Holocaust Art Recovery Goal Still Eludes Advocacy Groups
"We've made progress in working together," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the ranking minority member of the House Committee on Financial Services. Sitting at the witness table yesterday were seven representatives of the art world and organizations that work to return funds and property stolen during the Holocaust. "We are still dealing with the awful consequences, not only the lives lost, but the lives scarred," Frank said.
Earlier this week, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany reported that 35 percent of the 332 museums it had asked about their progress on collections research did not respond to its survey in a four-month window. The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Phillips Collection were among those that did respond, but none has finished the massive job of fully investigating its collection.
"At a time when almost all the other Holocaust-related restitution and compensation matters have been or are nearing completion, Holocaust-era art recovery remains a major unresolved challenge," said Stuart E. Eizenstat, former head of the presidential commission on Holocaust assets. "A certain art restitution fatigue seems to have set in, particularly in many foreign countries."
The campaign to identify and perhaps return art to its owners or their heirs began in the late 1990s. During the nearly eight years of an official mandate to review ownership history of artwork, the American Association of Museums reported that only 22 works had been firmly identified as stolen and returned, out of thousands of works researched.
Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the claims conference, said 52 percent of the respondents reported they had completed research on less than half of the relevant materials. "That is discouraging, and we have to work on that," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), ranking minority member of the subcommittee that organized the hearing. One thorny issue is just how many looted items could have made their way to American museums. Under scrutiny are objects that were created before 1946 and obtained by a museum after 1932. Other criteria are whether the piece was in Europe at that time and whether ownership changed between 1932 and 1946.
The claims conference estimated that 140,000 objects require ownership and transfer research. Since the 2003 launch of the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal, a project of the American Association of Museums, more than 150 museums have registered more than 18,000 objects that changed hands in Europe during the war years.
This scrutiny, said Edward H. Able Jr., president of the museum association, will continue. "It seems very unlikely that any large troves of looted objects remain to be found," he said, but asked the panel to approve funds so that the "research can proceed more quickly."