correspondence and other personal material from the years 1946 to 1951, which are stored in Bavaria's Hauptstamtsarchiv, are now open to researchers. The Staatsarchiv in Munich holds the complete court records of the April 1952 trial. </div><div><br /></div><i>Books, journals and newspaper articles </i><br /><br />Brady, Kate <br /><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/26/schloss-elmau-castle-g7-germany/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/26/schloss-elmau-castle-g7-germany/</a><br /><br />Brenner, Michael and Kronenberg, Kenneth <br /><a href="https://www.scribd.com/book/392107133/A-History-of-Jews-in-Germany-Since-1945-Politics-Culture-and-Society">https://www.scribd.com/book/392107133/A-History-of-Jews-in-Germany-Since-1945-Politics-Culture-and-Society</a><br /><br />Ferencz, Benjamin B. <br /><a href="https://benferencz.org/stories/1948-1956/implementing-compensation-agreements/">https://benferencz.org/stories/1948-1956/implementing-compensation-agreements/</a><br /><br /><div>Klare, Hans Hermann <br /><a href="https://www.jmberlin.de/en/reading-auerbach">https://www.jmberlin.de/en/reading-auerbach</a><br /><br />Ludi, Regula <br /><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/reparations-for-nazi-victims-in-postwar-europe/germany/667D60BE8D2B06D1D50BC2B50D94D7CF">https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/reparations-for-nazi-victims-in-postwar-europe/germany/667D60BE8D2B06D1D50BC2B50D94D7CF</a> biblio<br /><br />Ludyga, Hannes <br /><a href="https://buchhandlung-buchner.buchkatalog.at/philipp-auerbach-1906-1952-9783830510963">https://buchhandlung-buchner.buchkatalog.at/philipp-auerbach-1906-1952-9783830510963</a><br /><br />Sabin, Stefana <br /><a href="https://faustkultur.de/literatur-buchkritik/opfer-und-taeter/">https://faustkultur.de/literatur-buchkritik/opfer-und-taeter/</a><br /><br /> <br /><i>Other links</i><br /><a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Subsequent_Nuremberg_trials">https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Subsequent_Nuremberg_trials</a><br /><a href="https://www.jta.org/archive/philip-auerbach-commits-suicide-act-due-to-verdict-of-german-court">https://www.jta.org/archive/philip-auerbach-commits-suicide-act-due-to-verdict-of-german-court</a><br /><a href="https://nataliereardon.weebly.com/victims.html">https://nataliereardon.weebly.com/victims.html</a><br /><a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1952/08/19/le-suicide-de-l-ancien-commissaire-bavarois-aux-refugies-provoque-une-grande-emotion-en-allemagne_1999225_1819218.html">https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1952/08/19/le-suicide-de-l-ancien-commissaire-bavarois-aux-refugies-provoque-une-grande-emotion-en-allemagne_1999225_1819218.html</a><br /><a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/philipp-auerbach">https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/philipp-auerbach</a><br /><a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/08/17/110062774.html?pageNumber=1">https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1952/08/17/110062774.html?pageNumber=1</a></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-57241225056755614962023-07-20T09:14:00.000-04:002023-07-20T09:14:04.436-04:00 The Auerbach Case: Part Three-The Auerbach plan<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />At a March 1949 meeting at the State Department with Ardelia Hall, Dr. Auerbach laid out his ambitious plan to compensate Holocaust survivors with the proceeds of a sale in the United States of 6000-8000 works of art still stored at the MCCP, including works set aside for Goering and Hitler. The sale of these paintings, in his estimate, could top 200 million dollars. The sales should take place incrementally so as not to “dump” the works on the art market. The Bavarian ministries of education and finance were on board with his plan. Jewish organizations active in Bavaria were on board with the project. He indicated that Bavaria was willing to set aside 20% of the proceeds of the sales to compensate residents outside their borders. The remainder would be assigned to residents inside Bavaria. Auerbach hinted that “private groups in the United States were anxious to invest in industrial projects in Bavaria”, a mini-Marshall Plan recycling the proceeds of unclaimed Jewish assets into the Bavarian economy. Ardelia Hall told Auerbach that his project required an official position emanating from Washington as well as the US military occupation government in Germany. Heinz Berggruen and Georges Wildenstein were some of the dealers interested in negotiating such arrangements.<br /><br />On 23 May 1949, Auerbach visited the MCCP in his role as Bavarian minister in charge of a commission comprised of Jewish organizations, including one from the US. The purpose of the commission was to draw up a list of unclaimed art objects at the CCP of proven Jewish origin which are not likely to be claimed by formerly plundered nations.” 800 paintings had already been identified and transferred to the Wiesbaden CCP for further disposition. On 28 October 1949 Rose Valland received word from her deputy, Mr. Doubinsky, that Auerbach had requested a list of all unidentifiable works of art handed over to the Minister President of Bavaria during the summer of 1949. “He wanted to obtain approval to sell them for the benefit of the Jews.” <br /><br />In January 1951, <a href="https://www.jmberlin.de/en/reading-auerbach">Auerbach became a member of the Central Council of Jews in Germany</a>. After five years of hectic leadership, Auerbach’s unconventional methods and personal ambitions finally caught up with him. In March 1951, the Bavarian minister of Justice, Joseph Muller, former liaison between the Vatican and domestic resistance during the Nazi years, launched a formal inquest against Philipp Auerbach with the tacit support of the US High Commissioner, John J McCloy. One month later, Auerbach was accused of financial misconduct and forgery in regard to reparations payments. His supporters insisted that he never personally benefited from the alleged fraud, and that he gave all the money to the victims. Some billed the campaign against Auerbach as a “monstrous defamation” campaign. It is widely believed by present-day historians that antisemitism contributed to Auerbach’s demise. After his arrest, a trial ensued starting in April 1952 which lasted five months. <br /><br />On August 14, 1952, Auerbach was found guilty of a host of crimes ranging from fraud and embezzlement, using false university credentials, “irregularities in office, bribe-taking in connection with funds allotted to Jewish victims, to passive corruption. A court of five judges, three of whom were ex-Nazis, sentenced Auerbach to two and a half years in prison. Although Auerbach accepted the verdict, he denounced the trial and compared it to what happens in the “Russian area.” His supporters filed an appeal in vain. John J. McCloy, the US High commissioner for Germany, rejected it outright. At 2 :30am on August 16, 1952, Auerbach swallowed a massive amount of sleeping pills and died at the age of 45. <a href="https://www.jta.org/archive/philip-auerbach-commits-suicide-act-due-to-verdict-of-german-court">Four years later Dr. Philipp Auerbach was posthumously cleared of all charges.</a><br /><br />Looking backwards, historians have argued that Philipp Auerbach’s trial and suicide had a chilling effect on public German Jewish life from the 1950s on. <a href=" https://www.scribd.com/book/392107133/A-History-of-Jews-in-Germany-Since-1945-Politics-Culture-and-Society">According to historian Dan Diner</a>, many retreated into the private sphere.<div><br /></div><div><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <i> <span> </span></i></span><i> <span> to be continued...</span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-74762000530215553752023-07-20T09:04:00.000-04:002023-07-20T09:04:05.338-04:00 The Auerbach Case: Part Two-Cabal of art dealers<div class="separator"></div><div class="separator"></div><div class="separator"></div><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-fG4MW8dzfbQZ9cwD8OuBZNJdesBPl_AtnYzVRu3U1IgwFju-0KhfP7VovFu6e4GzS5ZdF1WowkLixnE3bf-GkKa9CTVj57ZMpU5_ibcu6nbC42cPdEUyWluYo1V-djT03-9lPJjLhrf83QNidE9cg1qW7SpzjvZUms5nS82WOC8NQvYTk90CU3bfBE/s945/Portrait%20de%20Rose%20Valland%20vignette.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="945" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr-fG4MW8dzfbQZ9cwD8OuBZNJdesBPl_AtnYzVRu3U1IgwFju-0KhfP7VovFu6e4GzS5ZdF1WowkLixnE3bf-GkKa9CTVj57ZMpU5_ibcu6nbC42cPdEUyWluYo1V-djT03-9lPJjLhrf83QNidE9cg1qW7SpzjvZUms5nS82WOC8NQvYTk90CU3bfBE/s320/Portrait%20de%20Rose%20Valland%20vignette.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rose Valland, c/o Ministère de la Culture</td></tr></tbody></table><br />On 10 November 1949, Rose Valland, France’s point person on repatriation and restitution issues, wrote to Stefan Munsing, then Chief of the CCCP, to inform him on the activities of a recently naturalized American citizen of Jewish extraction living in Paris. His name was Heinz Berggruen. “He flaunts his privileged access to American museums. However, the US Embassy in Paris does not like him. Our suspicions about him grew when we compared his project with the one promoted by Auerbach and Wildenstein.” According to Valland, Berggruen was organizing a sale of paintings in Bavaria in which Georges Wildenstein held an interest. The works being sold had been consigned by Berlin dealers who knew that American clients would be congregating in Munich for that purpose. One of the dealers, a Mr. Buren, apparently consigned two French p<span style="text-align: center;">aintings, one by Corneille de Lyon and the other by Nattier. Valland notified Munsing that France reserved the right to assert its jurisdiction over those paintings and any others offered on the art market. She asked him to take the necessary measures to warn American museums not to deal with these “gangsters” whose behavior is unacceptable. </span><br /><br />Munsing’s investigations into Berggruen produced meager results. Berggruen was mostly dealing in rare books on his frequent visits to Bavaria. He also flaunted his contacts in high French circles as well as his familiarity with French customs who “never opened my bags.”<div><br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRsnQM0vs78io-KJ5KSXVj5xl5YR2zeMRBZuiT3JOHIX_4w7zRNIctoayJOCuX9X8VrlneGVc7z43vhGLTh_BlZS_Kf2Jon3asqyOISWuEQfZjLbDexY6HGDsKxRpx-Bwv3Qe3k4NO5iu_YtXR32mzVggDupmouxOPNMT8-PMKP2cemlUdnWY7ERfn_U/s433/heinrich-thumb-350x506-348527-thumb-300x433-3485281.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="299" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinRsnQM0vs78io-KJ5KSXVj5xl5YR2zeMRBZuiT3JOHIX_4w7zRNIctoayJOCuX9X8VrlneGVc7z43vhGLTh_BlZS_Kf2Jon3asqyOISWuEQfZjLbDexY6HGDsKxRpx-Bwv3Qe3k4NO5iu_YtXR32mzVggDupmouxOPNMT8-PMKP2cemlUdnWY7ERfn_U/w138-h200/heinrich-thumb-350x506-348527-thumb-300x433-3485281.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theodore Heinrich</td></tr></tbody></table><br />On 13 February 1951, Theodore Heinrich wrote to one of his former MFAA colleagues, Lane Faison. He warned him about his concerns regarding notables (Jewish and non-Jewish) of the art market who might be involved in postwar shady transactions. He was once the director of the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point in the US zone of occupation in Germany, while serving with the Monuments Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) administration. The MFAA had established the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) in central Munich in May 1945 in order to process and dispose of cultural assets stolen from Nazi victims across Europe. In application of international law, their mission was to identify the place where these assets had been stolen and return them to those countries from which they would then be restituted to the rightful owners. At least in theory… Heinrich suspected that something ominous was brewing in the postwar art market with respect to the fate of “undistributed holdings at MCCP.”<br /><br />The cast of characters included:<div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUkXbr-3DHFPq-cxh-gCviOObyMpMXBQRO3E36lXVPl-ByeJ_Df7eHo3iW2741qiD10ufkxe-_onctNdbGDp2CK7O62QAtJ3rsc5DqiKJyc7YMdq0vaIrtoTLp8-qwUdxnn6EDKi2wcclyOJXUtTGIqk8fNSnml2nWg4m-B8J1tVHpXIrELNm1kIcniY/s1504/Haberstock_Karl_1_9109044efb.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1100" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUUkXbr-3DHFPq-cxh-gCviOObyMpMXBQRO3E36lXVPl-ByeJ_Df7eHo3iW2741qiD10ufkxe-_onctNdbGDp2CK7O62QAtJ3rsc5DqiKJyc7YMdq0vaIrtoTLp8-qwUdxnn6EDKi2wcclyOJXUtTGIqk8fNSnml2nWg4m-B8J1tVHpXIrELNm1kIcniY/w146-h200/Haberstock_Karl_1_9109044efb.png" width="146" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karl Haberstock</td></tr></tbody></table><br />- Karl Haberstock, Nazi art historian and art dealer who carried out the plans of Nazi dignitaries to acquire thousands of works of art for Hitler’s Linzmuseum project and, in so doing, partook in the spoliation of Jewish collections across Western and Central Europe.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr_5CcWngKuX78fU7rkopu_b8MdHvqXdGmazm1SKixj23GJ0MaqsdBru2k_AEh7_O6pVgigPqKf5vxn8wX4137StVplZuRHtwoNF4kMD3p9j9d0n8QCWcFevc2qxmjIxjs5rIkLRrcdjVXVaStwWs_WkNZ_-07RQq0-vNywqdkQvWj2cRLGAq6HFomXM/s461/Georges-Wildenstein_2201.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="360" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLr_5CcWngKuX78fU7rkopu_b8MdHvqXdGmazm1SKixj23GJ0MaqsdBru2k_AEh7_O6pVgigPqKf5vxn8wX4137StVplZuRHtwoNF4kMD3p9j9d0n8QCWcFevc2qxmjIxjs5rIkLRrcdjVXVaStwWs_WkNZ_-07RQq0-vNywqdkQvWj2cRLGAq6HFomXM/w156-h200/Georges-Wildenstein_2201.jpg.webp" width="156" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georges Wildenstein</td></tr></tbody></table>- Georges Wildenstein, a legendary art dealer based in Paris, London and New York who was in a business partnership with Karl Haberstock before and—some allege-during WWII. His relationship with Haberstock apparently survived the war years.<br /><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />- Heinz Berggruen, a German Jewish refugee who settled in San Francisco in the 1930s, returned to Europe with the US Army and established what became one of the most famous art businesses of the postwar era, starting in liberated Paris.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTuU7PPdRUF-5M5uG6nGWKWqeenNd8sR1_QL14sOq3DEqNtrPSEDS4kcLKHSf_E1ttq8mP49oEBXJvwJ9m87b7eSefZhvM5_vk3m7RlJ87Wbh1uv1kFQOVgUauaRU9UqJewF3BSLqKARfodtuGBeml9t5BLFGP5TafUy-46zI_m1A-dACAonuPsxkItC8/s880/heinz-berggruen-christies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="880" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTuU7PPdRUF-5M5uG6nGWKWqeenNd8sR1_QL14sOq3DEqNtrPSEDS4kcLKHSf_E1ttq8mP49oEBXJvwJ9m87b7eSefZhvM5_vk3m7RlJ87Wbh1uv1kFQOVgUauaRU9UqJewF3BSLqKARfodtuGBeml9t5BLFGP5TafUy-46zI_m1A-dACAonuPsxkItC8/s320/heinz-berggruen-christies.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heinz Berggruen</td></tr></tbody></table><br />- Dr. Philip Auerbach, a Bavarian official who worked closely with Jewish organizations on the question of unclaimed Jewish cultural assets located in the US zone of Occupation of Germany where he worked.<br /><br />- Grace Morley, a native of Berkeley (CA) and a UNESCO official who headed its Museums division (innocent bystander)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdZtQcEKyz-p9egDo5nvpBI172ZgDhzGrdYVe8-qnYzTUAcPr-Ph430euvGpk5VW3zy9jIwNdPVNTdCE1rT8vUJag-bC78dW4mSbIhARragrT6cCOy4sGraxijsjpWqhaO95Kk5MDY-LHH604021a8OzqiP3_HkcnS6H5iYA7Tuv_fKWDeMJfmtWOOeU/s252/MorleySFMOMA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="252" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwdZtQcEKyz-p9egDo5nvpBI172ZgDhzGrdYVe8-qnYzTUAcPr-Ph430euvGpk5VW3zy9jIwNdPVNTdCE1rT8vUJag-bC78dW4mSbIhARragrT6cCOy4sGraxijsjpWqhaO95Kk5MDY-LHH604021a8OzqiP3_HkcnS6H5iYA7Tuv_fKWDeMJfmtWOOeU/w159-h200/MorleySFMOMA.jpeg" width="159" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grace Morley</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />It is unclear when and how Theodore Heinrich discovered the “sub-rosa” relationship between Karl Haberstock and Georges Wildenstein. He nevertheless accused Berggruen (Paris), of acting as a go-between between Wildenstein (New York), and Haberstock (Bavaria). <br /><br />Lane Faison (director of the Munich CCP) was aware of the fact that « many dealers had come to Munich in fall and winter (1950-1) to meet with Auerbach and other officials about Goering’s assets. These dealers believed that some of the Goering treasure would be made available to the art market. Faison condemned this behavior saying that it was antithetical to the spirit of restitution. He made it known that the US would never tolerate such a strategy. <br /><br /> <div><i><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>to be continued...