by Marc Masurovsky
The process of recovery of looted cultural, artistic and religious objects is daunting for several reasons:
If action is not taken right away to recover a looted object, it becomes exponentially difficult to identify its current location. In the case of losses during the Third Reich, “recovery” was an absurd notion since the perpetrators of the thefts controlled the reins of political, legal, and economic power. Hence, the process of tracing the object could only occur after a regime change and with rules in place that would facilitate such searches. Moreover, if the works confiscated or plundered by the Nazi regime ended up in neighboring countries, what rights did the claimants have to recover such works, since Nazi Germany was a recognized nation in the community of nations, for better or for worse? What rights do they have now? Since most of the domestic losses suffered by Jews living in Germany were State-sponsored, there was no mechanism in place in other nations to deem the actions of the Nazi state illegal and the confiscated property subject to restitution. Therefore, if you lost your property in 1934 and if you survived all of the subsequent events provoked by the Nazis’ fury against the Jews and others, you would have to wait for at least 12 years to assert a claim of restitution.
If your missing object is located in the hands of a new owner, regardless of how that person or institution acquired the victims’ property, the laws governing property rights and title to “legally acquired” property prevent the plundered owner from obtaining restitution of his/her looted property without going through a complex tangle of legal and political maneuvers. In the absence of explicit mechanisms put in place by the national governments of nations where such looted objects have ended up, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover them. This state of affairs endures to this day and has been a continual source of frustration for victims of plunder with minimal accommodations made by governments and courts to facilitate the process of recovery.
If the looted object is declared part of the cultural patrimony of the nation from where it ended up, the recovery process involves a direct negotiation with that nation’s government, a very laborious discussion which usually ends in utter failure. What is the word of a dispossessed Jewish owner against that of an official who upholds the notion of cultural patrimony and inalienability of art objects located in State collections, whether those objects were looted during genocidal acts? Culpable countries hiding behind such imperialistic arguments are: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, to cite the worst, Eastern European nations, all of the nations that once formed the Soviet Union.
When source nations seek the return of their looted patrimony which usually consists of antiquities illegally extracted from archaeological sites or illegally removed from religious and other sacred edifices, the wait can last for an eternity; it can also be circumscribed to anywhere from a year to several decades if the aggrieved nation is willing to compromise, accept trade offs like offer commercial advantages to the withholding nation, or agree to symbolic returns with a promise never to come back and ask for anymore as in the case of South Korea and the shabby treatment it received from France over a set of priceless manuscripts.
Aggrieved source nations include but are not limited to Greece, Turkey, Italy, South Korea, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Mali.
In other words, we have not made much progress in the past several decades. As provenance continues to become optional in art market transactions and most nations do not encourage their cultural institutions to be more forthcoming in publicizing the history of the objects that are part of their “patrimony,” nothing short of a cultural revolution will sway them to change course and become, god forbid, ethical.
Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italy. Show all posts
18 October 2017
11 November 2016
Swiss foreign cultural policy?
by Marc Masurovsky
At a time when one French Jewish family is beating its head against a brick wall to recover a painting by John Constable, “Dedham from Langham”, from the Museum of Fine Arts in La Chaux-de-fonds, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, a country whose officials revere Good Faith on the altar of Neutrality. A joke, by any stretch of the imagination.
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| Dedham from Langham, by John Constable |
This is the only known claim today submitted by a non-Swiss citizen of Jewish descent for a work of art sold under duress in German-occupied France in 1943 because its owners—the Jaffe family—were of Jewish descent.
In the mean time, the Swiss government has been returning a host of antiquities to foreign nations requesting them:
May 27, 2014: The Swiss government returned to Serbia a trove of 150 coins dating back to the Roman era. The crime? Illegal importation into Switzerland by a Serb national in 2011.
December 2014: The Swiss government returns a Han Dynasty terra cotta to China. The crime? Forged customs declaration. The item had been shipped from the United Kingdom to the county of Vaud. This restitution was hailed as a major step in the fight against the illicit traffic in cultural assets.
November 2015: The Swiss government returned to the Iraqi government two cuneiform tablets on the pretext that they had not been properly registered as “cultural goods” when entering Switzerland. The crime here? False registration in violation of a June 1, 2005, law governing the transfer of international cultural goods.
July 2016: The Swiss government returned to Italy nine antiquities including five fresco fragments from the 6th century BC. The fresco fragments which come from Pompeii resulted from a voluntary restitution by their current possessor. Swiss cantonal police seized the other items.
Pending: a request by the Bolivian government for a statuette representing the deity, Ekeko, removed from Bolivia in 1858, the result of a drunken swap, a statuette for a bottle of brandy. The statuette currently sits at the History Museum of Bern.
It is remarkable that the new minister of Culture of the Swiss Confederation, Isabelle Chassot, is so committed to the return of cultural objects that are illegally in Switzerland.
One wonders whether these returns fit into a larger policy of maintaining cordial relations with source countries—a commendable goal in and of itself.
