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Jean-Pierre Bady Least, to Professional Provenance Researchers

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Jean-Pierre Bady Least, to Professional Provenance Researchers 2. A professional organization for provenance researchers To conclude, I think we must realize that it is our responsibility should be set up and they, like any other professionals, to be fair and avoid compounding injustice. The revival of res- should be required to adhere to a code of ethics. titution has done tremendous good and righted many wrongs. It will continue to do so as long as it remains honest. This good 3. Governments should publish a simple how-to pamphlet to must not be undone by narrow agendas, excessive greed or false help claimants initiate cases. These could be widely dis- morality. Seventy five years aEer the beginning of the Nazi era, tributed by the relevant agencies and concerned organi- it is time to work out sensible solutions. zations. 4. The massive research that has already been done by com- missions and independent researchers and in private liti- gation should be collected and made available, at the very ▶ Jean-Pierre Bady least, to professional provenance researchers. Endless CIVS, FRANCE time and funds are wasted by repetition of research. Legal decisions in restitution suits should be published and ex- RESTITUTION AND COMPENSATION IN FOUR plained, including the reasons for settlements. To protect COUNTRIES OF WESTERN EUROPE: BELGIUM, privacy the exact amounts of any funds exchanged could FRANCE, LUXEMBURG AND THE NETHERLANDS be redacted. This would provide a body of precedents for future actions and guarantee more consistency in results. This summary first reviews the key provisions introduced The present reliance on media reports on these cases is in each of the above countries in order to provide restitution of, not acceptable as they are oEen inaccurate and, depend- or compensation for, spoliated works of art. Second, it provides ing on who was interviewed, may distort the actual result. an overview of the current perspectives, which are oEen shared by the countries in question. 5. In order to protect the rights and reputations of current good faith owners, previous claim settlements should be carefully analyzed and not voided frivolously. Current good faith own- I. GLOBAL SUMMARY ers deserve the same respect as claimants. AEer seventy years, we should find ways to compensate good faith owners A) ANALYSIS BY COUNTRY or, at the very least, protect them from defamation. BELGIUM 6. The revised principles, or declaration, should condemn any distortion and exploitation of the events and emotions The investigation, identification, restitution, and compensation of the Holocaust for political or financial gain. process was conducted in several phases. 824 825 General Information together with the largest cultural institutions, and published its findings and its results. In some cases, the assets were actually A Study Commission, chaired by M. Buysse, carried out research returned. On the basis of the reports issued by the “Restitution of on the assets belonging to the victims of the persecution of Jews. the Spoliated Jewish Cultural Assets” unit, the Indemnification As a result of the Study Commission’s conclusions, which were Commission, in many cases, granted financial compensation for included in its final report, an Indemnification Commission was the works of art which had been sold in the postwar period for established. Following negotiations with the Belgian Jewish the benefit of the Public Treasury. Community’s National Commission, the amounts identified and updated by the Study Commission were deposited by the State, The investigations and the restitutions have not yet been ful- the banks and the insurance companies into a special account of ly completed, and the research of the cultural assets continues the National Bank of Belgium and made available to the Indem- under the guidance of the SPP Science Policy’s “Restitution of nification Commission in order to compensate the victims or the the Spoliated Jewish Cultural Assets” unit, whose activities are heirs up to third generation descendants. The Indemnification similar to those of the former Office for Economic Recovery. The Commission was set up by the Act of December 20, 2001 which most important federal cultural institutions fall within the com- also governs its activities. Its fundamental purpose was to make petence of the SPP Science Policy. restitution to the victims in the form of compensation for the as- sets identified by the State, the banks and insurance companies. In the 1950s, the retrieved cultural assets which had been spo- The compensation is not intended to cover the value of the as- liated were registered in the inventories of the relevant (federal sets in the condition that they were in on the eve of WW II. cultural) institutions. The mandate of both of the above commissions was limited in time. The work of the Indemnification