What happened during WWII at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris?

Musée du Jeu de Paume, Paris courtesy of wikipedia

by Marc Masurovsky

I have to admit that historians are a strange lot, especially in the choices they make on what to research and write about. Whether they are aware of this or not, their choices, once published and commented on, shape our popular understanding of history and their omissions (what they are not interested in) deprive us of a fuller understanding of historical events, large and small. 

Take the Museum of the Jeu de Paume in central Paris. It is a typical example of this. Aside from the work of Emmanuelle Polack, there is not a single book that has been exclusively devoted to the history of the Jeu de Paume during the years of German occupation (1940-1944) of France. But there are at least 12 non-fiction books solely devoted to Rose Valland’s heroism and work as a French spy and a cultural property recovery officer for the French government.

The outside world may have experienced the historical Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries through the eyes of Rose Valland’s hagiographers. If you are a movie buff, you may catch a glimpse of it in “The Train” by John Frankenheimer, a paean to French railroad workers during WWII who tried their utmost to prevent France’s cultural treasures from being removed to Nazi Germany in the closing months of the German occupation of France. 

The rooms of the Jeu de Paume have been a regular feature on the French Ministry of Culture’s website for over a decade, illustrating its many rooms through contemporaneous black and white photographs made interactive so that you can discover the looted objects displayed there for Hermann Goering’s pleasure.

Do you really know what happened at the Jeu de Paume from Fall 1940 when it opened as a depot and processing station for confiscated Jewish cultural property to early August 1944 when it ceased to function as such? Do you know who worked there, what their jobs were, what objects they handled, how decisions were made day-to-day, why they chose certain objects and not others, their likes and dislikes, who hated who, who slept with who, the internal cliques? This is "perpetrator history" and it should not be ignored. Otherwise, you, we, end up knowing little about a fundamental cog in the machinery of cultural plunder devised by a perpetrator in the 20th century. History tends to repeat itself like an old cliché.

The Jeu de Paume was a laboratory of cultural plunder created by the perpetrators—the German occupying power and a Nazi plundering agency, the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), its employees, experts and agents. It is therefore logical to dissect its internal mechanisms so that we can understand how looted, confiscated, misappropriated cultural assets are “handled” by those who carry out these crimes.

Alfred Rosenberg, founder of the ERR

To this day, the Jeu de Paume and the four-year long campaign of confiscation, processing, and dispersal of Jewish-owned cultural property reflects the dark side of the museum world and its cultural workers. Your involvement in the arts and cultural activities, whether as a producer or consumer, does not shield you from engaging in heinous acts as a deliberate cog in a machinery of racially-motivated exploitation, grand theft, and persecution. These people are your typical “collaborators”, persons who intentionally cast their lot with the new sheriff in town—in this case, the Nazis and their local Fascist supporters (in this case, partisans of the collaborationist Vichy government).

PS: The only "depot" of cultural objects that has received proper scholarly treatment is the postwar Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) which supplanted Hitler's Führerbau as of May 11, 1945, as a central processing station for recovered looted objects. American cultural officials referred to in pop culture as the "Monuments Men and Women” managed the site. Dr. Iris Lauterbach of the Munich-based Zentral Institut für Kunstgeschichte is the author of that study.

The next article will be devoted to inventories, basic didactic instruments that document cultural plunder.

For more on WWII films with some mention of cultural plunder, check out:

https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-challenges-of-making-historically.html

For more on Rose Valland, see:

https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2012/01/three-graces-of-art-restitution.html

For more on the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, see:

https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-destruction-of-works-of-art-in.html

https://plundered-art.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-destruction-of-works-of-art-in_5.html

 

The challenges of making a historically accurate film about WWII

What does it take to make an entertaining, vibrant, thrilling, moving, suspenseful film about one or more aspects of the Second World War and not betray History?

Does it take unusual talent, a sense of vision unparalleled in the annals of filmmaking, a massive budget that would bankrupt Hollywood because, you know, truth HURTS?

Let’s take a quick run-through and see what we can dig up.