What does it take to show a similar regard towards the heirs of Jewish victims whose looted cultural assets ended up in Swiss cultural institutions and private collections? Why is it that Jews have to fight like hell to recover what is theirs while source countries just have to ask for their objects?
This is not a whining session.
We know what the stark differences are. There are no laws covering the return of looted Jewish cultural assets. But there are a myriad of laws enacted in the last 20 years that make it very difficult to sustain the presence of looted cultural assets on Swiss territory.
Hopefully, Isabelle Chassot will figure out a way of making an ethically grounded exception to facilitate the return of looted Jewish cultural assets.
What does it take to show a similar regard towards the heirs of Jewish victims whose looted cultural assets ended up in Swiss cultural institutions and private collections? Why is it that Jews have to fight like hell to recover what is theirs while source countries just have to ask for their objects?
This is not a whining session.
We know what the stark differences are. There are no laws covering the return of looted Jewish cultural assets. But there are a myriad of laws enacted in the last 20 years that make it very difficult to sustain the presence of looted cultural assets on Swiss territory.
Hopefully, Isabelle Chassot will figure out a way of making an ethically grounded exception to facilitate the return of looted Jewish cultural assets.
Mark my words: where there’s a will, there’s a way.
21 November 2011
"Christ carrying the cross," by Girolamo di Romano
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| Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue, Girolamo Romano Source: New York Times, Arts Beat |
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| Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science (Tallahassee, FL) Source: Wikipedia |
The painting was part of a major loan exhibit from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, Italy, that had graced the walls of the Tallahassee museum since March 2011 until the show closed on September 4. All the works returned to Milan except for the Romanino.
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| Anonymous ICE Official at Seizure Source: ICE |
In 2001, the Gentili di Giuseppe heirs petitioned the Italian government and the Pinacoteca to return the painting to their family, in vain. Aware that the painting was being exhibited in the United States, Gentili di Giuseppe’s grandson, Lionel Salem, contacted Chucha Barber, director of the Mary Brogan Museum, to discuss the painting and to notify her of his belief that this was the same painting that had been illegally sold by the Vichy government in 1941 and was thus subject to restitution.
Several comments are needed here:
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| Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan, Italy) Source: Wikipedia |
Secondly, neither the Pinacoteca nor the Italian government deemed it necessary to alert Ms. Barber that there might be some complications arising from the presence of the Romanino painting on its walls. A sign of arrogance? Who knows?
Let’s turn to the case itself:
In 1941, the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini became concerned that the property of its nationals of Jewish ancestry was falling into the hands of the Vichy government so that the French government could liquidate it and pocket the proceeds of the sales. Mussolini’s diplomats in Vichy repeatedly petitioned the Pétain government to lay off the assets of its nationals and to allow Italy to initiate proceedings for repatriating Italian Jewish property back to the homeland. In other words, the Fascist message to Pétain was clear: don’t mess with our Jews.
The Gentili di Giuseppe family was among those listed whose confiscated assets should be repatriated to Italy. That did not happen.
Hence, the proof of confiscation is explicit since, one way or another, the Gentili di Giuseppe family’s belongings were targeted both by Vichy and by Fascist Italy.
Fast forward to the present:
In July 2010, I had the extraordinary pleasure of chatting informally with Italy’s State Attorney Maurizio Fiorilli, after a conference held in Amelia, Italy, regarding illicit cultural property. To be honest, I spotted him at a local restaurant where I was finishing up lunch. Fiorilli was seated nearby. I took a deep breath, introduced myself and requested the pleasure of asking several questions, which he agreed to do. At first, he spoke in Italian and a woman at his table translated his words into English. Soon, he switched to English once we discussed the Gentili case.
Paraphrasing his words, Fiorilli indicated that even if the Gentili di Giuseppe family was able to get its painting back—the Romanino!-- it had to remain in Italy, as cultural property.
Cultural property? Does that mean that a XVIth century Italian painting is treated like an antique vase dug up from Roman ruins? How does that happen? Cultural property applies to cultural objects and artifacts extracted from the earth, not to Holocaust-era cultural assets that were forcibly removed from the homes and businesses of Nazi and Fascist victims. In other words, Fiorilli was playing a dangerous game, using cultural property laws to prevent Holocaust victims from recovering their assets.
Could it be that Fiorilli considers the Romanino painting as part of Italy’s patrimony—patrimonio culturale, patrimoine culturel, cultural heritage? If that is the case, the Italian government is pre-empting the rights of individuals to recover what is rightfully theirs, by invoking abstract concepts of cultural heritage and the greater good of the nation.
Both arguments—cultural property and cultural heritage—are self-serving, opportunistic gambits to ignore individual rights to ownership of cultural assets. Hence, the Tallahassee case extends far beyond the restitution of an Italian Old Master painting to the rightful heirs of Gentili di Giuseppe. It brings into question the dubious practices of governments in preventing restitution of stolen cultural assets by invoking abstract and ill-defined concepts of cultural heritage and misusing notions that apply to antiquities by conflating them with Holocaust-era losses.
