Looted paintings in the State Museum of Smolensk

Картинная галерея, Смоленск
Source: Smolensk Travel

In 2005, a museum in Smolensk, in cooperation with the German Embassy in Moscow, organized an exhibit of German paintings from the 17th century to the early part of the 20th century. Most of the paintings came from the permanent collection of the Smolensk Museum. Of the paintings that were exhibited, more than a dozen came from a single family—Stolberg-Wernigerode—whose estate in Radenz (present-day Borzeciczki), in western Poland near Poznan, had been plundered, first by the Nazis, then by Soviet troops.

The German Embassy in Moscow made contact with the Stolberg-Wernigerode heirs seeking to establish the correct provenance and ownership of the paintings being exhibited in Smolensk. Furthermore, the curatorial staff of the Smolensk Museum even invited the Stolberg-Wernigerode family to come and visit the museum and view the paintings. And so they did.

As they tell the story, the visit took place in November 2005 following a five-hour train ride from Moscow to Smolensk and was nothing short of surrealistic. The following is excerpted from a master’s thesis entitled “Fateful Encounter in Smolensk” submitted on December 10, 2010 by Marie Stolberg as partial fulfillment of a Master’s Degree in International Art Crime Studies sponsored by ARCA—Association for Research into Crimes against Art:

“For our visit they had been taken out of the depot and put up on easels in an extra room. There they were, so many years after they had gone missing, as if nothing had ever happened. Here was the beloved grandmother with the bracelet she gave to her granddaughter who wears it still; the grandfather, great‐grandparents and landscapes of Wernigerode. The paintings had all been restored and they were in excellent condition. It was moment of great emotion. We sat down for an intensive exchange of information with the curators and the director. They were keen to hear about the family and to see the photo album with the paintings hanging on the walls. The curator, Nadeshda Wolossenkowa, said that the crates with the collection from Krotoschinskij
 in Poland had arrived in the summer of 1945. She mentioned, rather incidentally, that a countless amount of further cultural objects (none of which had ever been unpacked, inventoried or even looked at), were still stored in the depots. The conversation was intriguing. At the end of the day we carefully touched on the subject of restitution. I remember Nadeshda’s answer was very polite if not a little vague. She had expected the question and said that one way could possibly be in exchange for cultural objects from Smolensk which had been looted by the Nazis and removed from Russia. She presented us with two catalogues published by the museum and listing works of art missing from their collection. At the same time she stressed that the matter of restitution was not in her hands and only to be decided by the ministry.”

And therein lies the rub. How do claimants recover anything from the former Soviet Union, despite having sufficient proof that the works were rightfully theirs?

Following various official exchanges with the Russian Ministry of Culture, it became apparent that there would not be any consideration of a restitution until the Stolberg-Wernigerode family produced official papers and documentation indicating that the paintings rightfully belonged to them. A difficult task considering the fact that over one hundred years had elapsed since the paintings had entered the family’s estate and a major European conflagration had been responsible for virtually wiping out all traces of historical evidence of individual and collective history, first at the hands of the Germans, then at the hands of the Soviets. Twice plundered.

In some measure, the behavior of the Russian Ministry of Culture closely mirrors that of most governments and cultural institutions faced with such claims—the desire to maintain their current ownership of objects which fell into their hands by circumstances associated with war, plunder, and genocide.

The solution proffered by the curator of the Smolensk Museum—to exchange the works for items plundered by the Germans from their museum by elements of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR)—has become a preferred strategy of the Russian government. Nothing is unilateral. There has to be a quid pro quo, regardless of the validity of the claim submitted by the despoiled party.

Uniform Law Commission plan to issue art ownership dispute standards may be over

On April 25, 2011, we announced an initiative spearheaded by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) aimed at coming up with a series of legal standards that could be used across the United States in order to resolve art ownership disputes arising out of claims filed by Holocaust survivors or their heirs for the return of their looted cultural assets.