</i></div></div></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-64232610164984736362023-07-20T08:44:00.004-04:002023-07-20T08:44:43.145-04:00 The Auerbach Case: Part One-Incongruous relationships<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqGqeunCDfJhrjKl1lYRKljc50Vd-LFawxdVkML9MWMYwTy988FuKMo6bA-hJrMzDsVhCAoTknnji8cg8UCikf2FzZBhpVmswFkxTOqerswyCCOawhsgs9U-H1oqJFh6Er1o_UFbLuDW_0aLr9inoepim3Hq2_13dnrFV1CC_Xah3V8_edQyMqmq5fQ5c/s997/Philipp_Auerbach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="997" data-original-width="954" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqGqeunCDfJhrjKl1lYRKljc50Vd-LFawxdVkML9MWMYwTy988FuKMo6bA-hJrMzDsVhCAoTknnji8cg8UCikf2FzZBhpVmswFkxTOqerswyCCOawhsgs9U-H1oqJFh6Er1o_UFbLuDW_0aLr9inoepim3Hq2_13dnrFV1CC_Xah3V8_edQyMqmq5fQ5c/w191-h200/Philipp_Auerbach.jpg" width="191" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Philipp Auerbach<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>[Editor's note: This is the first of a four-part series on Dr. Philipp Auerbach and his efforts to resolve the problem of unclaimed Jewish cultural assets using controversial methods which ultimately caused his demise. Some recent published monographs were not available for consultation. Therefore the views expressed herein are guided by available primary and secondary sources.]<br /><br />As the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) rose from the ashes of the Third Reich in 1949, there remained thousands of cultural objects including paintings, works on paper, furniture and decorative objects for which the US authorities which oversaw the Munich CCP could not establish an accurate point of origin. Since 1946, Jewish organizations had been designated as legitimate “successors” and were entitled to receive unclaimed objects from the Allied authorities and dispose of them as they saw fit in order to support the rehabilitation and relocation of Holocaust survivors stranded in refugee and displaced persons camps. <br /><br />Munich was the nerve center of this activity as Jewish groups tangled with local authorities and Allied military and civilian officials to gain control of these unclaimed assets for the benefit of Jewish survivors.<br /><br />Once word filtered out beyond Germany’s borders and reached the ears of American art dealers and collectors, the opportunity to gain access to these assets and sell them on the US market was too good to pass. American dealers became frequent visitors to Munich where they sought to strike some kind of arrangement by which they could gain access to these assets, convince the US authorities with the assistance of Jewish organizations and sell them on the US market, in New York mostly.<br /><br />An unusual alliance took shape between Bavarian officials, representatives of Jewish successor and relief organizations and art dealers from the US, France and Germany, some with close ties to American museums. The goal of this alliance was to monetize unclaimed works of art as quickly as possible. <br /><br />Dealers needed allies on the ground. Dr. Philipp Auerbach (1906-1952) proved to be the main ally of the art market, as the Bavarian official responsible for restitutions and compensation to Holocaust survivors. Auerbach was a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He had lost most of his relatives in the Holocaust. <br /><br />In 1946, Auerbach was appointed head of the Bavarian Off<span style="text-align: center;">ice for reparations and restitution for persecuted people. In that capacity, Auerbach was responsible for overseeing this process on behalf of the Bavarian Finance Department. Hence, Auerbach found himself playing a central role in deciding the fate of unclaimed assets.</span><br /><br />Auerbach, with a new sense of power, began to wield it. In one instance, he went to court to impose denazification proceedings against Johannes Müller, a philosopher and theologian with an ambiguous attitude towards Hitler, whom he had accused of glorifying Nazism. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/06/26/schloss-elmau-castle-g7-germany/">Müller owned a castle, Schloss Elmau,</a> which had been used as a Nazi military vacation camp then as a military field hospital. In a show of petulance, Auerbach used his official position to take control of the castle without obtaining legal title to it. He then converted it into a sanatorium for Holocaust survivors and displaced people which operated from 1947 to 1951. Eventually, Auerbach lost control of the castle due to his brash and unorthodox business practices.<br /><br />Auerbach’s cozy relationship with Jewish organizations involved in relief and rehabilitation in Munich laid the framework for a possible solution to the question of what to do with hundreds of millions of dollars of unclaimed cultural Jewish assets. Since Auerbach was the point man in the Bavarian administration for anything having to do with restitution matters, he wielded enormous influence on local administrative and judicial decisions affecting the status and disposition of these assets.<br /><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div></div><div><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><i><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>to be continued...</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-44536534454024101412023-04-30T17:32:00.031-04:002023-05-02T16:44:02.640-04:00Cornelius "Kor" Postma (Part Two)<i>by Claudia Hofstee</i><br /><br />Note: This is the second of a two-part essay by Claudia Hofstee. Part One addresses Postma’s life story and Part Two is a detailed look at his involvement with looted art, especially with the Adolphe Schloss Collection.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.artindex.nl/lexicon/default.asp?id=6&num=0557900087043050111171597009850910506441">Cornelius “Kor” Postma (1903-1977) </a>moved to France in 1939 in search of better opportunities as a Surrealist painter. After the Germans invaded France in May-June 1940, he established professional ties with members of the pro-Nazi Vichy government like Jean-François Lefranc, who orchestrated the seizure of the Adolphe Schloss Collection, an internationally known collection of Old Master paintings assembled by Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910). Lefranc was an advisor to<a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206258.pdf"> Darquier de Pellepoix (1897-1980)</a>, Commissioner-General for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ) under the Vichy Régime, and partnered with Bruno Lohse (1911-2007) a German art historian and dealer who served as Göring’s representative while deputy director of the ERR in Paris between 1941 and 1944.<br /><br />The Schloss Collection was stored for safekeeping in August 1939 at the Château de Chambon in Laguenne south of Limoges (France). After its discovery in winter 1943, Vichy officials and German security agents confiscated the paintings on 16 April 1943. Postma provided the appraisal for the collection after its arrival and dispersal in Paris as an associate of Lefranc in the dismemberment and recycling of the Schloss Collection. Postma received 2,066,830 francs for his appraisal services. Lefranc received 10 million francs for his involvement with the seizure and dispersal of the Schloss Collection. The Louvre used its right of preemption on 49 of the confiscated Schloss paintings to build up its Dutch and Flemish rooms. Lefranc allegedly sold 22 of the Schloss paintings in late 1943 to a Dutch dealer known as Buitenweg, allegedly based in Amsterdam. Although Postma testified that he had met with Buitenweg in Paris, there is no evidence that this man ever existed. The prevailing theory is that Buitenweg was an alias for Lefranc. Why Buitenweg? The name Buitenweg may be a pun referring to a Dutch seventeenth century painter, Willem Buytewech I (1591/92-1624), who was based in Haarlem and Rotterdam. The painter was known by his contemporaries as gheestige Willem (Jolly William). <br /><br />Postma consigned one of the 22 "Buitenweg paintings" by the Italian painter Giovanni Battista di l'Ortolano,<i> Christ déposé de la croix</i> with Galerie Claude, who then put it up for auction for him at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Another painting by <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/stormy-landscape">Rubens, <i>Paysage par un temps d'orage</i> </a> was sold for 60,000 Reichsmarks by Postma in June 1944 to Franz Rademacher (1899-1987), assistant director for the Landesmuseum in Bonn since 1936. The painting joined the collection of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn. After the war, Rademacher handed the painting over to the French zonal authorities at Baden-Baden. The painting was restituted to the Schloss family in 1951 and auctioned off at Galerie Charpentier in Paris on 5 December 1951. Through the British art market, it ended up eventually at the <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artwork/stormy-landscape">National Gallery of Canada in 1998 (inv. no. 39709)</a>. Although Postma initially denied his involvement in the sale of the painting to Rademacher, a letter dated 29 June 1944 by Rademacher to German art historian Eduard Plietzsch (1886-1961) about the authentication of the artwork confirms Postma’s involvement. <br /><br />Postma admitted to Allied interrogators that he had sold a Brouwer painting, <i>Le Pouilleux, </i>which depicts a man killing a louse, to Henri Verne (1880-1949), a one-time director of the Louvre for the imposing sum of 300,000 francs. The picture was listed for only 100 francs by<a href="https://agorha.inha.fr/ark:/54721/0d722d58-78ed-41f2-a93e-b51bfb3ed0a0"> René Claude Catroux </a>who had provided Lefranc with a separate appraisal of the Schloss Collection in November 1943. Verne acquired the painting for<a href="https://agorha.inha.fr/detail/260"> Étienne Marie Louis Nicolas (1870-1960)</a>, a wealthy businessman based in Paris. <br /><br />According to Elisabeth Furtwängler and Mattes Lammert, Postma was involved with another Buitenweg picture: a panel attributed to Philip de Koninck,<i> Paysage.</i> Postma sold the picture to the Berlin-based dealer and auctioneer Hans W. Lange (1904-1945) who then sold it on 12 August 1944 for 16,000 Reichsmarks to<a href="https://www.bomann-museum.de/Museum/Provenienzforschung/"> the Bomann Museum in Celle (Germany)</a>. <a href="https://www.proveana.de/en/person/neukirch-albert">Albert Neukirch (1884-1963) </a>headed the museum from 1923 to 1949. Postma facilitated an export license to send two Liotard paintings to Lange. The picture was attributed to Philip de Koninck until the time of the confiscation of the Schloss Collection, but it was exported as a painting by Jan van Kessel.<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tXBUXIP3G-2VSgJHmDWirCtJA3aqjMuh2C3KI-vHw-qUeRB2JOS3miUwd9ekEGVvmpmjoxnpDbZWwpwz261bhATEpZkrp_PMKRCvPH6JBuz_JI0SfMnBWxM5dk9P9hNxyibczjlAFh9OI5qqT6bX5DiKHyDCEb93qA5Uq9lTqB4tRLYXisrT0BuY/s1599/1599px-Kessel_Jan_van_Landschaft_m._Wasserschloss.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1146" data-original-width="1599" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9tXBUXIP3G-2VSgJHmDWirCtJA3aqjMuh2C3KI-vHw-qUeRB2JOS3miUwd9ekEGVvmpmjoxnpDbZWwpwz261bhATEpZkrp_PMKRCvPH6JBuz_JI0SfMnBWxM5dk9P9hNxyibczjlAFh9OI5qqT6bX5DiKHyDCEb93qA5Uq9lTqB4tRLYXisrT0BuY/s320/1599px-Kessel_Jan_van_Landschaft_m._Wasserschloss.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stormy landscape, by Jan van Kessel</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>One wonders when the reattribution took place, on whose orders -- Postma or somebody else?-- and for what reasons. In February 1946, the painting appeared on a list of works of art acquired by the Bomann Museum and the city of Celle since 1939. However, a British Monument Fine Arts and Archives (MFAA) officer, George Willmont (1907-1977), did not make the link between that painting and the Schloss Collection owing to its reattribution. Currently, the painting is still at the Bomann Museum. Since 2016, the museum has conducted extensive provenance research on their collection. </div><div><br />In a 1946 letter sent by Postma to Albert Henraux (1881-1953), President of the CRA (Commission de Récupération Artistique), the French restitution agency, he argued that the paintings he sold came from his own collection stored in Switzerland before WWII and thus they could not have been looted. And this, despite his wartime track record. One of these paintings that he mentioned was a Guardi for which Postma arranged an export license in August 1944, intended for the German gallery Gerstenberger in Chemnitz. Moreover, Allied interrogators accused Postma of using Old Masters as payment for modern works. These exchanges may have taken place with the ERR. It is not known, however, from which collections (Jewish or not) these works came. It would be worth knowing if some of these paintings came from the Simon Bauer Collection that Lefranc, Postma’s partner in crime, had plundered. In October 1943, the Anti-Jewish commission (CGQJ) had appointed Lefranc as the administrator of the Bauer Collection. <br /><br />In conclusion, we still know very little about the wartime activities of the Dutch surrealist painter, Cornelius “Kor” Postma. As of today, the majority of the 22 “Buitenweg/Lefranc pictures” are still missing. Every detail about their provenance is crucial to know who, through whom, how and when the paintings were sold after the seizure of the Schloss Collection in April 1943. Postma’s shadow looms large over the fate of these works.<br /><br /><b>Sources</b><br /><br /><u>Archives du Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères (AMAE), La Courneuve, France<br /></u>209SUP_147_118: Bauer/Schloss/Buitenweg investigation Report Summary <br />209SUP_406_P48: Cornelius Postma<br />209SUP_480_P184: Undated pages from investigation report into Lefranc and Buitenweg <br />209SUP_482_P66 : 1945-1946 Postma file <br />209SUP_482_P67 1944-1946 Export issues re Postma <br />209SUP_482_P166 : Cornelius Postma<br />209SUP_482_P167: Interrogatoire Hermann Voss<br />209SUP_586_R45: List of 22 paintings for Lefranc/Buitenweg <br /><br /><u>Archives Nationales (AN), Pierrefitte, France</u><br />AN, 20144657/6, 06 July 1944, n. fol.<br /><div>Z/NL 381, 8841 (C), 379, Postma<br /><br /><b>Links</b><br /><br /><u>RKD-Netherlands Institute for Art History</u><br /><a href="https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/14584">https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/14584</a><br /><br /><u>Database of Art Objects and the Jeu de Paume (ERR Database)</u><br /><a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52554">https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52554</a><br /><a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52611">https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52611</a><br /><a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=76504">https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=76504</a><br /><a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52562">https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52562</a><br /><br /><u>JDCRP Database</u><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/basaiti_vierge_52643/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/basaiti_vierge_52643/</a><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/rubens_gewitterlandschaft_53296/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/rubens_gewitterlandschaft_53296/</a><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/brouwer_poullieux_52660/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/brouwer_poullieux_52660/</a><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/koninck_paysage_52562/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/koninck_paysage_52562/</a><br /><br /><u>National Gallery of Canada</u><br />Rubens, Story Landscape, c. 1635/36, 29,7 x 42 cm, inv. no. 39709</div><div><br /><b>Published Sources</b><br /><br />Galerie Charpentier, Catalogue de la deuxième vente de tableaux anciens de la collection de feu m. Adolphe Schloss, Paris, 1951, (lot 47).<br /><br />Elisabeth Furtwängler and Mattes Lammert, Kunst und Profit: Museen und der französische Kunstmarkt im Zweiten Weltkrieg, 2022.<br /><br />C. M. Galler and J. Meiners, Regionaler Kunsthandel – Eine Herausforderung für die Provenienzforschung?!, 2022.<br /><br />J. Meiners and C. M. Galler, NS-Kunstraub lokal und europäisch: Eine Zwischenbilanz der Provenienzforschung in Celle (Celler Beiträge zur Landes- und Kulturgeschichte: Schriftenreihe des Stadtarchivs und des Bomann Museums), 2018.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-25744918261876390062023-04-16T16:10:00.024-04:002023-04-27T17:02:44.614-04:00Cornelius "Kor" Postma (Part One)<i>by Claudia Hofstee</i><br /><br /> Note: This is a two-part essay by Claudia Hofstee. Part One addresses Postma’s life story and Part Two is a detailed look at his involvement with looted art, especially with the Adolphe Schloss Collection.<div><br /><a href="https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/artists/record?query=kor+postma&start=0]">Cornelis "Kor" Johannes Postma</a> (1903-1977) was a Dutch surrealist painter who participated in the valuation and sale of Nazi-looted art during the German occupation in Paris. During WWII, he served as an expert for the German and French authorities. His involvement is well known with the valuation of <a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org">the Adolphe Schloss Collection </a>that he performed for the German and French authorities. The full extent of his wartime role in acquiring and selling looted artworks from French collections to German clients is still not clear. <br /><br />Cornelis Postma was the son of Gerardhus Postma and Joanna van Doorn. He grew up in Hilversum (Netherlands). In 1923, Postma taught himself how to paint close to his hometown, in Laren. Later on, he received art lessons from the Flemish expressionist painters from Joseph Coutré and Gustaaf De Smet (1877-1943). The latter lived in the Netherlands from 1914-1922, He was also a pupil of Dutch artist Willy Schoonhoven van Beurden (1883-1963). <br /><br />On 21 April 1926, <a href=" https://noord-hollandsarchief.nl/bronnen/archieven?mizig=348&miadt=236&miaet=54&micode=358.6-2858&minr=28389111&miview=ldt">Postma married a Jewish theater actress, Betsy Booleman</a> (1901-1997). The wedding was held in Amsterdam. A daughter, Heddy Ly Postma (1929-2017), was born three years later. While in Amsterdam, Postma worked for art dealer Pieter de Boer. In the 1930s, he collaborated in group shows with artists like Carel Willink (1900-1983) and Pycke Koch (1901-1991). However, due to disappointments in his career, Postma moved to Paris in 1939 where he worked as an artist until the onset of the German occupation in June 1940.