As far as we know, the Gentili di Giuseppe family has had a rough time dealing with American museums. The compromises that it was forced to accept with cultural institutions such as the Princeton Art Museum were not aimed at returning their property to them, but at negotiating financial settlements to allow those museums to maintain so-called good title to the Gentili property. ICE’s action might be the first step in a long process that might actually give the Gentili di Giuseppe heirs a taste of justice on American soil and maybe teach the Italian government a lesson or two about the Holocaust and restitution.
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| Princeton University Museum of Art Source: Wikipedia |
Maurizio Fiorilli's comments at the 2010 ARCA Conference in the Palazzo Petrignani in Amelia, Italy:
Maurizio Fiorilli, ARCA 2010, Part I
Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97SvrwtfTVo
Maurizio Fiorilli, ARCA 2010, Part II
Maurizio Fiorilli, ARCA 2010, Part III
Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7LPJTm7BXc
Maurizio Fiorilli, ARCA 2010, Part IV
Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA), 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DO7hn3hKPY
24 June 2011
Fascists, SS, and plunder in wartime Italy
After the promulgation of the anti-Jewish laws of November 1938 by Mussolini’s Fascist government, Jews living in Italy became second- and third-class citizens overnight.
Eventually, the same pattern that afflicted their brethren in Germany and Austria befell the Jews of Italy, after living under the illusion that they were protected owing to their high levels of assimilation in Italian society. Social, cultural, economic, professional exclusions, evictions, and pauperization became the three pillars of their calvary in that crucial period prior to the German invasion of Italy in mid-1943.
Thinking that conversions might help them, close to 6000 Jews may have left the Jewish faith, at least on paper, in order to forestall further persecutions. Others chose to leave while some committed suicide.
It is worth remembering, in any discussion pertaining to economic loss and forced sales, that the reduction to second- and third-class citizenship is a direct invitation to wholesale persecution, harassment, and exploitation.
After the German conquest of Italy—let’s call it for what it is!—and the imposition of military rule anchored in racialist hatred, the SS set about importing to Italy the ingredients and mechanics of the Final Solution--location, identification, mass roundups, incarceration, concentration, and deportation.
This is where the most skeptical should revisit their cynicism about how Italy should not be treated like other European countries at the core or periphery of the Final Solution because of how nice Italians were to the Jewish populace. Granted, many Italians were scandalized by the rudeness and cruelty visited upon their Jewish neighbors and friends by the invaders from the North. But was it because they wished for an “Italian” solution to the Jewish “Problem” as was the expressed desire of the Vichy Fascists who regretted the heavy-handedness of the German occupiers in wartime France? As noted by German propaganda specialists in the RSHA, that was indeed the wish expressed by their Fascist allies, that they should be left to take care of their Jewish problem.
Nevertheless, opportunity has a tendency to knock only once. When thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from their homes in order to be incarcerated and deported, it should come as no surprise that a number of those homes were ‘liberated’ and ‘occupied’ by good Italians, Fascist ones at that.
Questions to answer:
Eventually, the same pattern that afflicted their brethren in Germany and Austria befell the Jews of Italy, after living under the illusion that they were protected owing to their high levels of assimilation in Italian society. Social, cultural, economic, professional exclusions, evictions, and pauperization became the three pillars of their calvary in that crucial period prior to the German invasion of Italy in mid-1943.
Thinking that conversions might help them, close to 6000 Jews may have left the Jewish faith, at least on paper, in order to forestall further persecutions. Others chose to leave while some committed suicide.
It is worth remembering, in any discussion pertaining to economic loss and forced sales, that the reduction to second- and third-class citizenship is a direct invitation to wholesale persecution, harassment, and exploitation.
After the German conquest of Italy—let’s call it for what it is!—and the imposition of military rule anchored in racialist hatred, the SS set about importing to Italy the ingredients and mechanics of the Final Solution--location, identification, mass roundups, incarceration, concentration, and deportation.
This is where the most skeptical should revisit their cynicism about how Italy should not be treated like other European countries at the core or periphery of the Final Solution because of how nice Italians were to the Jewish populace. Granted, many Italians were scandalized by the rudeness and cruelty visited upon their Jewish neighbors and friends by the invaders from the North. But was it because they wished for an “Italian” solution to the Jewish “Problem” as was the expressed desire of the Vichy Fascists who regretted the heavy-handedness of the German occupiers in wartime France? As noted by German propaganda specialists in the RSHA, that was indeed the wish expressed by their Fascist allies, that they should be left to take care of their Jewish problem.
Nevertheless, opportunity has a tendency to knock only once. When thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from their homes in order to be incarcerated and deported, it should come as no surprise that a number of those homes were ‘liberated’ and ‘occupied’ by good Italians, Fascist ones at that.
Questions to answer:
- What happened to those properties?
- What happened to the contents of those ‘liberated’ homes?
- Did the postwar Italian government go after those responsible for the illegal seizures who were not acting on German orders?
