According to Anne Webber, director of the Commission for Looted Art in London, one of the greatest frustrations working with European governments to return looted art is their attitude—misconception—that there is absolutely no possibility for return of looted art to the rightful heirs because the heirs cannot be found. The belief that genealogical research to find the heirs is too complicated or difficult a task to perform is, in fact, nonsense. That has certainly been my experience working on several cases with the Commission, United States Treasury Department, and Origins Unknown organization of the Netherlands.
Most of the well-publicized cases of looted art, resulting in return of stolen property, involve paintings or art of significant value, because the cost of litigating such cases is so high that only cases involving art of great value are worth pursuing. Additionally, there is documentation for sales by art dealers, but not necessarily for private sales of items of lesser value.
Yet millions of objects belonging to ordinary Jewish citizens changed hands in the period prior to the Holocaust and during the Second World War, as Jewish families fled or were deported from European countries. The likelihood of return of these items indeed remains small, but not impossible. For many, the sentimental value of these objects to the heirs, as the only physical remnants of their families, is strong.
I have been involved in the return of several such items, as simple as books from a personal library, to Judaica, to more valuable artwork. Although for the families receiving these items, their monetary value is not important, this may be difficult to explain to the outsider. Even more so to the European families who may own these simple objects, from furniture to artworks, some 70-years later.
At the IAJGS Annual Meeting Salt Lake City in July 2007 I presented a session on Looted Art. Scheduled on Friday morning at 8:15am, I did not expect a large attendance, and was actually surprised when more than a dozen hearty souls appeared (rather wearily) to support me. But the effort was worthwhile, because one of them, Haim Ghiuzeli, of Beth Hatefutsoth in Israel, got to thinking about an email inquiry he had received over two years earlier. “At the time I didn’t know how to answer it properly, but I think you could… I think I deleted it, though.” I begged Haim to look for it, and three days later, the email appeared in my inbox.
A woman in Germany, who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote that in the 1930s a family fleeing to Palestine had sold its furniture to her grandmother. This Jewish Mannheim family most likely sold it for pennies as they fled, she mused, and she has always been troubled by this history. She was particularly moved by the doll and doll toys from this trove, dolls that she had played with as a child. She had often wondered what happened to the girl who originally owned them, and she now wants to find and return the items to the family.
But how to find the family? If the girl had been born in 1930, she might still be alive and residing in Israel.
In September 2007 I gave several lectures on Looted Art in Israel. Schelly Dardashti was very helpful by publishing a two-page article in the Jerusalem Post about the case. This resulted in inquiries about several other looted objects, but no one stepped forward regarding the dolls and furniture. The next step was to place an article in the Mannheimer Newsletter of the former Jewish residents, which appeared in November 2007. To date no one has stepped forward to claim the toys and furniture.
This case is significant because if well publicized, and especially if it results in the return of the objects, it reminds any family who now owns property once belonging to Jewish families that there is indeed the possibility for return. An article about the furniture is forthcoming in the major Austrian Jewish newspaper, and we hope to initiate publication in Hebrew newspapers in Israel as well.