CIVS mea culpas

by Marc Masurovsky

[Editor's note: This is the second part of a three-part delivery on the November 15, 2019, Paris colloquium to celebrate 20 years of activity of the CIVS.]

In short order, CIVS speakers delivered some hard facts throughout the day:

-72000 apartments were ransacked in Paris and its environs during the German occupation of France;

-30000 claims files were submitted after the war. Of these, 20000 were for material losses and 10000 for financial losses;

- 518 million Euros have been disbursed for material losses;

-58 million euros have been disbursed to cover financial losses. In the eyes of the CIVS, this sum represents only half of such losses;

-The average sums disbursed to claimants seeking compensation for material losses amounted to 50000 euros;

-There has been a 99 per cent approval rate for all claims submitted to the CIVS for some form of compensation;

-The current pace of claims being submitted to the CIVS is 11 per month.

Former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin declared that. for years, French officials had acknowledged that reparations had been inadequate after 1945. Hence, there was a crying need to “do more” but no one did so until the mid-1990s. On July 16, 1995, President Jacques Chirac delivered a landmark speech, breaking with four decades of official French denials regarding Vichy’s responsibility in the persecution, plunder and deportation of Jews in France from 1940 to 1944. His elocution, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the July 1942 mass arrests (rafle) of thousands of Jews forcibly removed from their residences, businesses, arrested in plain sight on Paris city streets and locked up at the Vel d’Hiv. The speech prefigured the need for the CIVS. The “Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah” (FMS) was established three years later with funds from liquidated unclaimed Jewish-owned property and bank accounts.

On September 10, 1999, the CIVS opened its doors to handle claims submitted by survivors of anti-Jewish persecutions in France during the Vichy years. Its main mission was—and still is--to recommend that the Prime Minister approve compensation for claimants seeking relief for material and/or financial losses due to acts of persecution during WWII. Jospin reminisced over the various American “class action” lawsuits that had pitted claimants against the French government in 2000 and 2001. He recalled that the exchanges between French officials and American lawyers and lawmakers had oftentimes been “bitter”.

At the end of his presentation, Jospin, like so many others after him, reiterated the fact that “more needs to be done with regards to the restitution of cultural objects.” “Repair what must be repaired.”

In continuing the mea culpas of CIVS leaders, François Bernard, vice chairman of the CIVS, admitted that he and the rest of the CIVS had a difficult time grasping the true extent to which “people’s lives had been wrecked” during the years of occupation of France and thereafter. In essence, for him and others at the CIVS, the damage to individual victims was impossible to quantify in any satisfactory way. Citing the Matteoli report, Bernard solemnly declared that the mission of the CIVS, from its outset, was steeped in justice and humanity. Bernard turned the discussion inwardly by suggesting that the 20 years of the CIVS had been riddled with ambiguities. In a rather flippant comment, he stated: “we have no idea who we are.” The comment was more juridical than philosophical. He then went on to suggest that the CIVS had behaved like its own jurisdiction or a meta-jurisdiction.

Some of the disconnects and dysfunctions inherent in the CIVS mission stemmed from the decree that established it. The decree was interpreted too narrowly, which led to the following:

-War-related losses were excluded, although losses resulting from wartime plunder were not necessarily ignored.

-Anti-Semitic acts perpetrated by the German occupier outside the scope of Vichy policies may not have been taken into account.

-Lost earnings due to antisemitic decrees forcing people out of their professions were not addressed either. In other words, you were on your own if you thought you could be compensated for lost income resulting from anti-Jewish persecutions.

In spite of this, the CIVS leadership congratulated itself for having had one-on-one meetings with half to two-thirds of the claimants. The CIVS took note of all of the criticisms and insults proffered against it. Only 40 claims were litigated out of the tens of thousands that were submitted and adjudicated.

If not much has been done about cultural losses, the CIVS maintains that it will be difficult for it to change the way it does business. Matteoli once said that cultural losses constituted a “black hole.” They were also referred to as a “lost museum”. If it is lost, will it reappear? And if so, what to do? Meh.



to be continued...