23 June 2011
Up close and personal at the Final Solution in Rome
Among the mass of documents concerning the Final Solution which were made available to the general public are cable exchanges decoded by the Allies which took place between German SS officials in Rome and their superiors in Berlin. They recount the atmosphere in Rome in the days following the seizure of the city by German troops in September 1943. For anyone doing research on wartime plunder, these cables provide an important contextual matrix for understanding relations—often tense—between the SS and the Fascists, especially their police, the militia and the Carabinieri.
11 October 1943—Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA [Berlin] to Herbert Kappler, Head of he German Police and Security Services in Rome
“It is precisely the immediate and thorough eradication of the Jews in Italy which is the special interest of the present internal political situation and the general security in Italy. To postpone the expulsion of the Jews until the Carabinieri and the Italian Army officers have been removed can no more be considered than the idea mentioned of calling up the Jews in Italy for what would probably be very improductive labour under responsible direction by Italian authorities. The longer the delay, the more the Jews who are doubtless reckoning on evacuation measures have an opportunity by moving to the houses of pro-Jewish Italians of disappearing completely… Italy [has been] instructed … to proceed with the evacuation of the Jews without further delay.”
16 October 1943—From Kappler to Berlin
“Action against Jews started and finished today in accordance with a plan worked out as well as possible by the office. All available forces of the Sicherheitspolizei and the Ordnungspolizei employed. Participation of Italian police was not possible in view of unreliability in this respect, as only possible by individual arrests in quick succession inside the 26 action districts. To cordon off whole blocks of streets, in view both of Rome’s character as an open city and of the insufficient number of German police, 365 in all, not practicable. In spite of this 1259 persons were arrested in Jewish homes and taken to assembly camp(s) of the military school here in the course of the action which lasted from 0530 to 1400 hours. After the release of those of mixed blood, of foreigners including a Vatican citizen, of the families in mixed marriages including the Jewish partner, and of the Aryan servants and lodgers, there remain 1002 Jews to be detained. Transportation on Monday 18/10 at 0900. Escort by 30 men of the Ordnungspolizei. Attitude of Italian population was one of… passive resistance, which in a large number of individual cases has developed into active assistance. In one case, for example, the police were met at a house-door by a Fascist, with an identity document and in a black shirt, he having undoubtedly taken over the Jewish house only an hour before and alleged it to be his own… ..part of the population did not make an appearance during the action, but only the broad masses, who in individual cases even attempted to keep single policemen back from the Jews…”
17 October 1943—Amt III Referent of the RSHA [Rome] to Berlin
“Population excited and angry after the action against the Jews. Sympathy is the uppermost feeling among the lower classes, especially because women and children were taken… Growing indignation, especially against the German police. Fascists regret that the Jewish question has not been solved by Fascism…”
20 October 1943—Dr. Jur. Willhelm Harster, SS Brigadeführer to Berlin
“Transport of Jews from Rome left Rome on 18th at 0900 hours with transport No. X70469 and is traveling via Arnoldstein to Auschwitz…”
11 October 1943—Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA [Berlin] to Herbert Kappler, Head of he German Police and Security Services in Rome
“It is precisely the immediate and thorough eradication of the Jews in Italy which is the special interest of the present internal political situation and the general security in Italy. To postpone the expulsion of the Jews until the Carabinieri and the Italian Army officers have been removed can no more be considered than the idea mentioned of calling up the Jews in Italy for what would probably be very improductive labour under responsible direction by Italian authorities. The longer the delay, the more the Jews who are doubtless reckoning on evacuation measures have an opportunity by moving to the houses of pro-Jewish Italians of disappearing completely… Italy [has been] instructed … to proceed with the evacuation of the Jews without further delay.”
16 October 1943—From Kappler to Berlin
“Action against Jews started and finished today in accordance with a plan worked out as well as possible by the office. All available forces of the Sicherheitspolizei and the Ordnungspolizei employed. Participation of Italian police was not possible in view of unreliability in this respect, as only possible by individual arrests in quick succession inside the 26 action districts. To cordon off whole blocks of streets, in view both of Rome’s character as an open city and of the insufficient number of German police, 365 in all, not practicable. In spite of this 1259 persons were arrested in Jewish homes and taken to assembly camp(s) of the military school here in the course of the action which lasted from 0530 to 1400 hours. After the release of those of mixed blood, of foreigners including a Vatican citizen, of the families in mixed marriages including the Jewish partner, and of the Aryan servants and lodgers, there remain 1002 Jews to be detained. Transportation on Monday 18/10 at 0900. Escort by 30 men of the Ordnungspolizei. Attitude of Italian population was one of… passive resistance, which in a large number of individual cases has developed into active assistance. In one case, for example, the police were met at a house-door by a Fascist, with an identity document and in a black shirt, he having undoubtedly taken over the Jewish house only an hour before and alleged it to be his own… ..part of the population did not make an appearance during the action, but only the broad masses, who in individual cases even attempted to keep single policemen back from the Jews…”
17 October 1943—Amt III Referent of the RSHA [Rome] to Berlin
“Population excited and angry after the action against the Jews. Sympathy is the uppermost feeling among the lower classes, especially because women and children were taken… Growing indignation, especially against the German police. Fascists regret that the Jewish question has not been solved by Fascism…”
20 October 1943—Dr. Jur. Willhelm Harster, SS Brigadeführer to Berlin
“Transport of Jews from Rome left Rome on 18th at 0900 hours with transport No. X70469 and is traveling via Arnoldstein to Auschwitz…”
06 June 2011
A 1940 “fait divers” in Fascist Italy
Dateline 1940.
