Kristina:
Yours crossed with my replies: I hope you now have details of what ICOM
REALLY says in the Code of Professional Ethics and now in the specific
December 1998 statement on Jewish and related looted etc. collections and
individual works of art as well.
On your specific points:
On Sun, 28 Feb 1999, Kristina M. Kiper wrote:
++++ CLIP ++++
> In the case of the Nazi confiscations, wouldn't it be advisable to at
> least attempt to locate the original owners' descendants (as they would be
> the rightful owners of the piece or at least of the monies paid for the
> piece)?
++++ COMMENT ++++
I agreed on the need for the research and notification: however
determining the actual current ownership is likely to be a very tricky
legal question, especially where much or all of the original owner's
family was murdered in the Holocaust. There is a further complication of
forced "sales" for which (inadequate) payments may have been made
and receipts given. (Such sales were declared void by the Allies in
July-August Potsdam Conference, but the legal application may still be
difficult, and an individual Museum may not be able to determine ownership
without the help of the courts
++++ CLIP +++
> If a family did come forward with evidence of ownership, such as a
> receipt from an auction house or art gallery (and this could be verified
> through the records of the seller), would it be morally right to return
> the piece or to ask for it to be donated to the current holder (maybe as a
> memorial to the history of Nazi atrocities as well as the history of the
> family)? In this way we would be acknowledging the illicit nature of the
> transaction as well as attempting to convey the true history of the piece
> and our global heritage.
++++ COMMENT ++++
I agree very much with this. Indeed there are already reports coming
through of such arrangements. However, beware of all auction house or
dealer's receipts of the period 1933 - 1945, and as a first step check to
see if that particular dealer has a US Intelligence file as a suspect in
economic collaboration with and "art-laundering" for the Nazi regime.
(Check the Art Newspaper January 1999 or its web site for the outline
checklist and follow up with the the National Archives in Washington if
listed).
++++ CLIP ++++
> I agree that hiding the piece from view would not be an appropriate
> handling of the situation, but should restitution or at least acceptance
> of the illicit nature of the transaction be acknowledged?
++++ COMMENT ++++
Realistically, many thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of World War
II looting, and Holocaust victim works of art, antiquities, etc. will
never go back to their original owners or their direct descendents. As
we all know in very many cases whole families were completely wiped out,
while many quite major public museums looted and destroyed in the
War lost at the same time all the documentation needed to prove ownership.
In such cases the sort of acknowledgement suggested by Kristina would be
most appropriate.
Most museums and - perhaps especially - archives have items that they
don't own legally but which will never be returned to their original
owner: uncollected loans, property of companies that have been legally
dissolved. They may hold these in perpetuity but will never - at least in
an Anglo-American common law system - become the legal owners of them.
Unclaimed and probably unclaimable Nazi loot falls into the same category,
but obviously has a far deeper significance. (Even those deeply shocking
heaps of shoes and other personal possessions recovered in 1945 from Nazi
extermination camps and now displayed in the Washington Holocaust Museum
(and elsewhere) still belong to their original owners, though they will
never be traced.)
A dignified acknowledgement that the Museum is caring
for a misappropriated work of art or object, though not its legal owner,
is the least we could do in such circumstances.
Patrick Boylan
(Chair, ICOM Ethics Committee, 1984 - 1991)
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