A number of individuals, entities, and organizations supplied comments to the ULC in reaction to its proposal for producing these standards. See in particular the contribution of the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) in the form of an open letter addressed to the ULC.

The “stakeholders”, namely, claimants, auction houses, museums, art dealers and collectors and law enforcement, and attorneys representing all sides of these disputes, voiced an almost unanimous condemnation and critique of the standards proposed by the Study Committee of the ULC.

As a result of this highly negative reaction, the Study Committee is recommending that the ULC should not “undertake the drafting of a uniform act on private rights of action to recover stolen cultural or artistic property and illegally exported artifacts”. Although the proposed effort to issue standards regulating art ownership disputes evenhandedly across the United States might have well-intentioned, the end result would have set back the clock for all those seeking even a minimal chance of having their case heard in a court of law, absent, of course, any public policy that the Congress might consider enacting in this regard. Until such time, it is best to leave things as they are, however imperfect and lopsided the current legal system is.

“A Harvest Scene (Heuernte)” by Philip Wouwerman

by Marc Masurovsky

It required the death at the age of 96 on March 19, 2007, of a German art historian turned notorious Nazi plunderer and war criminal, Bruno Lohse, former operational chief of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) in Paris and deputy commander of the Dienststelle Westen in German-occupied Paris to discover a painting looted by Nazi agents in the summer of 1940 from the home of the late Edmond de Rothschild.

R 348
Source: ERR Project via NARA

R 348
Source: ERR Project via NARA

"A Harvest Scene (Heuernte)", Philip Wouwerman
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

The painting in question, “A Harvest Scene (Heuernte)” by Philip Wouwerman, was labeled as R 348 by the ERR staff at the Jeu de Paume and subsequently shipped to the Reich to be incorporated into the collection of Hermann Goering.

At some point before the end of the Second World War, Bruno Lohse was able to gain control of the painting either by subterfuge or with the consent of Goering. Nevertheless, it remained in his custody until his death, when it was found in a safe in a Zurich bank.

The late Frencht journalist, Philippe Sprang, who died in October 2023, first reported the story of the looted Wouwerman painting in December 2010. In his piece, he reported how the French Rothschilds had ignored the fact that the painting had resurfaced and was available for them to claim it. The family, once apprised of the existence of the painting, preferred to work through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than contact the German authorities directly. However, since that time, we have learned that, apparently, the rightful heir is unwilling or reluctant to press for the restitution of this work or is simply uninterested.

The painting is now awaiting its fate at the hands of German judicial authorities. If the rightful owner refuses to claim it as his property which was looted from his family during the Nazi occupation of France, this stolen work of art will be handed over to a relative of the plunderer, Bruno Lohse, and justice will not have been served. A sad and unfortunate end to a story that can still end well with the claimant recovering what is rightfully his.

Update 11 November 2024: As it turns out, the rightful owners are members of the French branch of the Rothschild family. It has been said that they have declined to recover the painting which ended up in Bruno Lohse's possession, the very same person who presided over the dispersal of their vast artistic wealth during the German occupation of France. Since the Goering family was the executor of Lohse's estate, the Munich prosecutor was forced to return the painting to the Goering family. Ironic, isn't it? and a crying shame for the perpetrators' heirs to recover what their ancestors looted from the victims whose heirs ended up declining to recover their property.

Plaidoyer pour les artistes et intellectuels juifs disparus

Palais des Études, École Nationale Superieur des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Source: Wikipedia

Il faut se poser la question, même s’il est injuste de la poser : enfin de compte, les juifs étrangers, mal nourris, mal logés, mal élevés, de l’Ecole de Paris et des autres écoles de création artistique à travers l’Europe, ces juifs-là, qui gênaient les bien-pensants, purement et simplement, ont-ils été abandonnés à leur propre sort, en raison de ce qu’ils représentaient ?