Two years have elapsed since the Fascist Government of Benito Mussolini enacted anti-Jewish laws, inspired by the infamous 1935 Nürnberg Laws in Nazi Germany and a forerunner of the Fall 1940 anti-Jewish edicts in Vichy France.
Although this arduous period of Italian history has not received the full treatment that it deserves, when compared to its neighbors to the North, Jews--and especially foreign-born Jews who had escaped to Italy--were transformed overnight into second-class citizens whose rights were being reduced to nil across the Italian boot.
And so it was that a Hungarian-born Jew, Vittorio Földes fu Martino, living in Vicenza, approached a Munich-born German hotel owner who managed a pensione in Fiume, to sell him a 15th century miniature signed L.C., executed in the style of Lukas Cranach, and which portrayed the head of Saint John.
The German owner of the pensione called upon a friend of his, Emil Starle (or Stark), who was then the director of a Dürer Museum in Nürnberg (Norimberga). Mr. Földes probably should not have trusted these two men, but when you are in desperate search of money to help you survive, your capacity to doubt the sincerity of others might be trumped by your need for resources with which to survive. In other words, Mr. Földes was ripe for a duress sale. He left the painting with the hotel owner from Munich.
He was told to come back the following day. When he did, there was no one to greet him and to provide him with the funds that he needed in exchange for his 15th century miniature painting. The two Germans had vanished.
Luckily, Mr. Földes survived the war and filed a claim in June 1945 with the Occupation Military Government in Germany (OMGUS), which forwarded his request to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP). Not too surprisingly, the work was not found. However, he did encourage his American interlocutors to go knocking on the door of the Dürer Museum in Nürnberg and see if his portrait of Saint John had ended up there.
Although we do not know the outcome of this all too familiar story of theft, Mr. Földes is convinced that he was fleeced because he is a Jew who sought help in Fascist Italy. One should wonder how many stories like Mr. Földes’ occurred in Italy between the enactment of the anti-Semitic legislation in 1938 and the invasion of Italy by Nazi Germany in 1943.
How much attention did postwar Italian authorities pay to these crimes which were not committed by German troops, or the SS, or the Gestapo, but by German citizens who felt that they could act in impunity on Italian soil under cover of the anti-Semitic laws?
Has anyone cared to ask?
Two years have elapsed since the Fascist Government of Benito Mussolini enacted anti-Jewish laws, inspired by the infamous 1935 Nürnberg Laws in Nazi Germany and a forerunner of the Fall 1940 anti-Jewish edicts in Vichy France.
Although this arduous period of Italian history has not received the full treatment that it deserves, when compared to its neighbors to the North, Jews--and especially foreign-born Jews who had escaped to Italy--were transformed overnight into second-class citizens whose rights were being reduced to nil across the Italian boot.
And so it was that a Hungarian-born Jew, Vittorio Földes fu Martino, living in Vicenza, approached a Munich-born German hotel owner who managed a pensione in Fiume, to sell him a 15th century miniature signed L.C., executed in the style of Lukas Cranach, and which portrayed the head of Saint John.
The German owner of the pensione called upon a friend of his, Emil Starle (or Stark), who was then the director of a Dürer Museum in Nürnberg (Norimberga). Mr. Földes probably should not have trusted these two men, but when you are in desperate search of money to help you survive, your capacity to doubt the sincerity of others might be trumped by your need for resources with which to survive. In other words, Mr. Földes was ripe for a duress sale. He left the painting with the hotel owner from Munich.
He was told to come back the following day. When he did, there was no one to greet him and to provide him with the funds that he needed in exchange for his 15th century miniature painting. The two Germans had vanished.
Luckily, Mr. Földes survived the war and filed a claim in June 1945 with the Occupation Military Government in Germany (OMGUS), which forwarded his request to the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP). Not too surprisingly, the work was not found. However, he did encourage his American interlocutors to go knocking on the door of the Dürer Museum in Nürnberg and see if his portrait of Saint John had ended up there.
Although we do not know the outcome of this all too familiar story of theft, Mr. Földes is convinced that he was fleeced because he is a Jew who sought help in Fascist Italy. One should wonder how many stories like Mr. Földes’ occurred in Italy between the enactment of the anti-Semitic legislation in 1938 and the invasion of Italy by Nazi Germany in 1943.
How much attention did postwar Italian authorities pay to these crimes which were not committed by German troops, or the SS, or the Gestapo, but by German citizens who felt that they could act in impunity on Italian soil under cover of the anti-Semitic laws?
Has anyone cared to ask?
21 May 2011
May 1945 and beyond
The Second World War is over in Europe and North Africa. The Third Reich no longer exists. The only active military front is in Asia where the Japanese Imperial Army continues to put up fierce resistance to American-led troops. That all comes to an end with the detonation of two atomic devices, one over Hiroshima and another over Nagasaki, in early August 1945.