Backdrop to the 20th anniversary celebration of the existence of the CIVS

by Marc Masurovsky

[Editor's note: This is the first of three articles on the November 15, 2019, one-day colloquium convened by the CIVS in Paris, France]

As is the case with all celebratory anniversary conclaves, the organizers are those who know more about what needs to be feted than the attendees to the erstwhile fiesta. After twenty years of existence, the “Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes des spoliations (CIVS)” shared their 20-year odyssey through the wreckage of the Second World War exemplified by the staggering material, financial, and emotional losses suffered by the Jews of France during four endless years of persecution at the hands of a pseudo-legal French authority and German occupation forces.

A host of speakers were invited to share their thoughts with an audience of at least 400 participants who mostly hailed from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and, of course, France. Much to my surprise, about one fourth of the participants were researchers, a pattern that has emerged over the past several years around similar international gatherings in London, Bonn, and Berlin, to name a few. The usual NGOs connected with art restitution matters were also in evidence—the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP), the Commission for Art Recovery (CAR), Mondex, the Claims Conference, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE)—as well as perennial personalities operating on the fringes of the art restitution community and constantly fighting for what they perceive is their rightful share of the “business.” An ugly thought.

As seen from the outside in, the proceedings began with a predictable self-congratulatory tone, where speakers highlighted the many accomplishments recorded by the valiant civil servants working tirelessly to restore a symbolic sense of justice to families broken and torn asunder by the horrors imposed upon them by those who despise Jews and covet their property. All of this in a country which has a terrible time facing its recent past in an open manner. Much has been done since 1945 but far more needs to be done still.

It is with that in mind that my cynicism was quickly checked when speaker after speaker articulated self-critical thoughts, most of whom belong to a coterie of—now—dignified, erudite, skilled elderly gentlemen and gentlewomen responsible for creating the CIVS and for shepherding it through the torturous and treacherous waters of accountability for crimes committed against the Jews of France and their possessions.

To be quite frank, I left satisfied that I had witnessed a historical event and been given a fairly reasonable balance sheet of two decades of activity on behalf of Jewish victims. In France, that counts for a lot.

The proceedings took place not too far from UNESCO in a building which houses administrative offices subordinate to the Prime Minister’s cabinet. It was miserably cold and wet outside, which made it easier to allow ourselves to be penned inside an auditorium which, although comfortable, gradually became stuffy and unbearable. But the high concentration of human-generated heat only exacerbated the situation. I am digressing….

To be continued…

  

Washington Principle #10: A Critique

by Marc Masurovsky

[Editor's note: Due to the momentous nature of the upcoming international conference in Berlin, Germany, on November 26-28, 2018 and entitled "20 years Washington Principles: Roadmap for the Future," it would be worthwhile to revisit these Principles and to put them through a linguistic, methodological and substantive meat grinder, and see what comes out of this critique. There will be eleven articles, each one devoted to one of the Principles enacted in a non-binding fashion in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1998.]

Principle #10
Commissions or other bodies established to identify art that was confiscated by the Nazis and to assist in addressing ownership issues should have a balanced membership.

This principle is one of the few in the set of 11 where there has been some implementation effort. However, it is written in such a way that it almost consists of two distinct parts: one dealing with commissions “or other bodies” and the other, somewhat puzzling, recommending “balanced membership” in these here commissions “or other bodies.”

1/ commissions or other bodies:

Since the Washington Conference of 1998, five European nations managed to establish some form of commission or “other body” designated to address cultural claims and in some countries like France, claims for other types of looted assets including cultural claims. They were established in five countries—France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany—between 1998 and 2003. Interestingly, the Austrian government was the first to establish such a commission, largely motivated by the seizure of two paintings by Egon Schiele at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in early January 1998. The seizure put o the fast track plans for a restitution law, Austria being the only country in the world with such a law which set in motion a mechanism by which Federal Austrian museums do not need a claim against them to conduct research into their collections. The opposite is the reality.

1998: Commission for provenance research, Vienna, Austria,

1999: Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations [CIVS],

2000: Spoliation Advisory Panel, London, UK,

2002: Dutch Restitution Committee, The Hague, Netherlands,

2003: Limbach Commission.