<br /><br />During WWII, Postma lived in a small family guesthouse at the Hôtel de Nice at 4bis, rue des Beaux-Arts (Paris). The street was known for its many galleries, bookstores, publishers and artists' homes. Postma changed gears and participated in the booming wartime Parisian art market. He befriended some notorious individuals such as art dealer Jean-François Lefranc, responsible for aryanizing Jewish-owned galleries and businesses in and around Paris. Lefranc was a close advisor to Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (1897-1980), Commissioner General for Jewish Affairs under the Vichy regime (1942-1944). Lefranc introduced him to Dr. Bruno Lohse (1911-2007), a Nazi art historian who served as deputy director of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in France and coordinated anti-Jewish plunder for the ERR. He also met Kurt von B<span style="text-align: center;">ehr (1890-1945), Lohse’s superior at the ERR who supervised the ransacking of Jewish residences from 1942 to 1944 (M-Aktion). Postma’s knowledge of Dutch art and the Dutch art market made him an asset in Lohse’s network of French, German and other informants who persecuted Jewish collectors and dealers. </span><div><br /></div><div>Postma’s clients included art dealers like Munich-based Maria Almas-Dietrich (1892-1971) and Berlin-based <a href="https://agorha.inha.fr/detail/87">Hans W. Lange</a> (1904-1945) to whom he sold a number of looted works. <a href="https://celler-presse.de/2019/10/13/staedte-als-auktionsgaenger-beispiele-aus-dem-berliner-auktionshaus-hans-w-lange-2/">Lange used Postma </a>to facilitate the export of paintings from France to Germany. In July 1944, Postma exported three paintings; a landscape by the 17th century Dutch artist Jan van Kessel and two pictures by French artist Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702-789), <i>Still life with pitcher and glasses</i> (whose attribution was questioned) and <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RG0#full-artwork-details "><i>Still life: Tea Set,</i></a> which is part of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. </div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkP1cNLGoV5MBfG3Yq1QcRWUvgsSB_Rw_ROF2i9PDQcXAwVkIE8oyKFn4ktqm4DfKKGIYBfw3G9Asj92Dbj5SsxTEe-IWJGNg2yfpaag_XxSJUzc04o4KpGM7ftLR8w9RCZMvD0MZkQT32f_PdYJgYqeb0Li2lstVssFu4Vbbn2JJbUj-5Fg_xzki/s3000/4bab9e19-d286-44a2-9ccb-6099af1d967b_3000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkP1cNLGoV5MBfG3Yq1QcRWUvgsSB_Rw_ROF2i9PDQcXAwVkIE8oyKFn4ktqm4DfKKGIYBfw3G9Asj92Dbj5SsxTEe-IWJGNg2yfpaag_XxSJUzc04o4KpGM7ftLR8w9RCZMvD0MZkQT32f_PdYJgYqeb0Li2lstVssFu4Vbbn2JJbUj-5Fg_xzki/s320/4bab9e19-d286-44a2-9ccb-6099af1d967b_3000.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still Life: Tea Set, by Jean-Etienne Liotard</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i>Still life: Tea Set</i> was consigned to multiple French galleries for which Postma acted as a go-between with the actual seller. Michel Martin (1905-2003) curator at the Musée du Louvre, denied Postma his application for an export license for the Liotard painting mostly because the Louvre was keen on acquiring an important Liotard painting. This rejection of the export license illustrates one way by which French museums exercised their pre-emption right in the 1940s – a right granted to them by the Export Law of 1941. Despite Martin’s opposition, the painting left France in July 1944. Furthermore, Postma dealt occasionally with German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895-1956), well-known art expert who had acquired thousands of works of art in occupied territories of Western Europe, mostly in France. </div><div><br />After the war, Postma remained in Paris where he married his second wife, the Dutch artist Pieternella Wilhelmina (Lili) Bosman van Leer (1905-1966). Her first husband (1941-1949) was Oscar van Leer (1914-1996), a successful entrepreneur. Postma may have met Bosman through Oscar van Leer since Postma was acquainted with van Leer since the 1930s. This connection proved beneficial to Postma's postwar career especially since Van Leer had developed social ties with Princess Beatrix (1938-), crown princess of the Netherlands, and her husband Prince Claus (1926-2002), while organizing gatherings for artist and writers at their estate of Castle Drakensteyn. In the 1970s, Postma gave drawing lessons to Princess Beatrix's children: Willem-Alexander (1967-), Friso (1968-2013) and Constantijn (1969-). <br /><br />Postma and Lili Bosman regularly had opportunities to hold joint exhibits in Paris as with <a href=" https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t516656w/f7.image.r=Cornelis%20Postma?rk=42918;4">Galerie Kleinberger in 1951</a>. Postma also enjoyed solo shows at Galerie Vendôme in <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t528158w/f3.image.r=Cornelis%20Postma?rk=21459;2">1957</a> and <a href="https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bd6t5298582/f7.image.r=Cornelis%20Postma?rk=128756;0">1958.</a><br /><br /><b>Sources</b><br /><br /></div><div><u>Fold3: </u><br /><br />NARA RG 239 M1782 roll M1782_10F1<br />NARA RG 239 M1944 rolls 22, 44, 47, 52, 95<br />NARA RG 260 M1941 roll 19 <br />NARA RG 260 M1949 roll 6<br /><br /><u>Archives Nationales (AN), Pierrefitte, France</u><br />AN, 20144657/6, 06 July 1944, n. fol. <br />Z/NL 381, 8841 (C), 379, Postma<br /><br /><u>Archives du Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères (AMAE), La Courneuve, France </u><br />Séries 370-555 Série P: archives de provenance diverse<br />209SUP/406: Cornelius Postma <br />209SUP406p48: Cornelius Postma <br />209SUP/482 P166 : Cornelius Postma <br />209SUP/482 P167: Interrogatoire Hermann Voss<br /><br /></div><div><u>Stadsarchief Amsterdam</u>, 30561: Archief van Oscar van Leer 1920 – 2003<br /><br /></div><div><u>Noord-Hollands Archief</u>, 358.6 burgerlijke stand van de gemeente Amsterdam, inv. nr. 2858, aktenr. Reg. 2A fol. 50v; inv. nr. 3105, aktenr. Reg. 1B fol. 46v</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Published sources:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Elisabeth Furtwängler and Mattes Lammert, Kunst und Profit: Museen und der französische Kunstmarkt im Zweiten Weltkrieg, 2022<br /><br /></div><div>Vanessa von Kolpinski, ‘Art Transfers from France During and After the Occupation: On Export Regulation as a Protective Measure and Resulting Source Material’, Arts et politiques, 2022: 138-155]</div> -self-taught Postma<div><br /></div><div>P.M. J. E. Jacobs, Beeldend Benelux: Biografisch handboek, vol. 4, Tilburg 2000, p. 668.<br /><br />Jean-Étienne Liotard, Still-life: Tea Set, c. 1781-83, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. no 84.PA57. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Links:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><u>-Cornelius “Kor” Postma</u><br /><a href="https://www.simonis-buunk.nl/kunstenaar/kor/kunstwerken-te-koop/3615/">https://www.simonis-buunk.nl/kunstenaar/kor/kunstwerken-te-koop/3615/</a><br /><a href="https://scheen.co/kunstenaars/postma-0">https://scheen.co/kunstenaars/postma-0</a><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/event/1943-08-21-postma-submitted-appraisal/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/event/1943-08-21-postma-submitted-appraisal/</a><br /><a href="https://www.geni.com/people/Hedda-Ly-Postma/6000000147318664826">https://www.geni.com/people/Hedda-Ly-Postma/6000000147318664826</a> <br /><a href="https://www.geni.com/people/Cornelis-Johannes-Postma/6000000043596644134">https://www.geni.com/people/Cornelis-Johannes-Postma/6000000043596644134</a> <br /><a href="https://www.openarch.nl/nha:6b728df6-17dc-4f40-89f3-8621f498defb/nl">https://www.openarch.nl/nha:6b728df6-17dc-4f40-89f3-8621f498defb/nl</a><br /><br /><u>-Betsy Booleman’s relatives who perished at Auschwitz</u><br /><a href="https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/161309/c%C3%A9lina-booleman-coronel">https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/161309/c%C3%A9lina-booleman-coronel</a><br /><a href="https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/161310/alexander-booleman">https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/161310/alexander-booleman</a><br /><br /><u>The J. Paul Getty Museum</u>, inv. nr. 84.PA57<br /><a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RG0#full-artwork-details">https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RG0#full-artwork-details</a><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div></div></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-53859695580020274652022-12-18T11:01:00.001-05:002022-12-18T11:06:12.990-05:00 Maison Bulgari and the Nazis<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivP4__4bJfP83xeByi9dbNr02AFCe2XA8vIL9PzAZ0krZv_W1e_BEPH22gdwiPSn5ISqwFFq7qN-GXUgI6nyCQddWU7KQpI9gyAQQ0gNF3WmfsU_813Gu_iIYQrzds-2gNndTnK2rf642-weSBiy36hecX7owkP09aG11hMmnxKKAjJUzu9o6VioHa/s840/cms-vis-txt-img-desktop-6021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="840" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivP4__4bJfP83xeByi9dbNr02AFCe2XA8vIL9PzAZ0krZv_W1e_BEPH22gdwiPSn5ISqwFFq7qN-GXUgI6nyCQddWU7KQpI9gyAQQ0gNF3WmfsU_813Gu_iIYQrzds-2gNndTnK2rf642-weSBiy36hecX7owkP09aG11hMmnxKKAjJUzu9o6VioHa/s320/cms-vis-txt-img-desktop-6021.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maison Bulgari, Rome</td></tr></tbody></table><i><br /></i><div><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />Why would a high-end luxury goods business like Bulgari become a target of Allied investigations during WWII? That honor resulted from a convergence of seemingly isolated factors when, brought together, created a pattern of behavior extending internationally and involving businessmen, art agents, Nazi officials, and a possible Jewish victim of plunder. The end result was a suspicion that Bulgari would allow itself to be used as a conduit and enabler of Nazi attempts to secrete assets overseas in places where they could technically be invested in ventures meant to subvert the post-1945 world.<br /><br />In 1941, US officials questioned Achille Colombo after his arrival in New York from Italy via Buenos Aires, Argentina. The circuitous journey lasted seven months from March to October 1940. Colombo had with him two platinum, diamond and ruby rings worth 47,000 dollars (1945 value). He told US officials that he had acquired them from Bulgari in Italy, several years prior. They were to be delivered to Henri Untermans, Bulgari’s representative in New York.</div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9W3GxuJHfYaUUdvDV5Nzul7VXQ4Pm582JAURU3vRyMme87EYZ4bv9ZNw-ZFtCa4ttC5oOmRmH_ju9yq4T9N2gSD8glJnQN6OiXLsdSK4HwKeyGkFcGJSjC9YY7Ffb-viUOCcRAEFhxRZjadhUGrHy_2Qm7dtmHSNwGsY8t8Hrkd1LtqGOkqchERZ/s627/U.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="472" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9W3GxuJHfYaUUdvDV5Nzul7VXQ4Pm582JAURU3vRyMme87EYZ4bv9ZNw-ZFtCa4ttC5oOmRmH_ju9yq4T9N2gSD8glJnQN6OiXLsdSK4HwKeyGkFcGJSjC9YY7Ffb-viUOCcRAEFhxRZjadhUGrHy_2Qm7dtmHSNwGsY8t8Hrkd1LtqGOkqchERZ/w151-h200/U.jpg" width="151" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henri Untermans</td></tr></tbody></table><div> </div><div>Colombo had a bank account at Banco de Provincia in Buenos Aires. They suspected Colombo of acting as a channel to sell assets “removed from Italy.” While Colombo was on his long and circuitous trek to New York, the Bulgari House opened its Lugano store from which it would transact in high-end and high-value objects. A financial investigation into Colombo’s business dealings revealed a three-way transaction involving the rings between Constantine G. Bulgari in Lugano, Banco de Provincia, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Chase National Bank in New York City. The transaction was worth 47,000 dollars, the exact value of the rings in Colombo’s possession.</div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhToN3rcsc8-RzfvvmferAx0D7xfJ5w10Vn8FE0nzfT7lSipw3eNy4h_07HnwGhkGWpsXJeqqsUItq5g3AIt2yK_Pl9oC1t8BgiWSNS6mboa2adNB911WXpj6g5IA2bbpenYlwybGH27e6HvhHgLUVjskXMvctqcUTxgXCgwtud6_BslyvHrOMCDJ/s356/VVon_Mackensen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="279" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhToN3rcsc8-RzfvvmferAx0D7xfJ5w10Vn8FE0nzfT7lSipw3eNy4h_07HnwGhkGWpsXJeqqsUItq5g3AIt2yK_Pl9oC1t8BgiWSNS6mboa2adNB911WXpj6g5IA2bbpenYlwybGH27e6HvhHgLUVjskXMvctqcUTxgXCgwtud6_BslyvHrOMCDJ/w156-h200/VVon_Mackensen.jpg" width="156" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eberhard von Mackensen</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Constantino-Giorgio Bulgari and his partner, Giorgio-Leonido Bulgari, both Greek-born, owned The House of Sotirio Bulgari. Based in Rome, the Bulgaris were able to avoid restrictive measures imposed by Fascist authorities on Greeks residing in Fascist Italy. They hobnobbed with Eberhardt von Mackensen, the German Ambassador in Rome, with whom they were often in daily contact. One of the Bulgaris even met in Zurich with the Baron Kurt von Behr, senior official of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in German-occupied Paris. He acted as Hermann Goering’s emissary to explore possible ways of laundering plundered diamonds valued at 7 million Swiss francs, once the property of Louis Arscher, a Parisian jeweler. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>To spice things up a bit, Giacomo Laurenti, Bulgari’s lawyer in Lugano and honorary Greek consul, was allegedly implicated in trafficking precious stones from across Europe. Some jewels and stones that he had shipped to the Americas were seized in Bermuda by British blockade officials. When US diplomats stationed in Switzerland questioned Laurenti about his work for Bulgari, he stated that he acted as a “mail drop” for them so that they could communicate with “persons outside Axis territory.” Laurenti was not alone: Benno Geiger, a Venetian art dealer of German ancestry, did Goering’s bidding as a go-between to acquire old silver and other luxury objects from Bulgari to the tune of nine million lira (1945 value).<br /><br /><b>Primary Sources:</b><div><br />Safehaven Report, <i>Maison Sotirio Bulgari</i>, <i>Rome, Italy</i>, Despatch No. 11823 from US Embassy in Berne, 1 June <span style="text-align: center;">1945, 850.3 series, RG 153 M 1933 Reel 2 NARA.</span><br /><br /><i>Looted Art in Occupied Territories, Neutral Countries and Latin America</i>, Foreign Economic Admnistration revised report, August 1945, pp. 24-5., RG 239 M 1944 Reel 9, NARA.<br /><br /></div></div></div><div><b>Photo credits:</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Bulgari, Rome</div><div>www.bulgari.com</div><div><br /></div><div>Henri Untermans</div><div>c/o Sousa Mendes Foundation</div><div>http://sousamendesfoundation.org/recipients/U</div><div><br /></div><div>Eberhard von Mackensen</div><div>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_von_Mackensen#/media/File:VVon_Mackensen.jpg</div><div><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-11447377011457219472022-12-05T22:49:00.000-05:002022-12-05T22:49:10.890-05:00The disappearance of Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit1u9fJw26fNpk0aCOfmYlJNQqaVulzxNQ24Iwfzf3ypLo1JWpZLePzFNm1CDdvkcAsH0yMFKbUcgoMLw-GJQvM2sMDqNY_rgXlcwgqJsN87508JfW0ii34eK0mjoe4kH8HD7rja1BWQ3bOZdpVKB1_YT9Kj5o9YYZmSBru6tM_pIwojXh5rSUN6PC/s1119/Raphael_missing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1119" data-original-width="900" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit1u9fJw26fNpk0aCOfmYlJNQqaVulzxNQ24Iwfzf3ypLo1JWpZLePzFNm1CDdvkcAsH0yMFKbUcgoMLw-GJQvM2sMDqNY_rgXlcwgqJsN87508JfW0ii34eK0mjoe4kH8HD7rja1BWQ3bOZdpVKB1_YT9Kj5o9YYZmSBru6tM_pIwojXh5rSUN6PC/w161-h200/Raphael_missing.jpg" width="161" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Portrait of a Young Man</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />What happened to Raphael’s<i> Portrait of a Young Man</i> which belongs to the world-renown collection of the Krakow-based Czartoryski family? The now-iconic painting (the poster child for WWII plundered “treasures”) pulled off a world-class vanishing act in the early days of May 1945 as US troops closed in on the South Bavarian compound of Hans Frank, Governor-General of German-occupied Poland. <br /><br />The Czartoryski family, one of the flowers of Polish nobility, owned palatial residences and estates in Krakow, Goluchów and Sieniawa (Poland). Since 1893, the Goluchów Castle served as a Museum of the Czartoryski collection. Many of the family’s artistic possessions were stored and displayed there. They included close to 5000 art objects and antiquities as well as several hundred Old Master paintings. The bulk of the collection was transferred to Sieniawa for protection. Soon after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, German troops reached the Czartoryski estates and seized their contents. To make matters worse, a local mason had betrayed the location of the hidden Czartoryski “treasury.”