60 million people are known to have died as a direct result of the Second World War. This figure includes six million Jewish men, women, and children exterminated in death camps, ghettos, forests, fields, marshes, and concentration camps. It also includes at least 5 million men, women, and children of other faiths decimated in concentration camps, forced labor, in villages and cities across Axis-occupied Europe. The remainder died in the crossfire between rival armies, as victims of reprisal killings, from hunger, disease, and exposure to the elements.
The victorious Allied powers set in motion policies to effect the repatriation of assets looted by the Axis to the countries from where they were forcibly removed. While laying down complex reparations formulae that leave no country satisfied, they also lay claims to assets owned by the Reich and its collaborators in countries often referred to as ‘neutral’, viz., Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and to a far lesser extent, Turkey, and Argentina.
Restitution is often confused with repatriation, but one thing is certain, restitution can only mean one thing: return of a stolen object to its rightful owner.
France and the Soviet Union argue for replacement policies—to replace objects stolen from them with objects of similar quality and value in the current possession of the defeated powers. The United States and Great Britain oppose such a move. While France continues to press for replacement into the early 1950s, the Soviet Union does not quibble over words and policies. It is busy removing untold numbers of items, equipment, and other goods from countries that the Red Army overran in its bid to defeat the Third Reich as partial payment for its losses—both infrastructural and human. One out of every three Soviet male between the ages of 17 and 45 is dead or unaccounted for at the end of the global conflict.
It is fair to say that 90 per cent of all those involved in direct fashion with the cultural plunder of Europe escaped severe punishment, with the notable exception of Alfred Rosenberg and a handful of his acolytes. The rest faced mostly fines, escaped prosecution altogether, and few were tried and handed down light sentences.
Every formerly occupied country in Europe busily enacts laws that restrict the ability of victims to recover items plundered by fellow citizens. Most egregious are the waivers granted to so-called third-party transactions: all individuals who were involved in brokering forced sales and illegal removals of property are granted the benefit of the doubt, lest it be explicitly proven that they knowingly handled items which had been misappropriated for racial and other reasons. Worst of all: the main proponent of postwar restitution, namely the United States, walks away from the restitution process in the early 1950s, feeling that the job was 'well done', ignoring the plight of claimants who by then have become naturalized US citizens.
No one has done an accounting of the numbers of claimants who actually obtained restitution of lost items and assets. Judging by the number of victims, their surviving next of kin, the figures can only be ridiculously low--in the single percentile digits.
Where are all the looted objects, aside from those which victorious armies recover by the truckloads in the aftermath of victory?
From East to West:
Plundered items infest bustling black markets across Europe; their sheer numbers make it impossible for local and Allied police and investigative agencies to intercept them. As a result, these items will slip through export restrictions and end up in collections as far away as Argentina.
The residual problem of World War II and Holocaust-related plunder is a global problem since, if half of what has just been put forth is correct, looted items are to be found everywhere, both in private and government hands. If we want to resolve this question in a way that is acceptable to all parties, knowing full well that full, 100 per cent restitution was--and will never be--possible, all countries involved must come to the table and carve out a solution which allows them once and for all to close the book on one of the worst chapters of human history. Failing that, all that we have accomplished is to inform the next generation that plunder is permissible and the passage of time allows the thieves to enjoy the fruits of their mischief without fear of accountability.
60 million people are known to have died as a direct result of the Second World War. This figure includes six million Jewish men, women, and children exterminated in death camps, ghettos, forests, fields, marshes, and concentration camps. It also includes at least 5 million men, women, and children of other faiths decimated in concentration camps, forced labor, in villages and cities across Axis-occupied Europe. The remainder died in the crossfire between rival armies, as victims of reprisal killings, from hunger, disease, and exposure to the elements.
The victorious Allied powers set in motion policies to effect the repatriation of assets looted by the Axis to the countries from where they were forcibly removed. While laying down complex reparations formulae that leave no country satisfied, they also lay claims to assets owned by the Reich and its collaborators in countries often referred to as ‘neutral’, viz., Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and to a far lesser extent, Turkey, and Argentina.
Restitution is often confused with repatriation, but one thing is certain, restitution can only mean one thing: return of a stolen object to its rightful owner.
France and the Soviet Union argue for replacement policies—to replace objects stolen from them with objects of similar quality and value in the current possession of the defeated powers. The United States and Great Britain oppose such a move. While France continues to press for replacement into the early 1950s, the Soviet Union does not quibble over words and policies. It is busy removing untold numbers of items, equipment, and other goods from countries that the Red Army overran in its bid to defeat the Third Reich as partial payment for its losses—both infrastructural and human. One out of every three Soviet male between the ages of 17 and 45 is dead or unaccounted for at the end of the global conflict.
It is fair to say that 90 per cent of all those involved in direct fashion with the cultural plunder of Europe escaped severe punishment, with the notable exception of Alfred Rosenberg and a handful of his acolytes. The rest faced mostly fines, escaped prosecution altogether, and few were tried and handed down light sentences.