Commission was complet- FRANCE ed at the end of December 2007, aEer having dealt with 5,210 cases in a total value of EUR 35.2 million. The Act of Decem- General Information ber 20, 2001 provided that the non-allocated amounts should be transferred to a charitable foundation for the benefit of the In 1997, the public authorities set up a “Study Mission on the Jewish Community. Spoliation of the Jews of France” chaired by M. Mattéoli. This body investigated the spoliation suffered by the Jews during Cultural Assets WW II, and recommended the establishment of a compensation commission under the name of CIVS (Commission for the Com- Both the Study Commission and the Indemnification Commis- pensation of Victims of Spoliation pursuant to the anti-Semitic sion contributed to the resolution of the cultural asset issue. The legislation in force during the Occupation). The CIVS provides Study Commission investigated the spoliation of these assets compensation for all tangible and financial assets spoliated 826 827 (apartments, workshops, businesses, bank accounts). To date, At present, France’s research focuses above all on the works of about 26,000 cases have already been examined, the overall val- art with a MNR status, and it has recently launched new initia- ue of which is EUR 420 million. The CIVS has, therefore, been tives (the exhibition at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism given a very broad mandate, namely the power to make compen- and the international symposium held in 2008) to find the own- sation for all of the spoliated assets. No deadline has been pro- ers of these works. A list of these works is available both in hard vided for the submission of applications, no limitation of funds copy and on a website. was planned in advance, and the mandate of the Commission is also unlimited in time. Every month, the Commission receives The CIVS was asked twice to recommend the restitution of very about eighty applications from individuals with a more distant important works of art (Picasso, Vernet) and has proposed me- degree of relationship than that accepted in Belgium. diation regarding a major work by Braque; compensation was awarded to the beneficiaries who agreed that the painting could Cultural Assets remain at the Musée National d’Art Moderne. However, its key role is related to the compensation of the dispossessed owners Regarding the restitution of the spoliated works of art, France whose works of art were not found. When reviewing individual has been trying since the end of the war to find the owners of applications, the CIVS either finalizes the compensation already the works of art found in Germany. Out of 65,000 works of art granted by the German government (the BRÜG Act), or provides retrieved, 45,000 were returned, 15,000 secondary works of art full compensation on the basis of the value of the relevant works were put on sale by the Property Management Office, and 2,000 at the time of spoliation. Although the number of works of art of them were given a special MNR status. The “ Musées nationaux dealt with by the CIVS is relatively small (1 percent of all of the Récupération ” (National Museums Recovery Program) includes cases), the amount of the relevant compensation is very high works of art retrieved from Germany following WW II which (EUR 25 million to date). could not be returned to their legitimate owners and which were entrusted by the Office of Private Goods and Interests to the Ad- ministration of the Museums of France. It also includes works of LUXEMBOURG art proceeding from the trade in objects of arts. The French leg- islation stipulated that the above works of art are not included in The number of works of art spoliated was relatively limited. On the heritage and have a different status. The French state is not the basis of testimonies from the postwar period, it was possible the owner, but instead solely a “holder” of these assets. These to establish a list of some forty paintings that had belonged to MNRs (2,000 works of art) have been subjected to an in-depth Jews. Most of these works were created by Luxembourg paint- study and, since 1950, it has been possible to restitute more than ers, mainly by Guido Oppenheim, who was himself deported to 200 of them. For such restitutions, it is sufficient to have an or- Auschwitz at the age of 82. None of these paintings were found. der issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs; they are therefore The Luxembourg Office of Economic Restitution (OREL) has re- relatively easy due to their special status. ported that some paintings were found in Germany but due to 828 829 inexistent documentation, no information on this research is audience but it was impossible to perservere with the research. available. Most of the works of art were confiscated in the resi- No painting by a grand master belonging to a Luxembourg citizen dences of the Grand Ducal family and in the homes of the mem- disappeared during the war.
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