<div><br /> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6J5GwvX954GUmqset8yyJM5aXZ9AlJRxu_yP68qsW0L0UFb-JQzrmx3Bh6AvAzuHzpJAz3cPTMfK17SziuYbQkskHgSMV2KVthfXNpU1oR04XdXZJuLr0JhrgEAUqq2JwyOJvkwdyYFcSSudeEBPgv_d0bnu1ng2HgtgY8CIHHDiaZ55OBmnB672v/s780/Hans-Frank-1939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="780" data-original-width="571" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6J5GwvX954GUmqset8yyJM5aXZ9AlJRxu_yP68qsW0L0UFb-JQzrmx3Bh6AvAzuHzpJAz3cPTMfK17SziuYbQkskHgSMV2KVthfXNpU1oR04XdXZJuLr0JhrgEAUqq2JwyOJvkwdyYFcSSudeEBPgv_d0bnu1ng2HgtgY8CIHHDiaZ55OBmnB672v/w146-h200/Hans-Frank-1939.jpg" width="146" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hans Frank</td></tr></tbody></table><br />In October 1939, <a href="https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/en/muhlmann-kajetan">Kajetan Mühlmann</a>, who had played a major role in the plunder of cultural treasures in German-occupied Poland, brought to Berlin choice pieces from the confiscated Czartoryski collection—works by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. In late November, at<a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-bormann"> Martin Bormann</a>’s urging, Hans Posse, the director of Hitler’s Linz museum project, requested the transfer of the best pieces from the Czartoryski collection to the Linz museum. It fell on deaf ears. The paintings returned to Krakow only to be shipped back to Berlin in 1942, this time on orders from Field Marshal Hermann Goering. However, the Nazis, fearing for the safety of the works due to Allied bombardments, opted to send the works back to Krakow, where they were stored at the Wawel Castle. <div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwRsYzdFF-Np36ijCJRrcKg-s448QCggBvk30VfplFukfax_gRV1Bp08eTDcPkMiK7czs_VIShAOOdoJTpZm9UBwpSLbTs2jtSHqrr2jwl6sGmcm7SYYqCpnJtiENNZHJLMwNKpzIyJo8MAvggXXArGVXy0pTvPPGzg4VpmPdABOk9Og_HRk90xwiM/s1300/old-style-photo-royal-wawel-castle-cracow-14871673.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1300" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwRsYzdFF-Np36ijCJRrcKg-s448QCggBvk30VfplFukfax_gRV1Bp08eTDcPkMiK7czs_VIShAOOdoJTpZm9UBwpSLbTs2jtSHqrr2jwl6sGmcm7SYYqCpnJtiENNZHJLMwNKpzIyJo8MAvggXXArGVXy0pTvPPGzg4VpmPdABOk9Og_HRk90xwiM/w320-h237/old-style-photo-royal-wawel-castle-cracow-14871673.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wawel Castle, Krakow</td></tr></tbody></table><br />From August 1944 to January 1945, in the face of an imminent offensive by the Soviet Red Army, a gradual evacuation began of <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hans-frank">Hans Frank</a>’s Krakow HQ and the many plundered art objects and paintings under his control. The main evacuation point was the estate of Count Manfred von Richtofen in Seichau (Sichów), Silesia, which the Auswärtiges Amt [German Foreign Office] had requisitioned for use by Hans Frank, his staff and the German Army. At the outset, a small number of Frank’s aides had appeared at Seichau (Sichów). It was not until the surrender of Krakow that the largest contingents overtook von Richtofen’s castle. He confirmed that Frank and his top aides had remained in the main house for only a few days until their “sudden” departure on 23 January 1945. In other words, Frank did not reach Seichau (Sichów) until mid-January 1945. <div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE2K7eIwPAZ1piOUol0pcmZunPrcDP82qUvWvjXt7c2YYjWhC7bnE933rAI-asgxFNGo6M_lADSStRFFvKv57GBwEcaJoeoMxG9PAchJpwfKPprK_M0vPWp5_hZ0RDRSOOSdFdJ1NLMFjzZEuSLTJHSHeHMRRqpHypaLqt5hlGqzkvaprkldQW2Ly/s1784/Seichau%20(Sichow)%20Castle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="898" data-original-width="1784" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglE2K7eIwPAZ1piOUol0pcmZunPrcDP82qUvWvjXt7c2YYjWhC7bnE933rAI-asgxFNGo6M_lADSStRFFvKv57GBwEcaJoeoMxG9PAchJpwfKPprK_M0vPWp5_hZ0RDRSOOSdFdJ1NLMFjzZEuSLTJHSHeHMRRqpHypaLqt5hlGqzkvaprkldQW2Ly/s320/Seichau%20(Sichow)%20Castle.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seichau Castle, Silesia</td></tr></tbody></table><div>A German official by the name of Gross indicated that in the months following the requisition of von Richtofen’s estate, there was a continual movement of “lorries” which carried ‘objets d’art’ as well as<span style="text-align: center;">“foodstuffs and large quantities of alcohol.” He noted that, after the departure of the Frank party on 23 January 1945, the rooms that they had occupied at Seichau (Sichów) were in “complete chaos,” a statement confirmed by Fraulein Liselotte Freund of Seichau Castle. (Gross and Liselotte Freund supplied separate statements to an SS investigative officer on 2 February 1945).</span><div><br />Frau von Wietersheim’s Muhrau estate, 14 km from Seichau, served as a secondary evacuation point. Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux, Hans Frank’s chief of the ‘Referat für Kunst’ (Art Section) and Eduard Kneisel, an Austrian-born restorer, were responsible for ensuring the safety of the plundered treasures from the Czartoryski and other noble Polish collections. They watched over the thousands of art works and objects in their custody at both estates. <br /><br />It took the greater part of a month for the various convoys carrying Hans Frank and his many staff members to reach Neuhaus am Schliersee in southern Bavaria where Hans Frank had an estate. Neuhaus am Schliersee became the final destination for the Polish looted cultural treasures under Frank’s control, including those that belonged to the Czartoryskis. On 17 February 1945, Hans Frank informed Dr. Lammers, chief of the Reich Chancellery, that the last convoys had reached Neuhaus. <br /><br />According to London-based Count Zamoyski, one of the heirs to the Czartoryski estate, the <i>Portrait of a Young Man </i>by Raphael was stored at a villa serving as a residence for Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux in the immediate vicinity of Hans Frank’s compound. Eduard Kneisel confirmed this fact in subsequent years and testified that he had not conducted any restoration work on the painting but that it had been removed from its massive crate.<br /><br /><b>The “vanishing”</b><br /><br />In the first week of May 1945, American military units converged on the Bavarian compound of Hans Frank at Neuhaus am Schliersee. They searched Frank’s office in the “Bergfrieden” chalet, which was near the “Schoberhof”, his main residence. According to an American miliary investigative report, the troops conducted only a superficial search of the “Schoberhof.” The MFAA took nearly a year to file a report on the circumstances surrounding Hans Frank’s capture and the disappearance of the Raphael. The report acknowledged that US troops had not conducted an extensive search of the “Schoberhof.”<br /><br />On 4-5 May 1945, Americ<span style="text-align: center;">an troops located and arrested Hans Frank as he tried to escape with members of this retinue. Frank made a failed attempt at suicide on 6 May 1945. US troops recovered most of Hans Frank’s loot. However, the </span><i style="text-align: center;">Portrait of a Young Man</i><span style="text-align: center;"> by Raphael vanished into thin air either right before the arrival of American troops or under their very noses while they were overtaking Neuhaus. It’s anyone’s guess where the painting is currently stashed. </span><br /><br /><b>Primary sources:</b><br /><br /></div><div>Document 3614-PS, Evacuation of Cracow, UConn Archives and Special Collections<br /><a href="https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/20002%3A1503#page/8/mode/2up">https://collections.ctdigitalarchive.org/islandora/object/20002%3A1503#page/8/mode/2up</a>]<br /><br />Frank to Lammers, Document 3614-PS, Office of US Chief Counsel, IMT<br /><br /></div><div>undated letter from Count von Richtofen to an Ortsgruppenleiter of the NSV [National Socialist Welfare Organization]<br /><br />"The loot from Poland," unsigned summary. RG 59, Lot 62D-4, Ardelia Hall Collection, Box 9, NARA.<br /><br />Ardelia Hall to Count Zamoyski, 15 December 1960, Lot 62D-4 Ardelia Hall Collection, Box 13, NARA.<br /><br />Walther Bader interrogation by Edgar Breitenbach and Dr. Roethel, 24 June 1947, RG 260 Prop. Div., Ardelia Hall, MCCP, Box 479, NARA.<br /><br />www.Fold3.com</div><div>RG 239 M1944 Reel 127 NARA. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Photo credits</b></div><div><br /></div>Hans Frank<br /><a href="https://cdn.britannica.com/44/133344-050-54791C79/Hans-Frank-1939.jpg">https://cdn.britannica.com/44/133344-050-54791C79/Hans-Frank-1939.jpg</a><br /><br />Kajetan Mühlmann<br /><a href="https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/en/muhlmann-kajetan">https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/en/muhlmann-kajetan</a></div><div><br /></div>Wawel castle<br />https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-old-style-photo-royal-wawel-castle-cracow-image14871673</div></div><div><br /></div></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-64048593785416927902022-11-29T14:39:00.002-05:002022-11-29T14:39:23.676-05:00What happened to Raphael's "Portrait of a Young Man"?<div class="separator"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>by Marc Masurovsky</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPPc-xAhoZ7p-fi1n1zM8ohbvSEspspjFKfm5kzAW-MdwgOuBviM1T6OcSGHHF5bruGacMklnQ1bw7TxqvKGWzUTUOAC4a6x56Hf7xucwpQQpMVQ5ptM_Nl1ujLHJWtA39DKbMHB462ewPfAR8RTHGPGbKJ10dqUf9G3uK13dNf5VFRFBcKXuZT3H/s186/Unknown.jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPPc-xAhoZ7p-fi1n1zM8ohbvSEspspjFKfm5kzAW-MdwgOuBviM1T6OcSGHHF5bruGacMklnQ1bw7TxqvKGWzUTUOAC4a6x56Hf7xucwpQQpMVQ5ptM_Nl1ujLHJWtA39DKbMHB462ewPfAR8RTHGPGbKJ10dqUf9G3uK13dNf5VFRFBcKXuZT3H/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Portrait of a Young Man</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkprG1WY5zkntNVkI9d3u_uhk_aXlFiueOrc7-2Eg0adJQ4nbhbN6y0P1KvyC4seZ0oodgUbrVonXXyZ26HSaPe7_LSWRPOhCRv303FNOSuO9FYllGHVYzjaJ9vDrv7B-8-dA8UVntC7qN4Uou1CG1mPk35qRGEm6YXfxWzLz3iavAtga12s2wjFfH/s220/georges_wildestein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a></div>What happened to Raphael Santi's “Portrait of a Young Man” which belongs to the world-renown collection of the Cracow-based Czartoryski princely family? The now-iconic painting remains the poster child for WWII plundered “treasures.” Its handlers pulled off a world-class vanishing act in the early days of May 1945 as US troops were closing in on the South Bavarian compound of Hans Frank, by then former governor-general of German-occupied Poland--the last known location of the Raphael.<br /><br />In the coming weeks, the <a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com">plunderedart blog </a>will devote a series of informative pieces on various aspects of the disappearance of the Raphael painting and the global search for it.<br /><br />We will highlight:<br /><br />-two individuals who were “that close” to the painting up to the days before its disappearance—Eduard Kneisel and Wilhelm Ernst von Palézieux;<br /><br />-<a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1005017">Hans Frank</a> who was governor-general of German-occupied Poland;<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0dHafa-Nt91ojpMudNiEvMyo0msMFqPRRs59Akgwqz9IYJBFO2O5d3hmdotF76KijN3arOs0OCCikXTmb8xmQDFmYjttvVwmxo0pldrx-T8oSid_EoziDisulhIQ09TGN-rTe9K-oBjkfF8PH07Au7dlXa70Kx8vrNwvOunfnJFxD3ubmrADKW3dU/s382/6f66b943-6c72-40be-9efe-5656ea5bd880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="382" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0dHafa-Nt91ojpMudNiEvMyo0msMFqPRRs59Akgwqz9IYJBFO2O5d3hmdotF76KijN3arOs0OCCikXTmb8xmQDFmYjttvVwmxo0pldrx-T8oSid_EoziDisulhIQ09TGN-rTe9K-oBjkfF8PH07Au7dlXa70Kx8vrNwvOunfnJFxD3ubmrADKW3dU/w200-h169/6f66b943-6c72-40be-9efe-5656ea5bd880.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hans Frank awaiting trial</td></tr></tbody></table><br />-the US army units that raided Hans Frank’s compound at Neustadt am Schliersee in early May 1945;<br /><br />-<a href="http://illicitculturalproperty.com/victoria-reed-on-monuments-woman-ardelia-hall/">Ardelia Hall</a>, who served as <a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r">“Fine Arts and Monuments Adviser to the Office of International </a><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="675" height="139" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8J-iZEdym23ruswvCh_h4VCP4uNX0FsMkMnuOYkYOt-IXVDFfwL-Ido544yU17UhJIjRkZbKDGpXYWngzfp868uxUMJvqDTscKYxI6NhUkQADXLY5i0TZaKHvDwSo3FwsZ8uOIzYohrh5baLOT_AkUZ3TPclTh82hLzQ5Ib36tQ81ZvxY2-JlG9yI/w200-h139/02MONUMENT1-master675.jpg.webp" width="200" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r">Ardelia Hall</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r">Information and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State</a> , from 1946 to 1964, and who never </div><div>stopped searching for the Raphael;<br /><br />-Geoges Wildenstein, owner of the internationally-known <a href="https://www.wildenstein.com/history/">Wildenstein & Co., Inc</a>.;<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkprG1WY5zkntNVkI9d3u_uhk_aXlFiueOrc7-2Eg0adJQ4nbhbN6y0P1KvyC4seZ0oodgUbrVonXXyZ26HSaPe7_LSWRPOhCRv303FNOSuO9FYllGHVYzjaJ9vDrv7B-8-dA8UVntC7qN4Uou1CG1mPk35qRGEm6YXfxWzLz3iavAtga12s2wjFfH/s220/georges_wildestein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="220" data-original-width="220" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkprG1WY5zkntNVkI9d3u_uhk_aXlFiueOrc7-2Eg0adJQ4nbhbN6y0P1KvyC4seZ0oodgUbrVonXXyZ26HSaPe7_LSWRPOhCRv303FNOSuO9FYllGHVYzjaJ9vDrv7B-8-dA8UVntC7qN4Uou1CG1mPk35qRGEm6YXfxWzLz3iavAtga12s2wjFfH/s1600/georges_wildestein.jpg" width="220" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georges Wildenstein<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>-the Czartoryski family, rightful owner of the Raphael;</div><div><div><br />-the leadership of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, including former "Monuments Men"--James J. Rorimer, Theodore Rousseau and James Plaut.<div><br /></div><div>And we will pick apart the sequence of events leading to the disappearance of the painting and the post-1945 search for it.<br /><br />It is a story for the ages. It attests to how easy it is for an imposing work of art like the “Portrait of A Young Man” to be there one instant and gone the next. It has remained out of sight since May 4, 1945, the estimated date of its disappearance.</div><div><br /></div></div></div></div><div><b>Sources and photo credits:</b></div><br />Ardelia Hall<br /><a href="http://illicitculturalproperty.com/victoria-reed-on-monuments-woman-ardelia-hall/">http://illicitculturalproperty.com/victoria-reed-on-monuments-woman-ardelia-hall/</a><br /><br />Georges Wildenstein<br /><a href="https://www.wildenstein.com/history/">https://www.wildenstein.com/history/</a><br /><br />Hans Frank<br /><a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hans-frank">https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hans-frank</a><br /><a href="https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1005017">https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1005017</a> <br /><br />Monuments Men and Women Foundation<br /><a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r">https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hall-ardelia-r</a><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-53535112093408261202022-11-20T18:50:00.037-05:002022-11-28T12:31:14.435-05:00Anthony van Dyck and The Music Man<i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufw9OXm5-VuH0R8xRNMn-4MLqh6gAB0jl8O7RcwaNNiMrDSGFj5ywgOjKr8llzmdEJT31KSM8k8nvVLBobPYqN-OngCAdQPpJRT0Q_TtGDb_yTuL3CYLEVO5OoipbPXg8My0b9WuM5F0snM376I-xj0LTA0IUHqw9teptgLjDx7_e5G4reva5cvPU/s2614/B323-1038-fol.002er%23Schloss56.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2614" data-original-width="2022" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufw9OXm5-VuH0R8xRNMn-4MLqh6gAB0jl8O7RcwaNNiMrDSGFj5ywgOjKr8llzmdEJT31KSM8k8nvVLBobPYqN-OngCAdQPpJRT0Q_TtGDb_yTuL3CYLEVO5OoipbPXg8My0b9WuM5F0snM376I-xj0LTA0IUHqw9teptgLjDx7_e5G4reva5cvPU/w248-h320/B323-1038-fol.002er%23Schloss56.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Portrait of Paulus Pontius, Anthony van Dyck</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br /><div>Adolphe Schloss spent the last thirty years of his life painstakingly assembling a collection of Old Master paintings—Dutch, Flemish, German, Italian, Spanish and French. When he died on New Year’s Eve of 1910-1911, Adolphe Schloss had collected more than 330 paintings. His widow and children took care of the collection until it was time to send it to safety at the approach of war in August 1939. Four years later, a commando of French and German agents stormed the site where the paintings were hidden at the Château de Chambon in Laguenne, Corrèze. They seized all the paintings and brought them to Paris for “processing.” <br /><br />After they reached their destination on 10 August 1943, representatives of the Vichy government, senior officials from the Louvre, and German officials proceeded with the dismemberment of the confiscated collection. The Louvre snatched 49 paintings for its permanent collection while 262 paintings were sold manu militari to Hitler’s Linz Museum project, and 22 paintings served as a “finder’s fee” for the person who denounced the collection’s whereabouts, Jean-François Lefranc. The 262 paintings were shipped to Munich for storage at the Führerbau from which they were stolen between 29 April and 2 May 1945, under the very noses of American troops. One of those paintings was the <i>Portrait of a gentleman-Paulus Pontius</i> by Anthony van Dyck.