Every formerly occupied country in Europe busily enacts laws that restrict the ability of victims to recover items plundered by fellow citizens. Most egregious are the waivers granted to so-called third-party transactions: all individuals who were involved in brokering forced sales and illegal removals of property are granted the benefit of the doubt, lest it be explicitly proven that they knowingly handled items which had been misappropriated for racial and other reasons. Worst of all: the main proponent of postwar restitution, namely the United States, walks away from the restitution process in the early 1950s, feeling that the job was 'well done', ignoring the plight of claimants who by then have become naturalized US citizens.
No one has done an accounting of the numbers of claimants who actually obtained restitution of lost items and assets. Judging by the number of victims, their surviving next of kin, the figures can only be ridiculously low--in the single percentile digits.
Where are all the looted objects, aside from those which victorious armies recover by the truckloads in the aftermath of victory?
From East to West:
- items removed from Soviet territory, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, find their way into Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. For instance, many cultural objects stolen in Poland are discovered in the French zone of Occupation in Germany, while Russian icons, books from the Ukraine and private collections from Latvia end up in various parts of Austria and Germany. Although a percentage of those items are repatriated to the Soviet Union, the picture is unclear as to their numbers and the percentage that they represent of all items recovered by Allied forces.
- items from Yugoslavia enter Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.
- items from Italy go north to Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, as well as west to Spain and France (after August 1944).
- items from France, Belgium, Holland, travel to Italy, Spain, Germany, and as far as Austria and Poland, and in some cases even to German-occupied Ukraine where Belgian books looted by the ERR find a final resting place.
- items discovered in the various zones of occupation controlled by Great Britain, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union in Germany and Austria will never be properly repatriated and/or restituted and, instead, are transferred to the territories of the occupying powers.
Plundered items infest bustling black markets across Europe; their sheer numbers make it impossible for local and Allied police and investigative agencies to intercept them. As a result, these items will slip through export restrictions and end up in collections as far away as Argentina.
The residual problem of World War II and Holocaust-related plunder is a global problem since, if half of what has just been put forth is correct, looted items are to be found everywhere, both in private and government hands. If we want to resolve this question in a way that is acceptable to all parties, knowing full well that full, 100 per cent restitution was--and will never be--possible, all countries involved must come to the table and carve out a solution which allows them once and for all to close the book on one of the worst chapters of human history. Failing that, all that we have accomplished is to inform the next generation that plunder is permissible and the passage of time allows the thieves to enjoy the fruits of their mischief without fear of accountability.
10 May 2011
More on restitution in postwar Italy
Renewed attention is being given to the scope and breadth of objects of art plundered by the Nazis and their allies which entered the art market in Italy during the fateful years of the Third Reich and beyond. An upcoming seminar to be held in Milan on June 23, 2011, is being co-sponsored by the global auction house, Christie’s, and the Art Law Commission of the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA). It will bring together international specialists and lawyers adept at working on art restitution cases including the New York law firm of Herrick, Feinstein, and the Commission on Art Recovery (CAR).
The goal is to paint a broad picture of the state of affairs in postwar Italy regarding the restitution of Holocaust-era looted art, what can be done about improving the climate of restitution in a country that has long prided itself for having taken the lead in the search for and recovery of works of art forcibly removed from its territory.
And therein lies the rub…
Successive Italian governments—and there have been a great many of them!—have focused their attention almost exclusively on the plunder initiated by Nazi Germany when it sent its troops deep into Italy after the removal of Mussolini in 1943. Hence, the official window of plunder in Italy has always been considered to be a ‘foreign’ affair, the responsibility for which must be laid at Germany’s feet between 1943 and 1945. Moreover, in a cynical move to prevent plundered art from leaving the country, the Italian government appears to be commingling all plundered art as 'cultural property.' Should that be the case, this signals an ominous turn against the possibility of recovering Holocaust-era cultural goods found in Italy.
Convenient…
Once upon a time, back in 1922, there was a man by the name of Benito Mussolini whose March on Rome heralded the rise to power of Fascism which lasted a good 21 years, not bad for a political novice and former newspaper editor.
During that time frame, the Fascist Party ran amok against its opponents, harassing them, arresting them, imprisoning them, and when it deemed fit, murdering them “while trying to escape.” Many others were forced into exile or confined to the ‘villeggiatura’, a semblance of house arrest in the deep rural south of Italy for anti-Fascist intellectuals. All the while, opponents’ property was seized, stolen, and reincorporated into the economy of Fascist Italy, if it didn’t end up in the homes of prominent Fascist dignitaries.
In 1938, the Fascist government edicts the so-called “Manifesto of Race” which defines who is a Jew, aping the Nazi government and foreshadowing Vichy’s contribution to anti-Semitic legislations by two years. From that time on, Jews are no longer safe in Italy, nor is their property.
Hence, the questions that should be asked at this seminar bear especially on the 21 years of Fascist rule, which include 5 years of pre-Nazi invasion anti-Jewish persecution.
