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World
NEk' S ANALYSIS
Looted Art
Last chance for Holocaust restitution?
Dinah Spritzer
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Prague
A
fter eight years of promises,
Lithuania wants to pay just
one-third of the value of Jewish
property confiscated by the Nazis and
Communists.
Their offer: $46 million payable over 10
years and starting in 2011.
The Lithuania case represents the staffing
tactics, lack of political will and national-
ist-fueled resentment of Jews that have
frustrated efforts by Jewish owners, heirs
and their advocates to recover property
stolen by the Nazis and the Communists in
Central and Eastern Europe.
The economic crisis has made it even
more difficult to get local politicians to
take action on restitution.
In a significant gesture last week, 46
countries signed a declaration at the close
of a Holocaust Era Assets Conference in
Prague aimed at easing the restitution
process for Jewish property taken during
the Nazi era.
The Terezin Declaration is a nonbinding
set of guiding principles aimed at faster,
more open and transparent restitution of
art and private and communal property
taken during the Holocaust.
However, questions linger over what
such a document can accomplish with
only the power of moral force.
"Back in the late 1990s, NATO member-
ship was a driving motivation for coun-
tries in Eastern Europe, who were told by
the U.S. government that how they treated
their Jews will be a key factor in their
admission:' said Rabbi Andrew Baker of
the American Jewish Committee.
This was in stark contrast to the
European Union, which did not make
any demands for restitution. In fact, the
European Union lifted a requirement for
restitution that would have blocked Poland's
2004 admission to the 27-country union.
Pressured by the United States and Jewish
groups since the fall of the Iron Curtain
two decades ago, most countries previously
under the sway of the Soviet Union have
made some attempts at communal and pri-
vate restitution or compensation.
There are two major sore spots
within the European Union: Poland and
Lithuania. Poland, where 3 million Jews
lived before World War II — the largest
A16
Judy 9
a
2009
Jewish prewar population in any country
— has no private restitution law for Jews
or non-Jews.
In the area of looted art, progress has
been much slower than for compensating
the rightful owners of stolen properties.
The U.S. government estimates that
600,000 paintings were looted by the
Nazis, with 100,000 still not accounted for.
Forty-four countries agreed to another
set of nonbinding principles on the return
of looted art at a 1998 conference in
Washington, but only four countries have
made "major progress" in implementing
the principles, according to the Claims
Conference; and 23 have made no signifi-
cant progress.
Hungary, a signatory to the Washington
agreement, is one of several countries in
the no-progress category.
"The Hungarian experience may be
described as a total and concerted effort
by successive governments to keep the
looted art in their museums:' Agnes
Peresztegi, a lawyer with the Commission
for Art Recovery, told attendees of the
Prague conference last week, "even if it
requires that the museums conceal or
destroy archival evidence or deliber-
ately lengthen negotiations — effectively
delaying legal actions that would be filed
against the state."
In the Czech Republic, only direct heirs
of deceased owners, not nieces or neph-
ews, can make art claims, even though this
contravenes Czech inheritance law.
In the United States, claimants often
must wage lengthy legal battles against
museums because there is no national
arbitration commission.
In most countries, museums do not
even know if their art was looted because
they cannot afford to document the his-
tory of their holdings.
"Researching one painting cost us
$800,000:' said Graham Beal, director of
the Detroit Institute of Art.
To address these obstacles, the declara-
tion in Prague calls for the establishment of
a Holocaust institute in Terezin, where the
concentration camp was located. The insti-
tute would study "best practices" in com-
pensation, restitution, looted art research,
Holocaust education, care for Holocaust
survivors and combating anti-Semitism.
The institute would not monitor coun-
tries because it would have not have that
power. It is not clear how the institute
would be funded.
E120094C2
Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, speaks at the Holocaust
Era Assets Conference in Prague on June 26.
Conference participants, including res-
titution experts and Holocaust survivors,
agreed that creating a central body for col-
lecting information is a good start, but that
time for effective solutions is running out.
"I fear this will not bring us any closer
to the day when elderly survivors will get
compensation for property:' said Ruth
Deech, a Jewish member of Britain's House
Problem Countries
A number of European Union coun-
tries place serious obstacles before
claimants of looted property:
• Poland: Has not enacted any form
of private restitution or compensation
for an estimated $30.5 billion worth
of property confiscated by Nazis or
Communists. Poland has a very slow
and burdensome process for restitu-
tion of Jewish communal property.
Since 1997, 5,500 claims were filed
but only 1,625 were adjudicated.
• Lithuania: The government
offered to pay $46 million over 10
years to a Jewish fund starting in 2011
before shifting recently and suggest-
ing it might contravene Lithuanian
law. A number of cultural institutions
hold looted Jewish artifacts, and little
to no provenance research has been
done on holdings. Lithuania's claims
process for private property bars non-
citizens from making claims.
• Germany: Has supported the
return of looted art, but in May it
acknowledged that museums and gal-
leries still have thousands of looted
works. The government commission
that handles art claims is viewed as
ineffective because it requires the
permission of the current art own-
ers to mediate cases. Museums and
of Lords who had grandparents on both
sides of her family with substantial prop-
erty in Poland.
Rather than declarations, she said, the
European Union should create a fund
immediately to deal with claims.
"In Britain we are subject to so many
European Union directives:' she said, "why
can't there be one on this?" ❑
archives are frequently uncooperative.
On property restitution, Germany is
the leading European Union member
to return Jewish properties.
• Ireland: Never signed the 1998
Washington Principles on Looted
Art, which would require provenance
research and facilitation of the claims
process. The Simon Wiesenthal Center
has accused the Hunt Museum, one of
Ireland's greatest private collections,
of housing looted art, but an Irish
investigatory commission cleared the
museum of wrongdoing.
• Greece: Little to no provenance
research has been conducted at its
numerous state museums.
• Hungary: Blocks nearly all
attempts to retrieve looted art. The
National Gallery and Museum of Fine
Arts hold looted art.
• Romania: Has slow and burden-
some Jewish communal property
restitution. Some 300 of 1,980 claims
have been adjudicated since 1997.
• Slovenia: Private property is
returned only to current citizens and
only if confiscated in 1945 or after.
• Bulgaria: Does not conduct prov-
enance research at its museums.
• Spain: Has looted art in its cultural
institutions, but Spain does not con-
duct provenance research on art. LI