<br /><br />Before Adolphe Schloss acquired the work by 1896, <i>Paulus Pontius</i> had changed hands numerous times and travelled throughout Western Europe and the United Kingdom. Its earliest recorded owner was Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (1690-1756), who held the painting until his death in 1756. Then it conveyed to Cardinal Luigi Valenti Gonzaga (1725-1808), Rome, until 1763 when an art dealer, Hendrick de Leth (1703-1766) acquired it. From there, the painting crossed the Channel and ended up at Peper Harow in Surrey, England with the Midleton Family (we think). It remained in Surrey until 1851 after which time it migrated to London into the hands of Wynn Ellis (1790-1875). By 1896, London-based P. & D. Colnaghi sold <i>Paulus Pontius</i> to Charles Sedelmeyer in Paris (cat. 1896, no. 11, ill.). Sedelmeyer was one of Adolphe Schloss’ main art advisors. Naturally, Schloss snapped up the van Dyck portrait that same year and it remained with him and the Schloss family until its confiscation in 1943.<br /><br /><b>Munich 1945</b><br /><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsBV7JD25h7x9TbUX4V-oO0mk5RjDpcMZKlZ6ejs2h5lKlW2JbFEVc4GOt5sTEW12J9_vxUXyluvnC3dxtL6vMwW39zKKcShDe3OeA8YC_hmeCV-c2fQrv9ZFh-bH6hbeIUOAX_7lBM-OTmCSQ_isYp84hk6APY6IqXi6nXR3JUQz3KA3lKxz9YwX/s2443/46622_%20Mue.%20Holbeinstr.%2043.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1764" data-original-width="2443" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjsBV7JD25h7x9TbUX4V-oO0mk5RjDpcMZKlZ6ejs2h5lKlW2JbFEVc4GOt5sTEW12J9_vxUXyluvnC3dxtL6vMwW39zKKcShDe3OeA8YC_hmeCV-c2fQrv9ZFh-bH6hbeIUOAX_7lBM-OTmCSQ_isYp84hk6APY6IqXi6nXR3JUQz3KA3lKxz9YwX/s320/46622_%20Mue.%20Holbeinstr.%2043.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">MCCP card #46622</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVU8U6HNy66xJWCYx7U7A6I_LrE9Ocyu6Lby7dVu3aX1W3FhTs7oc3DPvFrf-_7LGgMj8C5weZgzXklZAJZLa1xq9MaWb_Vn_wOqwWZwLgGjicd12ZwptVCjCuIFlAALYGkuwhPjtPc6ZIUgctZD42KD5dCLT9USP0g-wa1dk1emkaMZZl3RlEspUK/s612/Hugoboom_University%20of%20Wisconsin-Madison.jpg.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>The massive unprecedented and largely unsolved art theft at the Führerbau (29 April-2 May 1945) netted over 1100 paintings. While American troops were completing the liberation of Munich and ridding the embattled city of its most fanatical armed Nazi resisters, Munich citizens were busily robbing Hitler’s administrative office building in search of food, alcohol, and anything fungible with which to survive in war-torn Munich.<br /><br />Like most of the plundered paintings removed from the Führerbau, <i>Paulus Pontius</i> went quickly underground. It took three years for Americans to catch wind of its possible location. Until then, its whereabouts had remained unknown to American and French investigators connected with the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP), a central processing station for all objects recovered by Allied troops in Bavaria and processed for repatriation to their countries of origin.<br /><br /><b>Wolfgang von Dallwitz</b><br /><br />The efforts to locate the missing painting took an unusual turn in February 1948 when Wolfgang von Dallwitz, of Biedersteinstrasse 21 (Munich) told Edgar Breitenbach that he had seen the painting in mid-November 1947 at “the apartment of a friend in Munich” together with two other paintings from the Schloss collection (<a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=51616">a painting by Ludolf Backhuyzen /Schloss 3</a>, <a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=51620">a painting by Abraham van Beijeren /Schloss 8</a>). A Dr. Irwin Sieger had allegedly shipped them from a railroad depot in Göttingen. [Breitenbach to Leonard, “Information concerning stolen Schloss paintings,” 25 February 1948, www.fold3.com], a fact he denied vigorously when questioned by Breitenbach.<br /><br /><b>Irwin (or Erwin) Sieger</b><br /><br />Allied investigators were unsure of Sieger’s identity since they had received conflicting reports about the activities of a man bearing that name actively engaged in concealing and dispersing art looted during WWII and stolen from the Führerbau. Under questioning, Dr. Erwin Sieger lived at Olgastrasse 98 in Munich who was known as an “unscrupulous businessman” and a self-described “art amateur”, pledged to assist US authorities with their investigations into the whereabouts of the Schloss paintings and others. [Breitenbach to Leonard, “Information concerning stolen Schloss paintings,” 25 February 1948, www.fold3.com].<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVU8U6HNy66xJWCYx7U7A6I_LrE9Ocyu6Lby7dVu3aX1W3FhTs7oc3DPvFrf-_7LGgMj8C5weZgzXklZAJZLa1xq9MaWb_Vn_wOqwWZwLgGjicd12ZwptVCjCuIFlAALYGkuwhPjtPc6ZIUgctZD42KD5dCLT9USP0g-wa1dk1emkaMZZl3RlEspUK/s612/Hugoboom_University%20of%20Wisconsin-Madison.jpg.webp" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="380" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVU8U6HNy66xJWCYx7U7A6I_LrE9Ocyu6Lby7dVu3aX1W3FhTs7oc3DPvFrf-_7LGgMj8C5weZgzXklZAJZLa1xq9MaWb_Vn_wOqwWZwLgGjicd12ZwptVCjCuIFlAALYGkuwhPjtPc6ZIUgctZD42KD5dCLT9USP0g-wa1dk1emkaMZZl3RlEspUK/w124-h200/Hugoboom_University%20of%20Wisconsin-Madison.jpg.webp" width="124" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lt. Hugoboom</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b>The music man</b><br /><br />In early 1947, while serving as a MFAA officer in Munich, <a href="https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hugoboom-lt-r-wayne">Lt. Ray W. [Wayne] Hugoboom </a>received <i>Portrait of Paulus Pontius</i> as “turned-in loot from the Führerbau” which Hugoboom characterized as a “gift” from the Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor) of Munich. However, instead of returning it to the MCCP as he should have, Hugoboom asked Franz Söker in Neu-Gilching if he could restore the damaged painting. It took him about two weeks. <br /><br />Once ready, Hugoboom hung the painting in his office. He even mentioned to his former secretary, Miss Koslowski, that he had bought it on the black market in Munich and not to tell his superior officer, Captain Rae of the MFAA. Lt. Hugoboom had a black crate made with metal sidings in which to house the painting, ostensibly for shipment. When confronted by Edgar Breitenbach, Lt. Hugoboom contradicted Koslowski’s assertion in a letter dated 3 June 1948. He delivered a contrite apology about his errant ways in the handling of the van Dyck. [Ray W. Hugoboom, School of Music, Indiana Unversity, Bloomington, IN, to Edgar Breitenbach, MFAA, OMGBavaria, 3 June 1948; Breitenbach to Hugoboom, 26 May 1948, www.fold3.com].<br /><br /><b>The recovery</b><br /><br />On 6 April 1948, Edgar Breitenbach recovered Anthony van Dyck’s <i>Portrait of Paulus Pontius</i> at the studio of Alfred Koch on Holbeinstrasse 5 (or 43), Munich. According to Breitenbach, the van Dyck painting was the third most important painting from the Schloss collection. As part of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the van Dyck painting, Breitenbach summoned for questioning Franz Söker to the MCCP on 14 April 1948. [Herbert Leonard, OMGB, to Franz Söker, 14 April 1948, RG 260 M 1946 Reel 137 NARA. <a href="http://www.fold3.com/">www.fold3.com</a>].<br /><br /><b>Ray Wayne Hugoboom’s defense</b><br /><br />After Lt. Hugoboom left Munich in mid-1947 and returned to the United States, he received a promotion to become Assistant Professor of Choral Practice at the School of Music at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Hugoboom retold his saga with the van Dyck and declared that “the painting was located in an alley rapped [sic] up in old papers, thoroughly soaked and quite badly damaged.” He largely corroborated his official story—restoration, hanging in his room “for a short time before leaving” and leaving the painting with Alfred Koch “momentarily.” He was so busy with plans for his departure that he forgot to “arrange for [the] return” of the painting to the MCCP. [Wayne Hugoboom to Edgar Breitenbach, 10 May 1948, RG 260 M 1946 Reel 137 NARA].<br /><br /><b>Breitenbach sets the record straight</b><br /><br />In his reply to “dear Hugoboom,” Breitenbach informed him that his letter of 10 May 1948 had caused “considerable embarrassment” at the MFAA. His recounting of the facts did not tally with the MFAA’s investigation. <br /><br />Firstly, the mayor of Munich did not show him the van Dyck painting and three other paintings. It is Alfred Koch who advised him on the selection. Koch remembered the other paintings very well: two Breughel-like landscapes and a Dutch interior with woman and child. Koch did recall your hesitancy in accepting the gift but that you decided to take it, nevertheless, hoping to donate it “at a later date to some museum.”<br /><br /></div><div>Secondly, the story of the gift from the Mayor’s office may have been a hoax. Did Hugoboom partake in it? Unsure. But Alfred Koch and an accomplice by the name of Gillman were certainly in on it. Breitenbach noted that an apology to the Oberbürgermeister was in order. Gillman was also involved as a bit player in the mishandling of another painting from the Schloss collection, <a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52622"><i>Portrait of a Lady</i>, by Bartholomeus van der Helst.</a></div><div><br />The MFAA ultimately laid the responsibility for the van Dyck affair at Hugoboom’s feet and suggested that the only way to fix it was for him to “make a clean breast” to the MFAA staff. [Edgar Breitenbach to Hugoboom, 26 May 1948, RG 260 M 1946 Reel 137 NARA]. On 3 June 1948, Hugoboom formally apologized to “Mr. Breitenbach.” [Wayne Hugoboom to Mr. Breitenbach, 3 June 1948, RG 260 M 1946 Reel 137 NARA].<br /><br /><b>Final destination</b><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKyswbihKL7k0DodEhd4p9Zp1TbmVUUyHNzWNDa5Ddv7fMmehyGv0fqj_0HsO7NGmDKarK9OHsvEYt_83b5pKMZxilBC9bh_qbmSiMCIVD_ZfCRMeOCAfMiXlhs3Wqv_oJmjyrljdDCq0rKIfRJ-YXblhcL6i9ObpfOMzKptZzy6Plc3TlqsxhjPx/s800/Van%20Dyck~B79_0308.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="577" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKyswbihKL7k0DodEhd4p9Zp1TbmVUUyHNzWNDa5Ddv7fMmehyGv0fqj_0HsO7NGmDKarK9OHsvEYt_83b5pKMZxilBC9bh_qbmSiMCIVD_ZfCRMeOCAfMiXlhs3Wqv_oJmjyrljdDCq0rKIfRJ-YXblhcL6i9ObpfOMzKptZzy6Plc3TlqsxhjPx/s320/Van%20Dyck~B79_0308.jpg" width="231" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Portrait of Paulus Pontius, Israel Museum, Jerusalem</span></td></tr></tbody></table>The van Dyck painting was repatriated to Paris on 3 June 1948 and restituted to the family of Adolphe Schloss on 6 July 1948. It was sold at Galerie Charpentier on 25 May 1949 (lot no. 17). Madeleine and Joseph R. Nash, an Australian couple living in Paris, acquired the painting. They died on 15 August 1977. Two years later, in keeping with their history of donations to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the painting was bequeathed anonymously to<a href="https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/369425-0"> the Israel Museum.</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Sources<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>RG 260 M 1947 Reel 137 NARA through www.fold3.com</div><div><br /></div><div>ERR database</div><div>www.errproject.org</div><div><br /></div><div>The Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) Pilot Project</div><div>https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/</div><div><br /></div><div>The Monuments Men and Women Foundation</div><div>https://www.monumentsmenandwomenfnd.org/hugoboom-lt-r-wayne</div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-35772802418469219602022-11-19T11:40:00.076-05:002022-11-25T13:33:28.353-05:00Two Schloss paintings<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKNUFpeg4jUd0Rk_6BLZb4ynF5r1dEwCUm9Hi96XftJKA9qvx0PPdJkBZjaWaEs1TNTk4xq4hOPBXN2gzLcl8xlAUe8jzS-IBnoHATJ3I0-3CNd9iEv6BO8eXneOGFGL8nLTfElljWmjYQs5eMZINsM4UK-gLoINONTqgCCy8aCPQeYAauStjPpY8/s800/B323-1041-fol.001ar%23SchlossParis82.jpg" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="644" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKNUFpeg4jUd0Rk_6BLZb4ynF5r1dEwCUm9Hi96XftJKA9qvx0PPdJkBZjaWaEs1TNTk4xq4hOPBXN2gzLcl8xlAUe8jzS-IBnoHATJ3I0-3CNd9iEv6BO8eXneOGFGL8nLTfElljWmjYQs5eMZINsM4UK-gLoINONTqgCCy8aCPQeYAauStjPpY8/s320/B323-1041-fol.001ar%23SchlossParis82.jpg" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Portrait of Adrianus Tegularius, by Frans Hals</span></td></tr></tbody></table><i><br /></i><div><i>by Saida S. Hasanagic</i><br /><br />The recovery of unrestituted paintings looted during the Holocaust that appear at international auctions with dubious provenances are examined in examples of <a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=52560"><i>Portrait of Adrianus Tegularius</i> by Frans Hals (1582-1666)</a> and <a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=51658"><i>Le Duo (Merry Company Making Music)</i> by Joost Van Geel (1631-1698)</a> which is featured in the upcoming Lempertz sale on 19 November 2022. <br /><br />It is therefore important to begin with the <i>Portrait of Adrianus Tegularius</i>, previously <a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/collection/schloss/">part of the Adolphe Schloss Collection.</a> Its provenance reads like a classic thriller and had led to a landmark criminal case in France involving Adam Williams, over the course of eleven years. Williams, a British-born New York-based Old Master dealer, learnt his trade at the Richard Green Gallery in London in the 1970s before relocating to the USA and eventually taking over the directorship of the Newhouse Galleries in New York City before setting up his eponymous dealership in 1998. However, to tell this story we have to start from the beginning. <br /><br />The earliest recorded date in the provenance chain starts in Amsterdam in 1812 with the collector Jeronimo de Bosch IV when it was sold by Philippus van der Schley. In 1818, the painting was sold by Cornelis Sebille Roos as the property of J. Kerkhoven. In 1848, it was auctioned anonymously and acquired by the Amsterdam dealer / auctioneer Jeronimo de Vries. The <i>Portrait of Tegularius</i> then relocated to Germany and was recorded (undated) as the property of M. Unger in Berlin, then Richard Freiherr von Friesen in Dresden, until 1884, followed by Werner Dahl of Düsseldorf until 1901, when it was sold to Adolphe Schloss. The painting remained with the Schloss family after Adolphe’s death in 1910. It passed on to his wife Lucy Haas Schloss until her death in 1938 when it was inherited by their children. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>On 16 April 1943, the Schloss collection, including the Hals, which comprised 333 paintings, was confiscated by Vichy officials and German security agents at the Château de Chambon in Laguenne (Corrèze). It was subsequently sold on 1 November 1943 as part of a group of 262 paintings from the confiscated Schloss collection to Hitler’s Führermuseum (or Linz Museum) Project. These 262 paintings were then transferred to the Führerbau, Hitler’s ad<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvcmA3nisNBa8_g8qH82CrLa6NQQjJzSjDLyio_VYvBO8EtBT_obEy4VVw4Dc1HudrbtXRnnoONgrrCCyIltLKV95fK1QRRhacHo5kBolBTtu_d3O3FghKjcOK6C04eL8SXlos6KqXfalIrVyDwaJqMnDgBTsjlUlMxPdAw5XCzyOvqhADx031vn7/s283/Unknown.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="178" data-original-width="283" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMvcmA3nisNBa8_g8qH82CrLa6NQQjJzSjDLyio_VYvBO8EtBT_obEy4VVw4Dc1HudrbtXRnnoONgrrCCyIltLKV95fK1QRRhacHo5kBolBTtu_d3O3FghKjcOK6C04eL8SXlos6KqXfalIrVyDwaJqMnDgBTsjlUlMxPdAw5XCzyOvqhADx031vn7/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Château de Chambon, Laguenne</span></td></tr></tbody></table>ministrative office in Munich, on 24 November 1943 where they remained until unknown individuals broke into it on 29-30 April 1945 and emptied it of its contents, including the paintings, one of which was Hals’ <i>Portrait of Tegularius</i>.<br /><br />It resurfaced in a private collection in Frankfurt am Main in 1952. The trail went cold until 1967 when it was offered in New York at the Parke-Bernet auction as lot no. 32, part of a deceased princess’ estate. It sold for US$ 32,500. The painting was offered for sale at Christie's in London on 24 March 1972 (lot no. 83) as part of the Ludvig G. Braathen Collection, where it was ‘bought in’ following French official efforts to halt the sale. On 28 March 1979, it sold at Sotheby's, London as lot no. 15 for £21,000. In 1982, it was reported to have been in a Dutch private collection located in West Germany. On 21 April 1989, the Hals changed hands again without an indication of its theft in the Christie’s catalogue (lot no. 26) when it was bought for £110,000 by <a href="https://www.adam-williams.com/about">Adam Williams for the Newhouse Galleries in New York.