Whether these commissions have been effective since the date of their creation is another discussion entirely. Suffice it to say that, if we were to rank their overall impact and effectiveness at resolving claims, we could provide the following tentative ranking from worst-1- to (relatively better)-4- by nation:

1: Germany
2-3: Netherlands
3: France
3-4: The United Kingdom and Austria

Relative because these commissions are far from being perfect, their concept of justice has often clashed with the realities of history, enforcing a delicate balance with their desire to protect their State museums and their commitment to be “just and fair” with the claimants based on the evidence provided to them. Some have chosen decided biases against certain categories of claims, namely those for items sold under duress, while others have been mired in the bureaucratic cultures of their national governments. But, all in all, there are five standing commissions as opposed to non which have been active for now twenty years, in part as the result of the Washington Principles.

The failure to implement Principle #10 in the United States reflected the deep polarization between government officials, museum directors and their trade associations, lawyers for both possessors and claimants, restitution groups and politicians. Despite a succession of “town meetings” and symposia held in the wake of the Washington conference (1998) and Vilnius (2000) to define the contours of an American restitution commission, no consensus could be reached, no one knew where to place such a commission in the tangled mess known as the US government. Even restitution lawyers ended up opposing the creation of such a commission and preferred to maintain the status quo rather than impose a toothless entity in the art restitution discussions within US borders.

2/ balanced membership

Aware that the Washington Principles were conceived to protect the interests of the current possessors while taking into account ways of being fair and just to claimants, the issue of a balanced membership for those commissions adjudicating or hearing claims for restitution of looted art, must give us pause.

What’s the worry? What does the word “balanced” infer? That discussions would be too biased and should reflect a balance of what kinds of opinions exactly? Does it mean equitable representation for all stakeholders in the restitution discussions and an assurance that they will have a seat on these commissions and be able to proffer their views fairly?

Opinions on this question differ wildly. If you represent the interests of current possessors, you want to make sure that the claimant voice on the commission is minimal, at best, but present enough not to be accused of partiality. If you represent the interests of the government of the nation where sits the commission in question, your interests invariably collude with those of the possessor because the government is most oftentimes the possessor acting as defendant against a claimant. If you are a claimant, you want to ensure that claimants’ representatives, independent historians, maybe even ethicists have a seat on the commission. The latter never happened.

Hence, the preoccupation over balanced membership betrayed, then and now, a general fear on the part of the possessors—therefore, governments and museum associations-that claimants’ voices would become too loud and mar the “just and fair” discussion and tilt it towards the rights of the claimants. It is largely palpable in the recent reform of the Limbach commission which ushered into the commission’s board two members of the Jewish community, a notion that even the German minister of culture opposed initially, for their presence might inject bias into the commission’s proceedings.https://www.artforum.com/news/germany-appoints-first-jewish-members-to-its-limbach-commission-for-nazi-looted-art-64667

In sum, keep the commissions and strengthen their mandates. Do not regress like the Dutch Restitution Committee in accepting the views of the Dutch museum community that the cohesiveness of their collections was far more important than a claim for restitution.

Principle#10 could be rewritten as follows:

Commissions or other bodies shall be established to assist in addressing ownership issues for unrestituted artistic, cultural and ritual objects confiscated, misappropriated, sold under duress and/or forced sales, subjected to other forms of illicit acts of dispossession by the Nazis, their supporters, profiteers and Fascist allies across Europe between 1933 and 1945; these commissions or other bodies shall have a balanced membership consisting of, but not limited to, members of the art trade, civil servants, current possessors, claimants and their representatives, historians and specialists.

Thorough research drives restitution of looted art and yet….

by Marc Masurovsky

It is absolutely fair and just to ask why, in the past two decades, there have been no systematic efforts deployed to make funds available to advance research on missing art collections and other aspects of the cultural plunder that was visited upon civilians, Jewish and other, between 1933 and 1945. Some of those funds could have come from the sales of multi-million dollar works that had been restituted in past years. A conservative estimate puts at nearly 600 million dollars the total value of paintings restituted to claimants, mostly in North America, a large part of those works having come from losses suffered by members of the Austrian Jewish community, including works signed by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, darlings of the over-hyped global art market.