Difficile à dire. Mais on ne peut pas sombrer dans une martyrologie sentimentaliste en ce qui les concerne. On n’est pas enclin non plus à croire en la munificence de l’homme face au désastre ; les comportements crapuleux existent bel et bien. Nous sommes dans l’obligation de rectifier le tir et de dire ce qu’il en est, d’après les documents, de démystifier le comportement des marchands, des courtiers, et de tous ceux dans le monde de l’art qui savaient pertinemment bien que ‘ces messieurs’ étaient bel et bien leurs clients, que les objets dont ils disposaient provenaient de collections spoliées, un point, c’est tout. Si, par contre, on prend au pied de la lettre tous les mémoires d’après-guerre produits par ces mêmes marchands et collectionneurs, il n’y a plus rien à dire, tout le monde il est beau, tout le monde il est gentil. C’est dommage, beaucoup de gens ont été exterminés, pour rien, pour ce qu’ils étaient, et c’est bien malheureux, et on passe à autre chose. Glorifier les marchands et les collectionneurs dans un combat héroïque contre le Golgotha nazi, ça, non, il faut bien tirer un trait quelque part. Il faut que l’on tire et que l’on tire juste.

Par exemple, est-ce qu’on laisse Matisse tranquille ou non ? Que savait-il ? Pourquoi ne disait-il rien ? S’il existe des documents qui attestent de sa connaissance des rafles, des aryanisations, et des spoliations de ses propres œuvres—quelqu’un a dû lui dire ce qui se passait à Paris—quelles ont été ses réactions? Peut-être qu’il s’en balançait éperdument, lui aussi ? Un tableau, un dessin, ben, c’est un tableau, un dessin. Si je les perds, j’en refais d’autres. Il se peut que ceux qui se sentent les plus concernés par ces pertes sont les consommateurs de ses œuvres, ceux qui en profitent. Peut-être que les artistes sont indifférents au fait que leurs œuvres soient pillées. Mais, s’ils ne disent rien, que pouvons-nous dire ? Avons-nous le droit de nous prononcer sur la question ? Puisque l’on ne peut pas anticiper leur réaction, il faut au moins que l’on puisse créer un contexte, un cadre dans lequel se situe l’action. Pendant que Matisse peignait et dessinait à Nice, des centaines de collectionneurs d’origine juive se faisaient spolier, parmi les objets qu’ils ont perdus figuraient des œuvres créées par Matisse. Le régime auquel il a prêté son nom s’adonnait au pillage de ses œuvres. Purement et simplement. La même logique s’applique à Picasso, Braque, et d’autres artistes de renom, y compris le fasciste Vlaminck, les opportunistes comme Van Dongen, Derain, Dufy, et Dunoyer de Segonzac.

Il faut arriver à restituer aux artistes leurs parcours et leur persécution, de souligner les pertes physiques et intellectuelles, de rappeler à tous que les écrits des historiens continuent de passer sous silence l’anéantissement de toute une classe d’artistes et d’intellectuels, peut-être par ignorance, peut-être parce qu’ils pensent qu’en parlant des victimes de la déportation, ils se sont acquittés de toute responsabilité d’entrer dans les détails. Mais, cet oubli accidentel constitue en soi un déni inacceptable de la contribution de ces artistes et intellectuels juifs au patrimoine culturel et intellectuel non seulement de la France mais de l’Europe toute entière. Il faut le redire une fois pour toute : la libération des pays occupés par les Nazis fut une belle victoire, mais l’absence des retrouvailles aux terrasses des cafés qui avaient servi in extenso de salons et de salles à manger pour ces artistes en manque de tout, sauf d’inspiration et de cœur, résonne comme un écho dans un abîme dont la profondeur ne peut être mesurée.

Leur absence nous bouleverse et laisse un trou béant dans notre existence. C’est toute une mouvance artistique et intellectuelle qui a disparu de la planète. Et c’est une marque du succès du programme national-socialiste et de celui de ses alliés antisémites, bon ton bon goût. Oui, le goût a eu sa revanche, mais à quel prix !