<br /></a><br />In September 1990, the painting was displayed at the Newhouse Galleries stand during the Biennale des Antiquaires at Grand Palais in Paris. It was recognised by Jean Demartini, one of the Schloss heirs, who immediately informed the Paris prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor started a criminal inquiry which led to Williams’ indictment and the painting’s seizure by French authorities. The investigating magistrate (Juge d’Instruction) closed the criminal case based on the lack of bad faith on the part of Williams. The Schloss heirs appealed the decision and the Court (Chambre d’Accusation) confirmed the decision of the investigating magistrate that: a) a settlement of 3,812,000 francs had been reached between some of the Schloss heirs and the German government in 1961, as confirmed in the letter to the French government on 24 April 1961; and b) Williams bought the painting in good faith at fair market price at Christie’s in London. <br /><br />A protracted legal battle continued whereby the prosecutor’s office appealed the decision to the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) on 4 June 1998, which in turn reversed the decision of the lower court and returned the case to the Versailles “Chambre d’Accusation” to be re-examined. Effectively, the French Supreme Court established principles that were to be used as future guidelines: 1) the settlement between some Schloss heirs and the German government did not bar any subsequent criminal proceedings, as the settlement did not stop the public prosecutor from pursuing a criminal case based on the same facts, unless a specific law prevented it and the Supreme Court did not find any such law; 2) the settlement is only binding for the Schloss heirs who signed it, and not for the ones who were not a party to it; 3) the settlement with the German Government does not affect any criminal claims that the Schloss family might wish to raise against the Nazis who committed the crime; and finally an important point 4) the absence of bad faith on the part of Williams was not established.<br /><br />The “Tribunal Correctionnel” at Nanterre indicated that the painting and its provenance were outlined in Collections World Directory published in 1979, stating that the painting was stolen and belonged to the Schloss Collection. It was pointed out that the painting was listed in the French “<a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Nous-connaitre/Organisation-du-ministere/Le-secretariat-general/Mission-de-recherche-et-de-restitution-des-biens-culturels-spolies-entre-1933-et-1945/Recherche-de-provenance-outils-et-methode/Repertoire-des-biens-spolies-RBS">Répertoire des biens spoliés” (1947)</a> and in the Frans Hals catalogue raisonné published by Seymour Slive (no. 207, 1974), where it was again documented as stolen. The Court adjudicated that a professional dealer, and a reputable Old Master specialist such as Williams, could not claim ignorance and should had done his due diligence by independently researching the painting and not relying on the incomplete provenance from the auction catalogue. As any committed art market professional, he would have found out that the painting was subject to a claim. To further hamper his defence, Williams initially claimed that he had never heard of the Schloss Collection, but had previously confided to another dealer that the painting had been sold several times at auction although it was stolen during the Second World War. This case strongly reiterates that the burden of proof is on the art professionals to prove their bona fide purchase. In addition, this means that indemnification of the Jewish families for their material losses due to looting does not constitute a limitation to subsequent criminal action based on the same facts. </div><div><br /></div><div>On 6 July 2001, the Court sentenced Williams to an eight-month suspended prison sentence for possession of artwork looted during the Second World War, and the painting was restituted to the family. Pierre-François Veil, the family’s lawyer, was certain that this landmark ruling would set a precedent that would not only apply to private dealers but to museums and galleries as well. As such, the decision sent a clear message to dealers and auction houses to improve the transparency of their activities, rendering it irrelevant whether they are just mere agents. <br /><br />Twenty-two years later, Joost van Geel’s <i>Le Duo (Merry Company Making Music)</i>, is featured at a Lempertz auction in Cologne on 19 November 2022 (Auction 1209 - Paintings, Drawings Sculpture 14th -19th Centuries) as lot no. 1569, with an estimate of €20,000-30,000. <a href="https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2022/11/walther-bernt-authenticator-of-looted.html">Dr. Walther Bernt had authenticated the work in 1976.</a> The painting remains unrestituted. We have a limited knowledge about the history of this particular painting. The earliest date in its provenance starts with 23 June 1820 at the auction of the estate of Benjamin West, of Royal Academy fame. It was then acquired by a private collection (Perkins), probably in Paris, then by Adolphe Schloss at an unknown date. The van Geel painting shares the same post-confiscation fate as that of the Hals. However, it is alarming that Lempertz does not offer any provenance to the painting, apart from the Walther Bernt certificate.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkMqeCahdlwVrlC39XGGP0DpBzO9YWmXBMv2WYDf_SKm3rxso1WmuJCeQPll6mLOb1oXgkTbJ1XAEaEdnDnLqS3Fga55aY_ziFxYafowHCx3huSkmUSJ6kfgsC43sYz4WuRPu1UUg-2u5dgAceszi72KE312Osmif4PmBYCPua6-k0nY5ekUPuRc/s1948/geel.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1144" data-original-width="1948" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigwkMqeCahdlwVrlC39XGGP0DpBzO9YWmXBMv2WYDf_SKm3rxso1WmuJCeQPll6mLOb1oXgkTbJ1XAEaEdnDnLqS3Fga55aY_ziFxYafowHCx3huSkmUSJ6kfgsC43sYz4WuRPu1UUg-2u5dgAceszi72KE312Osmif4PmBYCPua6-k0nY5ekUPuRc/w320-h190/geel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">van Geel painting, 19 November 2022 Lempertz sale</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /><br />The link to the Lempertz online bid has been removed but the artwork’s details are still available in the auction catalogue, a sign that the German auction house has been made aware of the painting’s troubled past. Since 2001, the artworld has become more sensitive to the Second World War claims. As for the auction houses, hiding behind art-historical certificates and not producing any relevant history of well-documented objects should send clear red flags to any agent, buyer and collector. <br /><br /> More about the author</div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>Saida S. Hasanagic, MA, is an art historian based in London, England. She is an independent scholar specialising in provenance research, art crime and its prevention from perspectives of art history, art business and international relations. Saida worked as a provenance researcher for the JDCRP Foundation: The Pilot Project – The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection. Her main areas of interest are the Second World War plunder and cultural crimes committed in conflicts since then, notably in the former Yugoslavia with focus on spoliation and restitution in Bosnia-Herzegovina. </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><br /></i></span></p>Sources<br /><br />Anglade, Leila. “Art Law and the Holocaust: The French Situation.” <i>Art Antiquity and Law</i>, Volume IV, Issue 4, December 1999, pp. 302-311. <br /><br />Anglade, Leila. "The <i>Portrait of Pastor Adrianus Tegularius</i> by Franz Hals: The Schloss Case before the French Criminal Courts.” <i>Art Antiquity and Law</i>, Volume VIII, Issue 1, March 2003, pp. 77-87. <br /><br />Campfens, Evelien (ed.). <i>Fair and Just Solutions</i>. Eleven International Publishing. 2015. The case is mentioned briefly as the footnote 3 on page 153, by Norman Palmer in <i>Chapter 7: The Best We Can Do?</i> pp. 153-185. <br /><br /><i>Demartini v Williams,</i> 18th Chamber, Tribunal Correctionnel, Nanterre, 6 July 2001. (unpublished)<br /><br />“Dealer guilty of handling Nazi art.” <i>BBC News</i>. Friday, 6 July 2001. <br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1426508.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1426508.stm</a><br /><br /></div><div>Giovannini, Teresa. “The Holocaust and the looted art.” <i>Art Antiquity and Law</i>, Volume 7, Issue 3, September 2002, pp. 263-280. <br /><a href="https://www.lalive.law/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tgi_holocaust_and_looted_art.pdf">https://www.lalive.law/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/tgi_holocaust_and_looted_art.pdf</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Melikian, Souren, “Buyer Beware: An Art World Nightmare Worthy of Kafka: The Mystery of a Looted Portrait.” <i>The New York Times</i>. 1 September 2001.<br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/news/buyer-bewarean-art-world-nightmare-worthy-of-kafka-the-mystery-of-a.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/01/news/buyer-bewarean-art-world-nightmare-worthy-of-kafka-the-mystery-of-a.html</a><br /><br />Slive, Seymour. <i>Frans Hals, Catalogue Raisonné</i>. London: Phaidon Press, 1974. <br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p>Other sources<br /><br />Adam Williams Fine Art<br /><a href="https://www.adam-williams.com/about">https://www.adam-williams.com/about</a><br /><br />ERR database</div><div>https://www.errproject.org</div><div><br /></div><div>HALS (Frans) Anvers, 1581/85 - Haarlem, 1666. <i>Portrait du Pasteur Adrianus Tegularius</i><br /><a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/sites/archives_diplo/schloss/tableauxH/tableaux76.html">https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/sites/archives_diplo/schloss/tableauxH/tableaux76.html</a><br /><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/hals_portrait_52560/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/hals_portrait_52560/</a><br /><br />Joost van Geel as <i>Merry Company Making Music,</i> Lempertz, 19 November 2022, Auction 1209 - Paintings, Drawings Sculpture 14th -19th Centuries, Cologne, lot no.1569, estimate € 20,000-30,000<br /><br /><a href="https://www.lempertz.com/lempertz_api/images/Kat_1209_AK_Nov_2022_DS.pdf">https://www.lempertz.com/lempertz_api/images/Kat_1209_AK_Nov_2022_DS.pdf</a><br /><br />GEEL. (Joost Van) Rotterdam, 1631 - id., 1698. Le Duo.<br /><a href="https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/sites/archives_diplo/schloss/tableauxG/tableaux53.html">https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/sites/archives_diplo/schloss/tableauxG/tableaux53.html</a><br /><br /><a href="https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/geel_duo_51658/">https://pilot-demo.jdcrp.org/artwork/geel_duo_51658/</a><br /><br /> </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-5441294740703699712022-11-18T19:10:00.020-05:002023-04-28T13:13:40.402-04:00Walther Bernt, authenticator of looted paintings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-Ss6CkI2CEG1wXHVwkAKkENmrz-jyLaAk_gQW0Z3fJ7xcbjDodT5drkp84-jdy6uGJoqbVvw1jT6gxYeyT_sqetf4mZqB_rh9-8RtTbMKArGx0ShNvE6RdRQ0CPhPheVDLHnvsYR8xZV1h_ySGkPI4UREhmelPWd4Fh2m95yZiaNoAGbApzyg-BQ/s800/B323-1038-fol.002gr%23Schloss60.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="719" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn-Ss6CkI2CEG1wXHVwkAKkENmrz-jyLaAk_gQW0Z3fJ7xcbjDodT5drkp84-jdy6uGJoqbVvw1jT6gxYeyT_sqetf4mZqB_rh9-8RtTbMKArGx0ShNvE6RdRQ0CPhPheVDLHnvsYR8xZV1h_ySGkPI4UREhmelPWd4Fh2m95yZiaNoAGbApzyg-BQ/w288-h320/B323-1038-fol.002gr%23Schloss60.jpg" width="288" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"Merry company making music," by Jost van Geel</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><i>by Claudia Hofstee</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>Many art historians who were caught up in the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust threw their lot with the Nazis only to turn their coats and cooperate with the victorious Allies after 1945, providing them with the same skills and expertise that they had to their Nazi overseers. One of them was Walther Bernt who was active in Czechoslovakia and Germany.</div><div><br /></div><div>On 30 January, 1976, the German art historian <a href="https://editionhansposse.gnm.de/wisski/navigate/9165/view">Walther Bernt (1900-1980)</a> produced a certificate of authenticity for a painting by <a href="https://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/card_view.php?CardId=51658">Joost van Geel, <i>Merry company making Music</i></a>, which the Cologne-based Lempertz auction house is scheduled to sell on 19 November 2022 (lot no. 1569). This painting was stolen from the collection of the late Adolphe Schloss and has not been restituted to his heirs. Bernt was familiar with the Schloss Collection–one of the best-known collections of Old Masters in Western Europe at the time. His failure to report the existence of this unrestituted painting to the French authorities illustrates his complicity in the post-1945 dispersal of Nazi looted art. He became the “go-to guy” for these certificates and because of his reputation in the art world, nobody questioned the provenance of the works he authenticated. Who was Walther Bernt?</div><div><br />Walther Bernt is famous for authoring a four-volume monograph entitled “17th century Dutch painters” (<a href="https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/library/record?query=walther+bernt&start=1">Niederländischen Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts</a> (1948-1962)”. He and his wife Ellen (1913-2002) became international experts on 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters. However, a dark shadow hangs over Bernt’s legacy. Born in Krumau (Český Krumlov, Czechoslovakia), he became an art consultant and dealer in the 1930s and from at least 1937 he worked as an editor of auction catalogs. He advised the prominent Jewish industrialist Frank Petschek of Aussig for whom he acquired a number of works of art. After the German takeover of Czechoslovakia and the imposition of a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Bernt served as an appraiser for the Gestapo in Prague for art collections confiscated from Czech Jews before they were sent to death camps. Bernt also offered his services to Hans Posse (1879-1942) in October 1940 as he was building up a massive art collection to be housed in Hitler's <i>Führermuseum.</i><div><br /><div>Not long after, Bernt turned up as a cataloguer for the Nazi art dealer <a href="https://www.artmarketstudies.org/lecture-caroline-flick-on-caroline-flick-on-the-auction-house-hans-w-lange/">Hans W. Lange (1904-1945)</a> at Alois Miedl's (1903-1970) <a href="https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/lange1940_12_03/0009/image,info,thumbs">Berlin auction on 3-4 December 1940</a> which was selling works of art seized from the Dutch <a href="https://www.lostart.de/sites/default/files/attachment/document/2022-04/sobj_28888_1127666_1.pdf">art dealer Jacques Goudstikker (1897-1940)</a>. Bernt continued to advise private collectors like Hans-Werner Habig (1921-1954) from Oelde for whom he bought a painting by Joost de Momper, <a href="https://www.lostart.de/en/Fund/532574">Stretch landscape with corn crop</a>. [the painting now hangs at the Museum Abtei Liesborn des Kreises Warendorf (Germany) and is listed on the <a href="https://www.lostart.de/de/start">German Lost Art Database</a>. The painting was previously in a private collection in Aussig in 1938.] <div><div><br /></div><div>After the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, Bernt collaborated with Allied officials by identifying looted works of art recovered by Allied forces. Although he did not disclose his wartime involvement in looting activities, postwar documents suggest that the Allied forces had an inkling of Bernt’s work with the Gestapo in Prague. The Bernt family lived in Munich where he produced numerous certificates of authenticity for art dealers and auction houses until his death in 1980, after which his widow Ellen continued his work. As looted art flooded the postwar art market, many experts and dealers issued certificates to manufacture or hide provenance information, such as removing labels from the backs of paintings. The certificate conveyed a certain sense of legality and value to the works. Anyone looking closely at the certificates provided by Walther Bernt can see that oftentimes they do not mention any provenance and mask the dubious origin of the works.</div><div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpe6UKXx2P2maNf9035I57Ae9L0BKoRkkDGJmHKa5cgTCYwRxVWD0oa74Q0wl92wWR4rFm1sj1m0vTmNxAPnHMXvCoANJRUsTvXx3zPCoxGRIKarC5ffcqCTIsvKf7C6mxc_ABQy-dyNEC0dJjIXR7LtbwUtfNPeNtCBfnpi3ok-X1Oble4PSuhZX/s1000/0455210105132725.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpe6UKXx2P2maNf9035I57Ae9L0BKoRkkDGJmHKa5cgTCYwRxVWD0oa74Q0wl92wWR4rFm1sj1m0vTmNxAPnHMXvCoANJRUsTvXx3zPCoxGRIKarC5ffcqCTIsvKf7C6mxc_ABQy-dyNEC0dJjIXR7LtbwUtfNPeNtCBfnpi3ok-X1Oble4PSuhZX/s320/0455210105132725.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Führerbau, Munich, site of theft of van Geel painting, 1945</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br />During WWII, the Nazis valued art historians and used their services to legitimize their art seizures and appraise them. <a href="https://www.secretmodigliani.com/ctl-schoellermi.html">André Schoeller (1879-1955)</a> is a good example of this; he was an art dealer and appraiser for Hôtel Drouot, he appraised confiscated paintings for the ERR in Paris and sold pictures to several German museums and worked closely with Nazi dealers (e.g., <a href="https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/holocaust_claims/spotlight">Hildebrand Gurlitt, 1895-1956).