The art market
Italy remained an open market, regardless of Fascist strictures, importing and exporting and doing business with countries around the globe. The Italian art world continued to maintain good relations with its neighbors, buying, selling, and trading. As it turns out, Italy was a convenient place for Nazi dealers and museum officials to meet up with their counterparts in Italy and from other countries.
During the height of the anti-Jewish persecutions in German-occupied Europe, Italian art dealers were more than happy to accept as payment, in lieu of cash, works of art which Nazi officials did not deem suitable for their collections, especially modernists. Where did those works go?
As importantly, Northern Italy was a hotbed of smuggling and contraband of all manners of commodities, including art, during the period of German occupation, activities often supervised by Nazi intelligence operatives, the most notorious being Freddy Schwend, based in Merano.
And one should not forget the Vatican, which curried favor to all sorts of authoritarian, racialist regimes in the 1930s and 1940s, enabling safe passage in the late 1940s and 1950s for untold numbers of Axis collaborators and plunderers on their journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and into the Americas, under the pretext that they had solid anti-Communist credentials.
On a final note, Italy came up during the May 6-7, 2011, World War II Provenance Research Seminar in Washington, DC, within the framework of an ambitious project overseen by the National Gallery of Art to fully document the acquisitions made by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The Count Contini-Bonacossi had been Mr. Kress' 'art advisor'. Contini-Bonacossi's credentials placed him as a major Italian art dealer with privileged ties to Hitler and Goering's minions as well as with their intermediaries operating in German-occupied France, Belgium, and Holland. Something to keep in mind...
The goal is to paint a broad picture of the state of affairs in postwar Italy regarding the restitution of Holocaust-era looted art, what can be done about improving the climate of restitution in a country that has long prided itself for having taken the lead in the search for and recovery of works of art forcibly removed from its territory.
And therein lies the rub…
Successive Italian governments—and there have been a great many of them!—have focused their attention almost exclusively on the plunder initiated by Nazi Germany when it sent its troops deep into Italy after the removal of Mussolini in 1943. Hence, the official window of plunder in Italy has always been considered to be a ‘foreign’ affair, the responsibility for which must be laid at Germany’s feet between 1943 and 1945. Moreover, in a cynical move to prevent plundered art from leaving the country, the Italian government appears to be commingling all plundered art as 'cultural property.' Should that be the case, this signals an ominous turn against the possibility of recovering Holocaust-era cultural goods found in Italy.
Convenient…
Once upon a time, back in 1922, there was a man by the name of Benito Mussolini whose March on Rome heralded the rise to power of Fascism which lasted a good 21 years, not bad for a political novice and former newspaper editor.
During that time frame, the Fascist Party ran amok against its opponents, harassing them, arresting them, imprisoning them, and when it deemed fit, murdering them “while trying to escape.” Many others were forced into exile or confined to the ‘villeggiatura’, a semblance of house arrest in the deep rural south of Italy for anti-Fascist intellectuals. All the while, opponents’ property was seized, stolen, and reincorporated into the economy of Fascist Italy, if it didn’t end up in the homes of prominent Fascist dignitaries.
In 1938, the Fascist government edicts the so-called “Manifesto of Race” which defines who is a Jew, aping the Nazi government and foreshadowing Vichy’s contribution to anti-Semitic legislations by two years. From that time on, Jews are no longer safe in Italy, nor is their property.
Hence, the questions that should be asked at this seminar bear especially on the 21 years of Fascist rule, which include 5 years of pre-Nazi invasion anti-Jewish persecution.
The art market
Italy remained an open market, regardless of Fascist strictures, importing and exporting and doing business with countries around the globe. The Italian art world continued to maintain good relations with its neighbors, buying, selling, and trading. As it turns out, Italy was a convenient place for Nazi dealers and museum officials to meet up with their counterparts in Italy and from other countries.
During the height of the anti-Jewish persecutions in German-occupied Europe, Italian art dealers were more than happy to accept as payment, in lieu of cash, works of art which Nazi officials did not deem suitable for their collections, especially modernists. Where did those works go?
As importantly, Northern Italy was a hotbed of smuggling and contraband of all manners of commodities, including art, during the period of German occupation, activities often supervised by Nazi intelligence operatives, the most notorious being Freddy Schwend, based in Merano.
And one should not forget the Vatican, which curried favor to all sorts of authoritarian, racialist regimes in the 1930s and 1940s, enabling safe passage in the late 1940s and 1950s for untold numbers of Axis collaborators and plunderers on their journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and into the Americas, under the pretext that they had solid anti-Communist credentials.
On a final note, Italy came up during the May 6-7, 2011, World War II Provenance Research Seminar in Washington, DC, within the framework of an ambitious project overseen by the National Gallery of Art to fully document the acquisitions made by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The Count Contini-Bonacossi had been Mr. Kress' 'art advisor'. Contini-Bonacossi's credentials placed him as a major Italian art dealer with privileged ties to Hitler and Goering's minions as well as with their intermediaries operating in German-occupied France, Belgium, and Holland. Something to keep in mind...
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