Ukraine Museum Refuses to Return Looted German Paintings
Officials from the Simferopol Art Museum in south Ukraine told Germany's Foreign Ministry the museum "had no plans to give up" the 87 paintings thought originally to have belonged to the Suermondt- Ludwig Art Museum in the German city Aachen, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.
A pair of Bavarian tourists photographed the paintings during a 2007 visit to Ukraine's Crimea province and sent copies of the shots to the Aachen museum after finding the paintings listed as "whereabouts unknown" on the Aachen museum website.
The art works, reportedly mostly by Western European artists, had been transferred from Aachen to the German city of Meissen for safekeeping in 1942 and had been thought to have been lost or destroyed during the later Allied invasion of Germany.
"They (the paintings) can no longer be put on display, because the question of restitution (of the paintings to Germany) has not been resolved on the governmental level."
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A pair of Bavarian tourists photographed the paintings during a 2007 visit to Ukraine's Crimea province and sent copies of the shots to the Aachen museum after finding the paintings listed as "whereabouts unknown" on the Aachen museum website.
The art works, reportedly mostly by Western European artists, had been transferred from Aachen to the German city of Meissen for safekeeping in 1942 and had been thought to have been lost or destroyed during the later Allied invasion of Germany.
"They (the paintings) can no longer be put on display, because the question of restitution (of the paintings to Germany) has not been resolved on the governmental level."