</a> Besides the connoisseurship, art historians’ knowledge of collectors and their collections made it possible for Nazis to acquire many artworks. Some of the better-known art historians who were involved with the Nazis during the war were Max. J. Friendländer (1867-1958), Vitale Bloch (1900-1975) and<a href="https://arthistorians.info/plietzsche"> Eduard Plietzsch (1886-1961)</a>. Like Bernt, many of these art historians hardly suffered any consequences for their wartime collaboration with Nazi officials.<br /><br />More research is required about Bernt and his post-war activities and his network. Evidence can in all probability be found at the “<a href="http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990101021740203941/catalog">Walther and Ellen Bernt collection</a>”, which contains (exhibition) catalogs, card catalogs, and photographs of works of art (published and unpublished). Who knows what else we will find?</div><div><br /></div><div>A note about the author</div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 9pt;"><i>Claudia Hofstee MA, studied art history and graduated from Utrecht University in 2018. Specialized in 16th- and 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings. Worked as a provenance researcher for the JDCRP: The Pilot Project-The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection. Working currently as an independent provenance researcher for the Mauritshuis in The Hague and is working on a collection catalogue for a private collection.</i></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><i style="text-align: start;"></i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz5v_fXBF21pVG-hSUihXUTUWRA5hS_J0L3GqTnutLFmc3nq_KIAhd6tky1MXJ3BkJQF8MOMBGB96evwk1M65fW2JHodQWQ0W30CGmTVkMID--oDzEftmY_G9F1Xe1ro6Tg2MhU5Ruj1CCkYvlZoxpMlGJkbbcaszTS1UTGWWnX1agi413RQF8qJMy/s522/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1994-006-28A,_Dr._Hans_Posse_crop.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz5v_fXBF21pVG-hSUihXUTUWRA5hS_J0L3GqTnutLFmc3nq_KIAhd6tky1MXJ3BkJQF8MOMBGB96evwk1M65fW2JHodQWQ0W30CGmTVkMID--oDzEftmY_G9F1Xe1ro6Tg2MhU5Ruj1CCkYvlZoxpMlGJkbbcaszTS1UTGWWnX1agi413RQF8qJMy/w153-h200/Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-1994-006-28A,_Dr._Hans_Posse_crop.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hans Posse<br /></span><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJJ7Cmdmk5PqQQ-vTmJjEVujvTr0mu2gTzNxeCRh_RHlPslraxA5A4yAP8aK1m0dX-ZOcAooOOKElExEJ9FcxOAmyXBgwcOFP3wVoHcGz-yjM9KJADlDmp1RY2t3ZNfqeezReIrPPvn_GPyCuDHtVcpFExxA8lhyPa3td7Fs3nOgmueH0DolLIA5P/s300/Alois_Miedl.jpeg" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 238); clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="232" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJJ7Cmdmk5PqQQ-vTmJjEVujvTr0mu2gTzNxeCRh_RHlPslraxA5A4yAP8aK1m0dX-ZOcAooOOKElExEJ9FcxOAmyXBgwcOFP3wVoHcGz-yjM9KJADlDmp1RY2t3ZNfqeezReIrPPvn_GPyCuDHtVcpFExxA8lhyPa3td7Fs3nOgmueH0DolLIA5P/w155-h200/Alois_Miedl.jpeg" width="155" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alois Miedl</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Printed and Digital Sources:</div><div><br /><a href="http://www.fold3.com/">www.fold3.com</a>: RG 260 M1946 roll 10, NARA; RG 260 M1946 roll 121, NARA; RG 260 M149 roll 5, NARA; RG 260 M1946 roll 49, NARA; RG 260 M1947 roll 49, NARA; RG 260 M1946 roll 135.<br /><br />Bernt, Walther.<i> Die Niederländischen Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts, 3 vol. Munich,</i> 1948-1962.<br /><br />Flick, Caroline. <i>Verwertungskampagne. Beobachtungen zur niederländischen Kunsthandlung Goudstikker-Miedl</i>, Verwertungskampagne (March 2022).<br /><a href="https://carolineflick.de/publikationen/verwertungskampagne.pdf">https://carolineflick.de/publikationen/verwertungskampagne.pdf</a><br /><br /><div>Führmeister, Christian and Hopp, Meike. <i>Rethinking Provenance Research,</i> Getty Research Journal, vol. 11, issue 1 (2019), pp. 213-231.<br /><br /><div>Oosterlinck, Kim. <i>Gustave Cramer, Max. J. Friedländer, and the value of Expertise in the Arts</i>, Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics, Vol. 3 Nr. 1 (2022), pp. 19-56.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/ZO3W5LFDX74LDMHJIQONJI2ARWNP5ZYZ?isThumbnailFiltered=false&rows=20&offset=0&viewType=list&hitNumber=8">https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/ZO3W5LFDX74LDMHJIQONJI2ARWNP5ZYZ?isThumbnailFiltered=false&rows=20&offset=0&viewType=list&hitNumber=8</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/JH4TDJ2XWWLXFJ5VB6NIJISZWAJQRTSV?isThumbnailFiltered=false&rows=20&offset=0&viewType=list&hitNumber=3">https://www.archivportal-d.de/item/JH4TDJ2XWWLXFJ5VB6NIJISZWAJQRTSV?isThumbnailFiltered=false&rows=20&offset=0&viewType=list&hitNumber=3</a><br /></div><br /><a href="https://editionhansposse.gnm.de/wisski/navigate/9165/view">https://editionhansposse.gnm.de/wisski/navigate/9165/view</a><br /><div><div><a href="https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=SQ7KUI121301">Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE), London, UK</a></div><div><a href="http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990101021740203941/catalog">Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA</a></div><a href="http://www.pilot-demo.jdcrp.org">Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) Foundation, Berlin, Germany</a><br /><div><br /></div></div><div>Digital art market and art history sources</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.auction.fr/_en/lot/joos-de-momper-mountain-landscape-with-a-ford-certificate-walther-bernt-munich-17675018">Auction.fr</a><br /><a href="https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/11914/lot/30/?category=list">Bonham's, London, UK</a><br /><a href="https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4884269">Christie's, Inc.</a></div><div><a href="https://www.dorotheum.com/en/l/5563527/">Dorotheum, Vienna, Austria</a><br /><a href="https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/schendel-bernardus-van-weesp-1649-1709-harlem-gen-1281-c-3f24683aec">Invaluable, Inc.</a><br /><a href="https://www.kollerauktionen.ch/en/106788-0040-----1136-UDEN_-LUCAS-VAN-Flandrische-L-1136_204139.html?RecPos=1">Koller Auction House, Zurich, Switzerland</a></div><div><a href="https://www.lempertz.com/en/catalogues/lot/1049-1/1117-gerard-thomas.html">Lempertz, Köln, Germany</a><br /><a href="https://www.neumeister.com/en/artwork-search/artwork-database/ergebnis/268-152/Salomon%2Bvan-Ruysdael/">Neumeister, Munich, Germany</a></div><div><a href="https://www.openartdata.org/2019/07/andre-schoeller.html">Open Art Data</a><br /><a href="https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/record?query=bernt+walther&start=2">RKD, Den Haag, Nederland</a></div><div><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-41619945868274824562022-11-08T20:41:00.213-05:002022-12-05T10:32:22.545-05:00Dangling participles<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhUff50C-4MFfeZjYeEDsjiUeZjKKvBX8C9hpK60xUe7A9JqzlIi9Mlcm1ZhMZBW3c9usdph9PHFRbwzVOpMJ3JHspqfaT6BUD0YmdMTasMQ-ySiLciIhXRzs-1vXPhf-zeic4XB3sp_ZXVZl_adm4ZVvAk2K7KWAcX-Q4h28rWGujyV-f9uLhAsJ/s1381/marc_europe_map4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="1381" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzhUff50C-4MFfeZjYeEDsjiUeZjKKvBX8C9hpK60xUe7A9JqzlIi9Mlcm1ZhMZBW3c9usdph9PHFRbwzVOpMJ3JHspqfaT6BUD0YmdMTasMQ-ySiLciIhXRzs-1vXPhf-zeic4XB3sp_ZXVZl_adm4ZVvAk2K7KWAcX-Q4h28rWGujyV-f9uLhAsJ/s320/marc_europe_map4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="text-align: left;"></div><br /><br /><i>By Marc Masurovsky<br /></i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The<span style="text-align: center;">re are so many mysteries and unresolved issues rooted in the twelve-year reign of the National Socialists (30 January 1933-9 May 1945) that we cannot keep up with them. The research is tedious and it involves searching for evidence in multiple archives on both sides of the Atlantic. Costs, time, resources often bring exciting research projects to a grinding halt. Maybe some enterprising and courageous historians and sleuths will resolve some of these open cases, sooner than later, so that we can close them for good for the sake of posterity and historical truth. </span></div><div><br /></div>Here are some of these “dangling participles” with a special focus on the Greater German Reich and the territories it occupied or annexed:<br /><br /><i>Generally speaking:</i><br /><br />-where are the contents of the studios and residences of artists which were systematically ransacked and plundered across continental Europe? Who were they? Where did they live and work? It’s too easy to say that everything was destroyed or that they were unimportant. That’s the lame way of discouraging efforts to uncover their fate.<br /><br /><b>1940-1941</b><br /><br /><i>France</i><br /><br />-where are the original inventories of objects looted in Paris from Jewish owners and then transferred to the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume? The earliest extant inventories begin in mid-1941. Their discovery will fill major gaps in our understanding of what was looted, where, when, by whom, and from whom in German-occupied France. One credible lead is that these inventories may be sitting in a London archive since British forces liberated Tanzenberg, the ERR depot that housed many libraries, archival materials, and administrative files produced by ERR officials in occupied countries. Inventories drawn up by the ERR in France were found at Tanzenberg.<br /><br /><b>1942</b><br /><br /><i>France</i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY32gr6Cx-ZeGnHeMQhsfXQAyJpc7AVfg-3ldaOlmkJa_9AuHwW2e19g1J-gublpmWi_FlqFP5URPJKenbF6eA6FZl16ua2tZdC08XJegLp8f2SfcH93FA5hV8YSWdWKfCK__RgsFjtRlJvcW_046ojtW7q9gYz_a-WSqVcWHxawsG-m5ehaN3jP2Q/s3200/Jos_Hessel,_by_E%CC%81douard_Vuillard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3200" data-original-width="2477" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY32gr6Cx-ZeGnHeMQhsfXQAyJpc7AVfg-3ldaOlmkJa_9AuHwW2e19g1J-gublpmWi_FlqFP5URPJKenbF6eA6FZl16ua2tZdC08XJegLp8f2SfcH93FA5hV8YSWdWKfCK__RgsFjtRlJvcW_046ojtW7q9gYz_a-WSqVcWHxawsG-m5ehaN3jP2Q/w155-h200/Jos_Hessel,_by_E%CC%81douard_Vuillard.jpg" width="155" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jose Hessel, by Vuillard</td></tr></tbody></table><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERjcUK0lVdu9ZMuZqnukm8WEzjmmrUYKFT9siw0KKKSQhKFtyg4RGsYW296FLynEgOiuNB37z2GDEta7ldxMvUTQeJEdyMf5LVPq6oxWrgvzgV6J9dGShklvvPY4y3bK5fpFIkwKeLTy8zWMT_GtzSCA5vZuchLGP5v8MnwRdsnps1vqSVql1BzQU/s1124/jdp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERjcUK0lVdu9ZMuZqnukm8WEzjmmrUYKFT9siw0KKKSQhKFtyg4RGsYW296FLynEgOiuNB37z2GDEta7ldxMvUTQeJEdyMf5LVPq6oxWrgvzgV6J9dGShklvvPY4y3bK5fpFIkwKeLTy8zWMT_GtzSCA5vZuchLGP5v8MnwRdsnps1vqSVql1BzQU/s1124/jdp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><br /><br /><br />-what happened to Jos Hessel’s collection? Although he and his wife died months apart between 1941 and 1942, there are no archival traces of the contents of the Hessel collection.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>1943</b><br /><br /><i>France</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERjcUK0lVdu9ZMuZqnukm8WEzjmmrUYKFT9siw0KKKSQhKFtyg4RGsYW296FLynEgOiuNB37z2GDEta7ldxMvUTQeJEdyMf5LVPq6oxWrgvzgV6J9dGShklvvPY4y3bK5fpFIkwKeLTy8zWMT_GtzSCA5vZuchLGP5v8MnwRdsnps1vqSVql1BzQU/s1124/jdp.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1124" data-original-width="890" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERjcUK0lVdu9ZMuZqnukm8WEzjmmrUYKFT9siw0KKKSQhKFtyg4RGsYW296FLynEgOiuNB37z2GDEta7ldxMvUTQeJEdyMf5LVPq6oxWrgvzgV6J9dGShklvvPY4y3bK5fpFIkwKeLTy8zWMT_GtzSCA5vZuchLGP5v8MnwRdsnps1vqSVql1BzQU/s320/jdp.png" width="253" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeu de Paume, Paris</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>-how many “degenerate” works of art survived the purge at the Jeu de Paume in summer of 1943? We counted 676. None survived according to Rose Valland, although about 20 have been restituted since the end of WWII. Where are the others?<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>1944</b><br /><br /><i>France</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJeYPF10myHJH6qUUzJnm5Kcww0RmMRYcwaaUnBFKf9-Qk5dQsf_yCTHgxK896CT6HRXr0G9ZzAcAH60UM3F7TZ3ZhkD3GDLh6cVBZJgsdeH176_Mk6DtEJBLzMX2VWsyq6deoRVXgGiUJbjOVZCMLjTGLesNL5a4FYWpTO8TZ8dYmVHq83neuhVui/s1987/Cha%CC%82teau_de_Rastignac.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="1987" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJeYPF10myHJH6qUUzJnm5Kcww0RmMRYcwaaUnBFKf9-Qk5dQsf_yCTHgxK896CT6HRXr0G9ZzAcAH60UM3F7TZ3ZhkD3GDLh6cVBZJgsdeH176_Mk6DtEJBLzMX2VWsyq6deoRVXgGiUJbjOVZCMLjTGLesNL5a4FYWpTO8TZ8dYmVHq83neuhVui/s320/Cha%CC%82teau_de_Rastignac.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chateau de Rastignac, Dordogne, France</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /></div><div>-were any works “rescued” from the Castle of Rastignac, country home of the Bernheim-Jeune family near Bordeaux before SS troops set the castle ablaze on 30 March 1944?</div><div><br /> <br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>April-May 1945</b><br /><br /><i>Nikolsburg/Mikulov</i></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRdhkvTWJVUsA-7XmT-QJWt1FnH5LZ4kuCp5nRNtvO-f-rpBnDUGrdZgPRfUOupk6qanv49rUKdiAQ4apiVgg9tbiKuBgEtKRyWxhM3ppeyANzj-QiULQNmapNH7Hxt8RJmd9HgI8hKRjB9Xujn596EYMTGUZDz_Tt2COid4LDZrPsls9JDgVVdy0/s1500/Mikulov04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1125" data-original-width="1500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfRdhkvTWJVUsA-7XmT-QJWt1FnH5LZ4kuCp5nRNtvO-f-rpBnDUGrdZgPRfUOupk6qanv49rUKdiAQ4apiVgg9tbiKuBgEtKRyWxhM3ppeyANzj-QiULQNmapNH7Hxt8RJmd9HgI8hKRjB9Xujn596EYMTGUZDz_Tt2COid4LDZrPsls9JDgVVdy0/s320/Mikulov04.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Present-day castle of Nikolsburg/Mikulov</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>-how many looted objects were brought to the castle of Nikolsburg (now Mikulov) in north-central Czechoslovakia) between fall of 1943 and early 1945? How many survived the blaze of April 1945 triggered by severe fighting between Soviet and German troops? Of these, how many remained in postwar Czechoslovakia? How many went to the Soviet Union? <br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><i>Munich</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1pGlQhfJ2SfeVKgWBt9kX4nnI3irAVhlxhTspME1o7mwcRw70xc5pFMaHXvImKB7SJUwFAHtpHC3nQVrytvC7t6LBHuT5_YmqzmJOAs6GV_orR4pqBl7Vt8EBbFOdIgYgA36oJEGX74KS2pFYP4b8Dt-6JPqZM460gqVgpe-wsqOv8FBaktzZjkiJ/s800/Fb_lichthof_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1pGlQhfJ2SfeVKgWBt9kX4nnI3irAVhlxhTspME1o7mwcRw70xc5pFMaHXvImKB7SJUwFAHtpHC3nQVrytvC7t6LBHuT5_YmqzmJOAs6GV_orR4pqBl7Vt8EBbFOdIgYgA36oJEGX74KS2pFYP4b8Dt-6JPqZM460gqVgpe-wsqOv8FBaktzZjkiJ/w200-h150/Fb_lichthof_n.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the Führerbau, Munich</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />-where are the 1000+ looted paintings stored at the Führerbau in Munich which were stolen by unknown parties in the closing hours of April 1945 while American troops were liberating the city?<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Berlin</i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82St-V_KVFVCKnjEEE6adp5e86yH4MxlWifxzr8SUsOlrVzW3NEVsHUegXfTCf4sJHFn5DcvYBh-Itcp8ibPnclsOCr-bKBSP4-Z5OJuhT8WLDg0NMaQZsmOKW8Q-2VNi6iiS-8okfeDUJgG8Cy3FzCtHl6d8n80K7s7aIdD56tC5FengtUnEabWI/s800/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1997-0923-505,_Berlin-Tiergarten,_Flakturm_als_Krankenhaus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="561" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi82St-V_KVFVCKnjEEE6adp5e86yH4MxlWifxzr8SUsOlrVzW3NEVsHUegXfTCf4sJHFn5DcvYBh-Itcp8ibPnclsOCr-bKBSP4-Z5OJuhT8WLDg0NMaQZsmOKW8Q-2VNi6iiS-8okfeDUJgG8Cy3FzCtHl6d8n80K7s7aIdD56tC5FengtUnEabWI/w140-h200/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1997-0923-505,_Berlin-Tiergarten,_Flakturm_als_Krankenhaus.jpg" width="140" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flakturm, Berlin<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>-did any items survive the fires at the Flakturm (Berlin zoo) in the early hours of May 1945? Did the Soviets take them? <br /><br /> <br /><i>Neuhaus am Schliersee (Southern Bavaria)</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bPJ_wOnDTRMn0U8bgBdUJuEbEWGUaZLabl75K01KNkFsJP6tCNpO98cwYU9aXiTtqSR5uRtrL4x6KFHSdTCjVYZ4IEj0ajXqzt3fk29_Z2z10QflrRGX5vZoWygKyHgFrDkUkHgKDuBmN21GXSus5BjBbYF5wp7Ti46pBm2BVfgkZyNGg1bfYya9/s3264/Schoberhof2012-08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bPJ_wOnDTRMn0U8bgBdUJuEbEWGUaZLabl75K01KNkFsJP6tCNpO98cwYU9aXiTtqSR5uRtrL4x6KFHSdTCjVYZ4IEj0ajXqzt3fk29_Z2z10QflrRGX5vZoWygKyHgFrDkUkHgKDuBmN21GXSus5BjBbYF5wp7Ti46pBm2BVfgkZyNGg1bfYya9/s320/Schoberhof2012-08.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hans Frank residence, Schoberhof, Neuhaus</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>-what exactly happened at the Hans Frank compound in early May 1945 at Neustadt south of Munich? We know that unknown parties spirited away the “Portrait of a Young Man” by Raphael and, since then, it was never to be seen again.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Austria</i></div><div><br />--what happened to the Judaica stored inside the so-called “Hungarian Gold Train” after US forces intercepted it in May 1945? The only credible lead is that the Judaica may have been transferred “erroneously” to Vienna.