[MSN] FW: Claims Conference to Focus on Nazi Looted Art

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Subject: {Disarmed} Claims Conference to Focus on Nazi Looted Art


  
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Artworks and Other Cultural Property Restitution and Compensation


Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Looted Jewish Art and Cultural Property Initiative


The Claims Conference and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO)
have begun a comprehensive program toward the restitution of Jewish-owned
art and cultural property lost and plundered during the Holocaust

Restitution efforts in this area have in the past yielded far fewer results
than efforts to restitute other assets such as property and financial
holdings. The reasons for this lack of progress include the ease of
transporting art across international borders, the lack of public records
documenting original ownership, the difficulty of tracing art transactions
through the decades, and the lack of a central authority to arbitrate claims
for artwork.

The Claims Conference and the WJRO have begun to work with relevant Jewish
communities around the world to bring increased attention to the restitution
of looted movable cultural and religious property.The organizations will
focus on the systemic issues involved in art restitution with the intent of
improving and creating processes to enable more owners and heirs to recover
their property.

The return of plundered artworks and religious artifacts often has meaning
beyond that of the restitution of other types of assets. These were personal
possessions valued for their beauty and cultural significance, often handed
down through several generations. In many cases, these artworks or artifacts
are the last personal link heirs may have to families destroyed in the
Holocaust. Many of these artworks have ended up in museums around the world,
with no centralized method for families to locate them.

A worldwide intensified effort for the restitution of cultural and religious
property looted from Jews will help ensure that families can re-acquire
treasures that rightfully belong to them

Major intergovernmental conferences and resolutions during the past decade
established international principles regarding the restitution of art and
other cultural property, most notably the Washington Conference Principles
on Nazi-Confiscated Art (1998), Resolution 1205 of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (1999), and the Declaration of the Vilnius
International Forum on Holocaust-Era Looted Cultural Assets (2000).As a
result, there have been some positive steps towards the restitution of
movable cultural and religious property plundered from Jews, but progress
has been slow, and there remains a very considerable amount of looted
movable cultural and religious property that has not been recovered and that
is still in private and public hands.

Issues relevant to the restitution of cultural property include;

*	Public awareness of and attention to the unfinished nature of the
restitution of cultural and religious property looted from Jews. 
*	Impediments to the identification of movable cultural and religious
property looted from Jews.Museums, libraries, archives, auction houses and
dealers should open their records, and those public and private museums and
other institutions that have not engaged in provenance research on
collections should do so or should certify that they have no looted items 
*	Institutions currently holding looted items do not always engage in
adequate provenance research. This is critical in enabling families to find
looted art. 
*	The creation of a hospitable climate for individual claims in all
countries, and the establishment of practical, non-litigation claims
processes is a priority. In some cases this may require legislative changes 
*	Governments now holding looted movable cultural and religious
property are not always willing to return the assets. Restituting this
looted property is a fundamental principle. 
*	Where Jewish owners, individuals or legal persons, or their heirs
cannot be identified, the cultural or religious property should not be
permitted to become the property of those governments but should be returned
to the Jewish people.

There are a number of organizations that already help individual claimants
to recover artworks that belonged to them or their families.The Claims
Conference and WJRO do not wish to replicate these efforts but rather to
focus on the overall international and national contexts in which such
individual claims take place so as to enhance the likelihood of their
success.

Specific activities thus far begun by the Claims Conference and WJRO
include:

*	Compilation and imaging of the scattered archival records of the
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the largest of the Nazi agencies
responsible for the looting of art and other cultural property.Records of
the ERR held by the State Archives of Ukraine will be published in late 2006

*	Creation of a Database of Cultural and Religious Property
Confiscated by the ERR. The Claims Conference has digitized the card files
that the ERR used at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris for processing looted
art, totaling 17,000 entries. The digitization includes information on
original owners and objects and scanned images of the cards themselves.This
database will soon be made publicly available and should assist museums, art
dealers, owners, and heirs in identifying works.Additional material from
other ERR records will be added to the database.Discussion is under way as
to how to expand this project so as to create a larger database to include
items confiscated by other agencies of the Nazis and their allies as well 
*	Cooperation with the American Association of Museums (AAM) and
support for the AAM's Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal.The Claims
Conference plans to make public the results of a survey that it has sent to
335 art museums throughout the United States regarding their provenance
research to date and their participation or lack of participation in the AAM
Portal 
*	Approaches to a number of countries regarding issues of provenance
research and procedures governing claims. 
*	Contact with national governments on specific issues, such as
existing deadlines for making a claim for looted artwork 
*	The preparation of position papers on the history and current status
of the restitution of looted cultural property in relevant countries around
the world. 
*	Cooperation with the Association of European Jewish Museums (AEJM)
and the Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM) to ensure that Jewish
museums worldwide are full participants in provenance research and
restitution efforts.

Through these activities and others that may be developed in the future, the
Claims Conference and the WJRO are attempting to make available as much
information as possible on the subject, as well as to ensure a fair and just
claims process.

May 15, 2006

C2006 Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc. (Claims
Conference)
15 East 26th Street, Room 906 New York, NY 10010 Tel: (646) 536-9100