It is true that there have been no publicized indications that historical research played a critical role in documenting the fate of the looted cultural objects that were restituted to claimants since the 1990s. And yet, good research produces good outcomes, an admission made even by the legal counsel to the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). Perhaps lawyers are to be faulted for that state of affairs. Hard to tell. It is not so much their clever swordsmanship that has enabled the return of claimed works but the meticulous documentary trail that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that looted art works did belong to their clients at the time of their confiscation and ensuing misappropriation and that they had been illegally removed from their hands for reasons having nothing to do with their legal ownership of the works, but because of their belonging to a culture reviled by their persecutors.

Nevertheless, people are what they are and we should be thankful that the claimed objects have been returned to the rightful owners who are free to do what they bloody want with them.

As for the chronic absence of funding for research that could shed more light on the murky and dark corners of economic collaboration during the Nazi years, the unsavory role played by art dealers, collectors, museum officials, their friends in government, industry and finance, and many others, it will take brave, courageous, and selfless souls to open their checkbooks and fund such research efforts.

Ideas about establishing foundations, consortia, research-driven higher education programs, and public-private partnerships could fill volumes of idle chatter. Idle because they have led nowhere. Truth be told, where there’s a will, there usually is a way. And, in the case of historical research on cultural plunder during the Nazi era, the will does not rise beyond the threshold of cocktail discussions and “bons mots” exchanged during international conferences on Nazi looted art.

At present, institutional self-serving indifference and opportunism prevail among governments on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and cloud any reasonable discussion on how to fund historical research into cultural plunder during the Nazi years and the impact of the destruction of Jewish cultural assets on the postwar world. Those who bear the brunt of this state of affairs are the diplomats and politicians who have mastered the rhetoric of restitution only to suppress any effort to fund research.

The exceptions: groups like the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany and the Commission for Art Recovery are members of a rarefied club that have supported such research. The Claims Conference has supported for 10 years now the building and maintenance of the Jeu de Paume database of art objects looted in German-occupied France and the Commission for Art Recovery has fueled research efforts in part to assist in its international art recovery litigations. In a minor way, proprietary databases like the Art Loss Register and both leading auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, provided small but symbolic sums of money to jump-start such research in the late 1990s.

On a more hopeful note:

Recent progress in the understanding of cultural plunder in the past two decades must be acknowledged, although the work of many historians, researchers and scholars has not been translated into languages which could help reach a wider audience. Hence their findings are reaching a limited audience, namely in the German-speaking world and other linguistic micro-communities:

the Zentral Institut für Kunstgeschichte (ZIKG) in Munich, whose researchers are making a clear imprint on our understanding of the mechanisms of plunder in Nazi Germany and beyond,

the French Ministry of Culture on the works stuck in the purgatory of the Musées Nationaux Récupération (MNR), the CIVS and the Institut National de l'Histoire de l'Art (INHA) in Paris*,

the Dutch Restitution Committee which has amassed significant historical research to drive its decisions, regardless of how one agrees or disagrees with them*,

a research cell in Brussels focusing on M-Aktion staffed by an interdisciplinary trio of young scholars,

the Commission for Provenance Research in Vienna*

efforts conducted by British museums a decade ago which remain one of the best examples of how museums should publicize the results of their findings on individual objects,

a growing group of individual scholars and researchers who have made important contributions to the emerging field of cultural plunder. These scholars can be found in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, the Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Greece, Finland, Israel, the United States and Canada.

This disparate international cacophony of research must be coordinated and given a cohesiveness to become truly useful for the generations to come. International symposia are not a panacea nor are a solution. International research centers must be established to coordinate such research, archives focused on plunder and its aftermath must be created to centralize key documents from a plethora of archival repositories found in dozens of countries, and graduate programs should be designed and offered to focus in an interdisciplinary framework on the complex question of plunder and its implications for civil society during and after the Nazi era.

* Last but not least, the five standing commissions on restitution--United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria--should adopt more "transparent" practices relative to the historical research that they use to reach their decisions--for or against the claimants--and make such research publicly accessible to benefit international scholarship.

Work in progress….