<br /><br /><i>Yugoslavia</i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXz-CEUhRj_bMzcTW55eycJGp30GVzbaDB-eYl3n4cs0ERG9D9bMhIIgL43uTKQrvxkFL0O8udxY3tp7YJiVp6fotxXziqJTwelF6rhONer9w-Wnpv-PcLDyVii9VWxZqP4HbfARTF50C_aNpWV8_XGQIHDcA4V6VpB8l2n_v5jVuTowfworyGZeu/s461/AnteTopicMIMARA1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-style: italic; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="461" data-original-width="373" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFXz-CEUhRj_bMzcTW55eycJGp30GVzbaDB-eYl3n4cs0ERG9D9bMhIIgL43uTKQrvxkFL0O8udxY3tp7YJiVp6fotxXziqJTwelF6rhONer9w-Wnpv-PcLDyVii9VWxZqP4HbfARTF50C_aNpWV8_XGQIHDcA4V6VpB8l2n_v5jVuTowfworyGZeu/s320/AnteTopicMIMARA1.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ante Topic Mimara</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />-is there a detailed inventory of the works and objects purloined by <a href="https://www.enciklopedija.hr/natuknica.aspx?ID=61777">Ante Topic Mimara</a>? where did these end up?<br /><br /><i>Soviet Union<br /></i><br />-where are the inventories for the so-called “Trophy Art” removed by Soviet troops from the territories that they freed of Nazi/Fascist forces? Will the Russians ever share them? Will we ever see these objects? Or are they rotting away in dank cellars, mine shafts, monasteries, barracks and other improvised storage areas scattered across the former Soviet Union?<br /><br /><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>France</i></div></i><br />-what happened to the more than 4000 works of art abandoned by the Nazis at the Jeu de Paume shortly before Paris was liberated? Did the French authorities inventory them? How many of these works were produced by Jewish artists?<br /><br /><br /><br /> </div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-6303148060795953992022-05-09T20:34:00.010-04:002022-05-09T20:39:00.515-04:00 Looking for Mrs. Zale<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br /><b>Why Mrs. Zale?</b><br /><br /><div>Ages ago, I stumbled on a message dated New Year’s Eve (31 December) 1944 sent by a Parisian art dealer, D. Kellermann, to Ladislas Segy, a Hungarian artist living in New York. In his note, which was distributed by the British censorship authorities in May 1945 Kellermann described rather glibly Mrs. Zale’s fate. He let Segy know that she and her son had been arrested and “deported in sealed boxcars” (how he came about that detail is not known…). The Gestapo seized their property in Nice as well as that of their friend, Mrs. Berger, which included 10 millions (no currency given) in art works. Mr. D. Kellermann, when visiting Mrs. Berger’s Nice residence, found paintings by Gondouin “of poor quality.” <br /><br />A search of <a href="#">deportation lists</a> for Jews <a href="#">arrested in Nice</a> and surrounding areas in 1943 and 1944 and transferred to Drancy in Paris did not produce any familiar names that might confirm Kellermann’s assertion.<br /><br />Similarly, there are no postwar claims recorded for either Mrs. Berger or Mrs. Zale. Unable to confirm or infirm Kellermann’s statement to Segy, the search for more information about Mrs. Zale, her son and Mrs. Berger reached an impasse. <br /><br />Until…<br /><br /></div><div>An article published in a <a href="#">Hungarian “magazine” called “Artmagazin Online” </a>and written by <a href="#">Gergely Barki,</a> a researcher at the National Gallery in Budapest, Hungary, provided some new elements to clear up some of the fog hanging over the Berger/Zale riddle. <br /><br />In 2019, Gergely Barki met with Cyla [Csaba Kajdi]—a Hungarian contemporary artist with a huge following on social media—who turned out to be the story’s unwitting gatekeeper. <br /><br />Cyla’s [Csabad Kadji]’s great-grandfather was Rezso Balint. Barki wanted to know more about the Balint family’s history in interwar France. <br /><br />Rezso was a Hungarian Jewish artist who had frequented the likes of Amadeo Modigliani in whose studio he had slept several times. Rezso’s brother, Adalbert (or Belá) operated “an important gallery in Paris” using the name Adalbert Berger. In 1912, Balint had met “Juliska Windt (later to be Mamika)[ Juliska (aka Júlia Windt, aka Júlia Bálint (?), aka Julia Berger, aka Julia Kellermann)]/, who was originally from the Nyírség region of Hungary. Juliska was Rezso’s wife until she left him to strike a romantic relationship with Dezso Kellermann, her old flame from Kecskemet whom she had rejected in 1912.<br /><br />Adalbert [Bela] Berger was also an art collector who amassed works by modernists like Modigliani, Braque, Delaunay, Gondouin, and Czóbel. He died in 1931.<br /><br />Once the Nazis had taken over more than half of France, they requisitioned Jewish-owned businesses including Julia Berger’s gallery. She fled Paris with Dezso Kellermann, seeking refuge in Nice which, at that time, was occupied by the Italian Army. Julia Berger found an apartment in the Cimiez section of Nice. According to Barki, she managed to elude arrest and deportation by the Nazis. She waited until 1959 to tie the knot with Dezso. His son, Michel Kellermann, has become a fixture in the Parisian art world. establishing himself as a world expert on André Derain, about whose work he compiled a catalogue raisonné.<br /><br /><b>Work in progress<br /></b><br />The one—page document detailing an exchange between D. Kellermann and Ladislas Segy on New Year’s Eve 1944 which prompted this short article is easier to understand using the Barki blog piece about the Balints, Bergers, and Kellermanns in France. It has shed some contextual ight on several individuals featured in the intercepted correspondence.<br /><br />The author of the message, D. Kellermann, is confirmed as Dezsó Kellermann, a Hungarian Jewish art dealer from Kecskemet whose family had settled in Paris before or during WWI. His progeny, Michel Kellermann (not mentioned in the note) is a highly-respected Paris art expert and dealer in his own right.<br /><br />Mrs. Kale still remains a mystery to us, despite the latter-day revelations from Mr. Barki. Nevertheless, we can surmise that: 1/ Kale is her married name, 2/ she might also be of Hungarian Jewish extraction and 3/ she owned a valuable art collection which was plundered in Nice before her arrest and that of her son.<br /><br />Mrs. Berger [Juliska Balint/Berger/Kellermann] is of Hungarian Jewish extraction, and connected by marriage and kinship ties to the Balint and Kellermann families. She was active as an art dealer in Paris and perhaps even in Nice. During one of Barki’s interview sessions, Cyla’s mother, Annamaria Basti, a denizen of the French Riviera, had shown him letterhead clearly indicating “Galerie d’Orsel, 16, rue d’Orsel, Paris, Julia Berger.” <br /><br />For now, we have not found any trace of a postwar claim submitted to the French authorities by either Mrs. Berger, Mrs. Zale or Mr. Kellermann acting on their behalf. Hence, we cannot ascertain the extent of their material losses including art works and objects. An apparent contradiction also needs to be sorted out between Dezsó Kellermann’s assertion that Mrs. Zale, her son and Mrs. Berger were arrested and carted off in “sealed boxcars”, on the one hand, and Mr. Barki’s statement that Mrs. Berger, thanks to her ingenuity and help from a local resident of Nice, was able to avoid arrest and deportation.<br /><br />Perhaps, the answers lie in Mr. Kellermann’s archives, wherever they may be since he and his family were the closest to Juliska/Julia Berger and Adalbert Balint aka Berger.<br /><br />Enclosures: Source documents regarding Dezsó Kellermann, Mrs. Zale, Mrs. Berger, and the New Year's Eve 1944-1945 British intercept. These all came from fold3.com, a digital snapshot of various collections stored at the National Archives in College Park, MD.<br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjff0Aw-3ArD1KvUSsB9GP1hNTG1J9iZnjYBlVH-0--ysdNNJLyGYyaDd343jpfHB4z_Gtcd8ORgfxrcnxiI4uNKddZYyzVXWoz8iqlRkWZrT9RnxPVOGVcbNcljbEqzAJUVQE_hK05BR__-YhI5FealtnBe8emfh8vWe52rN-P8Ao_8LM4CmUu1gxl/s2288/KellermannRG239M1944R91NARA.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="2288" height="109" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjff0Aw-3ArD1KvUSsB9GP1hNTG1J9iZnjYBlVH-0--ysdNNJLyGYyaDd343jpfHB4z_Gtcd8ORgfxrcnxiI4uNKddZYyzVXWoz8iqlRkWZrT9RnxPVOGVcbNcljbEqzAJUVQE_hK05BR__-YhI5FealtnBe8emfh8vWe52rN-P8Ao_8LM4CmUu1gxl/w640-h109/KellermannRG239M1944R91NARA.png" width="640" /></a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgswKaxBxveT83YYOLC95RKAblHUyXmWZNBpPpetP0w4QoffK_KAizHX_SC1XuvFRRM5N3sKJvEKGBF7f513gaD0KCZbyeyTWnIyUN3-DOpdiETcE4_vd8zVYHpPFtyik2ZQHCZtko9cOiTbLEtHLHgZPNJ4cMZpjIz1b6EZMeJH1yVAjgd3AQn_Pb1/s1600/London%20Dispatch%20No.%2023153,%20%5BSumner%20Mck.%5D%20Crosby's%20Report%20No.%203,%20Dated%20May%2019,%201945_RG239M1944R34NARA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="973" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgswKaxBxveT83YYOLC95RKAblHUyXmWZNBpPpetP0w4QoffK_KAizHX_SC1XuvFRRM5N3sKJvEKGBF7f513gaD0KCZbyeyTWnIyUN3-DOpdiETcE4_vd8zVYHpPFtyik2ZQHCZtko9cOiTbLEtHLHgZPNJ4cMZpjIz1b6EZMeJH1yVAjgd3AQn_Pb1/w244-h400/London%20Dispatch%20No.%2023153,%20%5BSumner%20Mck.%5D%20Crosby's%20Report%20No.%203,%20Dated%20May%2019,%201945_RG239M1944R34NARA.jpg" width="244" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4LXND4idJ8ruUWVHzvB9upp3anm-mT72h2lClTcavKBpztGnzqGKn-BgmzkBwOYtXUA4EehNoQZkXxIpsod8HBUP5LfqMUJZXNYKhLbr9SS2R-fFdjZjebRC8To0jDrMr3EL_YJmXl5xNbommpUc44B5KFGoMnwsrb-8TLRgiPLyqoOOInJ-DzaAB/s1600/Mrs.%20Berger_RG239M1944R44.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1458" data-original-width="1600" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4LXND4idJ8ruUWVHzvB9upp3anm-mT72h2lClTcavKBpztGnzqGKn-BgmzkBwOYtXUA4EehNoQZkXxIpsod8HBUP5LfqMUJZXNYKhLbr9SS2R-fFdjZjebRC8To0jDrMr3EL_YJmXl5xNbommpUc44B5KFGoMnwsrb-8TLRgiPLyqoOOInJ-DzaAB/w400-h365/Mrs.%20Berger_RG239M1944R44.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8SWmPJAcDLhek0m6EiMUpInBhpnVCjZkHpzA-uLhTn7ATYFZz9eo9APANzWpXnp9M_SaRUOsAJL-UnYJovGIOGvPc3owSqIe_3H7dvHo0MgwXOCK-yOA_d9-MM3PEQIya9PwVG_5iNyZqyh_CBjNf4SYxTk2XnorMVKfBk3zFyP6UXZ7t_G3OCmI/s1600/Mrs.%20Zale_RG239M1944R53NARA.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1380" data-original-width="1600" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY8SWmPJAcDLhek0m6EiMUpInBhpnVCjZkHpzA-uLhTn7ATYFZz9eo9APANzWpXnp9M_SaRUOsAJL-UnYJovGIOGvPc3owSqIe_3H7dvHo0MgwXOCK-yOA_d9-MM3PEQIya9PwVG_5iNyZqyh_CBjNf4SYxTk2XnorMVKfBk3zFyP6UXZ7t_G3OCmI/w400-h345/Mrs.%20Zale_RG239M1944R53NARA.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5918154958856402553.post-24762625359161124382022-05-04T19:16:00.000-04:002022-05-04T19:16:18.269-04:00 Myrtil Frank’s wartime record in German-occupied Holland<i>by Marc Masurovsky</i><br /><br />[Editor’s note: This survey is based almost exclusively on Allied documents, reports, and investigations into the wartime art market in the Netherlands and the plunder of Jewish collections under the auspices of Dienststelle Mühlmann.]<br /><br />After the Germans completed their occupation of Dutch territory, Myrtil Frank offered his assistance as well as paintings to the Dienststelle Mühlmann, based at Sophialaan 11 Den Haag. Headquartered in the Hague, its main figures were Eduard Plietzsch, the Dienststelle’s official representative or “fondé de pouvoir” and Dr. Franz Kieslinger, administrator of confiscated Jewish property who presumably brought Plietzsch into the organization as expert and purchasing agent in Holland, Belgium, France, for the Dienststelle Mühlmann. Plietzsch and Kieslinger were responsible for, among other things, targeting Jewish collections the Dienststelle wished to confiscate. The Dienststelle’s office manager was Dr. Joseph Ernst. <br /><br />Although not a well-known art expert, Myrtil Frank proved himself to be a quick study enough so to “fulfill the desires of Eduard Plietzsch.” He thus became a “most important intermediary of the Dienststelle.”<br /><br /><div>Some of Frank’s <a href="https://www.openartdata.org/2019/10/vlug-report-Dutch-art-looting-WWII.html ">contacts and collaborators at and close to the Dienststelle Mühlmann </a>included:<br /><br />-Adolf Weinmüller, a Munich-based art dealer and auctioneer of confiscated Jewish property, with close ties to Mühlmann’s operations in both Austria and the Netherlands,<br /><br />-Dr. Herbst with whom Frank dealt from 1942-1944 during his brief tenure as an administrator of the Dienststelle; <br /><br />-Dr. Schmidt, SD official responsible for travel permits [Ein-und Ausreisestelle] whom Frank had befriended and who allegedly gave him cover from anti-Jewish decrees in wartime Holland,<br /><br />-Dr. Vitale Bloch whom Frank solicited in his capacity as a purchasing agent for Mühlmann. <br /><br />-Karl Legat, Zeestraat 59, Den Haag, a German-born art dealer based in Holland, with whom Frank did extensive business during and after WWII, <br /><br />-<a href="https://www.fold3.com/image/269986168?terms=jaguenau">Jaguenau, art dealer</a><br /><br />-J. Vermeulen, art dealer<br /><br />-d’Autresch, art dealer active in the Noordeinde. Mühlmann interceded on his behalf to free his son partly in recognition for his services to secure works of art for the Dienststelle.<br /><br />- Muelder, tied to Dr. Herbst and Weinmüller who did business with the Dienststelle Mühlmann through Myrtil Frank,<br /><br />-Parry [Parri], who also cooperated with dealers Hoogendijk and Pieter de Boer.<br /><br />Myrtil Frank acquired a number of works for the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna which were sold to Hitler’s Linz Museum project. Most of these transactions occurred in 1943. Dr. Herbst confirmed these transactions in April 1946. <br /><br />How should we then view Myrtil Frank in wartime Holland? Somewhere between collaboration, duress and persecution?<br /><br />Shortly after WWII ended, Dr. Alfred Stix, director of State Art Collections in Vienna, in a letter to the US occupying forces in Austria, described some of Mühlmann’s activities in Holland during WWII. He indicated that local Jewish art dealers were forced to act as agents to Mühlmann in order to help him procure paintings. Stix argued that “these Jews told a lot of things to buy their lives in that way.” <br /><br />A scholarly assessment produced by <a href="http://public.boijmans.nl/koenigs/toorop%20web%20UK.pdf ">Anita Hopmans of the RKD</a> over the disputed ownership of paintings at the Boymans Museum buttressed Stix’s argument. It suggested that art dealers like Myrtil Frank had acted under duress. On the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Anna-Carolin Augustin echoed the Allied investigators’ suspicions when she described Myrtil Frank as a “Nazi collaborator” in an article published <a href="https://art.claimscon.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/A_Augustin-9-2011.pdf">in 2011 in Medaon, an online journal. </a> In its <a href=" https://www.proveana.de/en/person/frank-myrtel">Provenance Research Database,</a> the German Lost Art Foundation noted Myrtil Frank’s inclusion in a master list of art looting suspects drawn up by the Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) in 1946.<br /><br />Where do these contrasting views and events leave us with respect to Myrtil Frank? In some ways, we need to be very careful with how we record Myrtil Frank’s wartime activities and behavior. Simple, almost Manichean views where everything is either black/white, good/bad, ethical/unethical, may not render proper justice to Jewish art dealers like Frank who remained in the Netherlands after the Germans invaded. His actions proved that he did his utmost to protect his family (in that, he succeeded!), while he engaged in activities that favored the interests of the enemy.<br /><br />In a broader context, we may need to revisit what duress really means in these instances where physical survival blended with the pursuit of commercial activities with the occupier. Did Frank go beyond the call of duty in his relationship with the “Dienststelle Mühlmann”? The answer to this question depends on how one defines “beyond the call of duty”, a notion closely tied to the threshold beyond which one’s wartime activities in territories occupied by the Nazis become acts of collaboration with the enemy. Similar debates in countries like France may shine a light on this discussion.<br /><br /> <br />Primary sources:<br /><br /><u>Reports:</u><br /><br /><a href="https://www.lootedart.com/NITGVN553841">Vlug Report, 25 December 1945. </a><br />Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU), Final Report, Strategic Services Unit, May 1946.<br /><a href="https://www.fold3.com/image/269986168?terms=jaguenau">Consolidated Interrogation Report #2</a>, The Goering Collection, 15 September 1945, p. 79 <br /><br />Selected documents:<br /><br />Dr. Alfred Stix note to Major Miller, USFA, Vienna, 9 April 1946, RG 260 M 1926 File R&R 51 Roll 150 NARA.<br /><br /><u>Secondary accounts:</u><br /><br />Augustin, Anna-Carolin, “Nazi Looted Art in Israel: Kulturguttransfer nach 1945 und Restitution heute,” Medaon (2011), p. 9.<br /><br /><a href="http://public.boijmans.nl/koenigs/toorop%20web%20UK.pdf">Hopmans, Anita</a> “Disputed ownership. On the provenance of two works by Jan Toorop at the Boymans Museum…” pp. 13-14. </div>plundered arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03190272299610799123noreply@blogger.com