Rome, Open City
Source: BFI

There are literally hundreds of films, in black and white, sepia, and all sorts of color starting with Technicolor, which have riveted us since even before the ink dried on the Nazi surrender to Allied forces in May 1945.(Rome, Open City, by Roberto Rossellini, is one of those rare gems of a film, shot during and after the Liberation of the Eternal City…)

In fact, one could actually teach an entire course on the Second World War just by using film—it’s been done many time actually—without sacrificing the truth. Perhaps, the following list can serve as a core curriculum:

Mr. Klein (1976), by Joseph Losey, starring Alain Delon. One of the few French films that actually addresses the ethical and moral problematic of being an art dealer in wartime Paris and dealing with Jewish identity or not. Riveting? Yes. Well written? Yes. Acting? Splendid, especially from Alain Delon, who delivered one of his best career performances. Stark? Yes. All in all, it made the point powerfully and left us with some acrid back taste in our mouths.

The Black Book (2006), by Paul Verhoeven, starring Carice van Houten. A troubling

Black Book
Source: allaboutwarmovies

Dutch film about the Resistance, sex, and the boundary lines between love and hate, or what’s it like to fall in love with the chief SD officer in town, while running errands for the Dutch Resistance? Again, moral ambiguity, the savagery and cruelty of war and occupation where most tenets of “civilized behavior” go out the window and the people whom you thought were your friends turn out to be the worst kind of traitors and opportunists.

Closely Watched Trains
Source: Wikipedia

Closely watched trains (1966), by Jiri Menzel, starring Vaclav Neckar. A stark, expressionist film that focuses on the unsaid, the non-verbal about the trains, those trains, carrying victims to their deaths, while the stationmaster is desperately seeking love.

Forbidden Games (1952), by René Clément, starring Brigitte Fossey. Two children orphaned by an aerial strafing attack on a column of refugees and how the sudden loss of mother and father on a backdrop of war changes their lives forever.

Forbidden Games
Source: Wikipedia

The Train (1964), by John Frankenheimer, starring Burt Lancaster. The ultimate campy film about the August 1, 1944, train bound from Paris for the ERR depot of Nikolsburg which was intercepted by units of the French Resistance outside of Paris near Aulnay sous Bois. Although the film deviates from many aspects of the actual story, it uses the opportunity to celebrate the heroism of railroad workers against the German occupiers and French collaborators. Yes, we see crates stamped with the names of great artists inside box cars. Yes, Rose Valland makes an appearance and she is not spitting in a glass of champagne as you will see her do in the upcoming “Monuments Men” movie. It was a fun ride, an exciting film where one could suspend disbelief and still trust that History had been treated fairly well. Unlike Inglorious Bastards (2009), by Quentin Tarantino, which made no bones or scalps about shirking truth just to have a good time. Ironically, the SS officer played by Michael Fassbender who hunts down Jews was the most compelling and realistic character in this unethical romp through German-occupied France and for that reason, it barely survives the smell test.

The Longest Day, by Andrew Marton and Ken Annakin, starring John Wayne and Richard Burton, one of the best films about the Second World War. You walk out of that film understanding why Germany was on its last legs as a result of the invasion of France on June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day.

Historically accurate? Yes. Why? The filmmakers actually recruited as consultants veterans of D-Day who fought on all sides, including former German senior officers. They did not shy away from grandiosity but this epic film stands out a magisterial blend of humor, sarcasm, downright cruelty and surrealism that only war can deliver to you, cynicism, and strategic errors that cost the lives of countless men—the Saint-Lo incident, for one. One can bet anything that the total budget for the Longest Day did not exceed in real dollars the costs incurred to make the “Monuments Men”. It remains a classic, unlike this upcoming tragicomedy predicated on a historical falsehood, namely that the Nazis were about to blow up the world’s “cultural treasures.”

Say no more.

The jury is unfairly in.

Next time someone makes a movie about the Second World War, realize that it takes talent, good writing, and creativity to tell a tale anchored in TRUTH. And it also takes a tremendous amount of humility and an ego kept in check.

Let the public decide. As we all know, it can be truly fickle and still root for falsehood as long as eye candy is available on a large screen with surround sound and glitzy special effects.