Avraham Roet - Looted Art - Tel Aviv University Speech - 11.12.19
Professor Leora Bilsky, distinguished guests from abroad and Israel and a special welcome to two of my Dutch friends: Professor Wouter Veraart of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) and Mr. Alfred Hammerstein, Chairman of the Dutch art restitution committee. Special thanks to Leora for inviting me to speak at the opening of this important restitution dialogue. It may be unusual at the opening of an conference like this one to speak about deep disappointment and sorrow about what is going on, now, in the 21th year after the Washington Declaration. The Declaration which was signed by 47 Countries. Only 6 countries took legal steps for returning looted Jewish art during the Shoa. Strict legal laws for returning looted art during the Shoa made it virtually impossible for any private person to claim his rights without paying high legal expenses, which naturally almost none of the survivors had. Every painting which was returned was accompanied with great publicity, making the public impression nationally and internationally that looted art in this country was being returned. However most of the claims which were honored came from decedents of art dealers who had found some registration of their art business before the war. Here at the Tel Aviv University law faculty many of you are lawyers and jurists. However, the return of looted art is more than anything else, a moral question. The governments, the museums and collectors are not the owner of the looted art. The looted art belongs to those who have perished in the German gas chambers and concentration camps. In Holland Jewish homes were emptied by the Germans with the active help Dutch by collaborators. An inventory of whatever was confiscated was made, however when it came to paintings they only wrote down “painting” without description or name of the painter. The houses on the Dutch canals of my grandfather and my great grandmother were emptied this way. Many of the paintings and art facts were directly shipped to Germany. Who do you think can have any recollection of what was at their parents’ house? Most of the survivors were children and as far they were not children, their parents had to build a new life and fight for the return of their belongings and businesses and indeed, many of these elder people failed and the process of restitution of art took tens of years to start. No wonder so, that the director of the National Rijksmuseum of the Netherlands, Mr. Taco Dibbits declared last week in Brussels that he has 7 Provenance researchers and 100.000 paintings and objects which are suspected of Jewish origin. Although he claimed that reports about stolen art are published on regular bases, we still have to find out who saw these publications. In the same meeting of the judiciary committee of the European Union parliament a German Swiss lawyer J. Nathan told the members of the EU parliament that just one German museum alone in Nordrhein-Westfalen has 1 million paintings and art facts who has never carried out provenance and naturally nobody knows if it will ever happen. The well known Anne Weber, Chair, Commission of looted art in Europe based in London, stated at the same meeting that Italy and Poland flatly refuse to return any stolen art during the war. A couple of weeks ago the Bern Art museum announced that it sold the most valuable painting of the Gurlitt collection, a painting by Manet to Japan for four million Euro. The reason given was to cover the expenses, the museum incurred in Provenance and exhibitions in respect with Gurlitt collection. If already now four years after the Gurlitt collection was donated to the museum, such an important painting was sold to Japan, it’s absurd to think that the rich city of Bern and the even richer government of Switzerland needs this four million Euro to maintain looted art by the Nazis. If this reasoning is being accepted, we can be sure that the Bern museum and likewise others who keep looted art will constantly sell looted art. Not to forget Switzerland has been and is still one of the countries were art can be brought to the private auctions without provenance. According to well-founded publications thousands of tainted paintings are hold in Swiss bank vaults. I have been today invited as a Holocaust Survivor, active on restitution of stolen art. The restitution of robbed art during the Shoa is an upsetting story of deep distress and sorrow. I can only try to tell you how deeply shocking is the present situation of looted art restitution. Since the Washington Declaration only a fraction of the looted art has been returned. Many countries have yet to return a single art fact. European countries like Germany, Holland, Belgium and France and also Israel are actually holding up the return of heirless looted art. A year ago took place in Berlin a big conference on 20 Years after the Washington Declaration emphasizing Provenance and restitution of art. (According to Mrs. Shlomit Steinberg of the Israel Museum only 4 paintings were returned in Germany during 2019).
Fortunes are spent on fruitless provenance research, congresses, meetings, conferences, lectures and so on. Only last month, discussions took place in Brussels, Paris and Milan. Looking at the results of these conferences, with attendance of representatives of many countries, I, as a Holocaust survivor, can only say that the whole process at this stage seems useless. Looted art will stay with its unlawful owners, forever. We discussed about half a year ago the return of heirless art in Germany with the honorable and highly esteemed minister of culture, Dr Monika Gruter. The minister told us that the German government decided that heirless art will presently not be returned as there might be still private claims today and might be in the future. This cannot be a real reason, because it will be always possible to claim. Till today no country in the world has taken any steps as to the fate of heirless art. In Switzerland, private auction houses who were very active in and after the war I in selling looted art from Nazi Germany, sales without provenance is still a flourishing business till today. Last but not least our own Israel museum refuses to return looted Judaica from the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam during the Holocaust. To finalize: I come back to the subject I have been asked to speak about: the Washington declaration. This declaration, paragraph 9 states: “If the pre-War owners of art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis, or their heirs, cannot be identified, steps should be taken expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution.” I ask this conference, where and when will be this fair solution ? For sure it’s much easier morally and legally not to activate this paragraph and keep all looted art till the last one, who can testify and who actually felt and seen the looting, will have died and then to decide who legally owns the Shoa victims property. Morals are not a factor. One more personal remark: This important conference will also deal with looted colonial art or the cultural conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Let me make it clear: there is nothing in the history of mankind like the Shoa and any comparison will and must fail and isn’t appropriate. Thank you for your patience and attention
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