50 lawyers urge Auschwitz museum: 'let paintings go'
“Let her paintings go!”
That’s the Passover eve appeal issued by fifty prominent attorneys and legal scholars to Polish museum authorities, urging the return of seven paintings that California artist Dina Babbitt was forced to paint in Auschwitz in 1943.
Mrs. Babbitt, 83, was forced by the infamous Nazi war criminal, Dr. Josef Mengele, to paint portraits of Gypsy prisoners on whom he was performing sadistic medical experiments. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, in Poland, later acquired seven of the paintings from a private source but has refused to return them to Mrs. Babbitt. Museum officials have suggested that they regard Mengele as the legal owner of the paintings.
The petition says it is “shocking and offensive” to suggest that the paintings belong to Mengele, since “a war criminal does not deserve to enjoy the fruits of his crimes ... If this matter goes to court, we are horrified at the thought that the director of a museum dedicated to teaching about the Holocaust might take the stand in defense of the right of a Nazi war criminal or his heirs to claim paintings that were created because of his war crimes.
Read entire article at Press Release -- The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
That’s the Passover eve appeal issued by fifty prominent attorneys and legal scholars to Polish museum authorities, urging the return of seven paintings that California artist Dina Babbitt was forced to paint in Auschwitz in 1943.
Mrs. Babbitt, 83, was forced by the infamous Nazi war criminal, Dr. Josef Mengele, to paint portraits of Gypsy prisoners on whom he was performing sadistic medical experiments. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, in Poland, later acquired seven of the paintings from a private source but has refused to return them to Mrs. Babbitt. Museum officials have suggested that they regard Mengele as the legal owner of the paintings.
The petition says it is “shocking and offensive” to suggest that the paintings belong to Mengele, since “a war criminal does not deserve to enjoy the fruits of his crimes ... If this matter goes to court, we are horrified at the thought that the director of a museum dedicated to teaching about the Holocaust might take the stand in defense of the right of a Nazi war criminal or his heirs to claim paintings that were created because of his war crimes.