Restitution Policies and the Washington Principles

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) In an Effort to do Justice? Restitution Policies and the Washington Principles Oost, T.I. Publication date 2012 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Oost, T. I. (2012). In an Effort to do Justice? Restitution Policies and the Washington Principles. Centre of Art, Law and Policy, University of Amsterdam. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:25 Sep 2021 In an Effort to do Justice? Restitution Policies and the Washington Principles _____ Tabitha I. Oost In an Effort to do Justice? Restitution Policies and the Washington Principles ISBN : 978-94-91030-21-5 NUR : 823 © Tabitha I. Oost Centre of Art, Law and Policy – University of Amsterdam – 2012 All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the author. Full acknowledgement of author, Centre and source must be given. Lay-out and design by Louise M. Beuling PREFACE This book contains a report concerning the efforts made by thirteen different countries on the subject of restitution of Nazi-looted art after endorsement of the so-called Washington Principles on Nazi- looted art. The research was conducted and written by T.I. Oost, LLM, MA, at the University of Amsterdam, and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). Prof. I.C. van der Vlies and Dr J.H. Reestman supervised the executed research. Furthermore, a group of three government officials, G.P.M. Scholte, MSc, and A.K. van den Berg, LLM, at the time both attached to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Dr N. van Woudenberg, attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have given useful feedback and comments throughout the process of research and writing. The research into the thirteen countries started in April 2009 and was concluded in March 2010. In the summer of 2011, the conducted research and the initial report have also served as the basis for my graduate thesis which was awarded with the degree of Master of Arts in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Therefore, the research has been updated in August 2011 and the content of the original report has been slightly altered. Initially, the report was limited to a description and comparison of the countries executing a restitution policy, bearing in mind the endorsement of the Washington Principles. The current report also includes an analysis of possible other factors that have been of importance to the decision whether or not to enact, and if so, how to design a restitution policy. For purposes of this publication, final updates have been made in December 2011. The author expresses her gratitude to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for the substantial financial support, which made this research possible in the first place. Furthermore, mrs. Louise Beuling is thanked for her tremendous effort into the design and lay- out of this book Finally, the author would also like to express her gratitude to those who have been so kind to answer specific queries or to be interviewed in a more general capacity during the course of this research. v vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 1 Motivation of research 1 2 Scope and initial overview of the report 3 3 Research questions 4 1 The Washington Principles: an Overview 7 1.1 Introduction 7 1.2 The 1998 Washington Conference 7 1.3 Adoption and status of the Washington Principles under international law 8 1.3.1 Adopting the Washington Principles 8 1.3.2 Status of the Washington Principles under international law 10 1.4 Content of the Washington Principles 12 1.4.1 Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art: text 12 1.4.2 General remarks 13 1.4.3 Principles VII-IX 14 1.5 Conclusion 16 2 Current Restitution Policies: Description and Comparison 19 2.1 General aspects of policy: questions 20 2.1.1 Use of questions in research 22 vii Table of contents 2.2 General aspects on restitution of stolen cultural goods 22 2.2.1 Is there any relevant legislation enacted? 23 2.2.2 Does the country concerned have a policy on the restitution of stolen cultural property? 23 2.2.3 Publicity of policy? 27 2.2.4 How is the necessary research executed or facilitated? 29 2.2.5 Is there a law enforced on which basis the export of certain, specifically mentioned cultural property is prohibited and on which basis an individual restitution is barred? 33 2.2.6 Is there an independent committee or establishment? 35 2.2.7 Is there a policy on non-restituted objects? 40 2.2.8 Termination of the policy? 41 2.3 Actual content and execution of restitution policies: questions 43 2.3.1 Use of question in research 43 2.4 Policy aspects regarding actual content and execution 44 2.4.1 What are the conditions for the admissibility and awarding of the claims? 44 2.4.1.1 Description country wise 44 2.4.1.2 Comparison 52 2.4.2 How is the value of the property assessed, by historical or current monetary value? 54 2.4.3 Publicity of factual policy? 54 2.4.4 Legal protection for claimants? 56 2.5 Concluding remarks 56 3 Restitution Policies: in the Spirit of the Washington Principles? 61 3.1 Relationship with Washington Principles? 61 3.1.1 Explicit referral to the Washington Principles 62 3.1.2 Restitution policy: before or after adoption of the Washington Principles? 63 3.1.3 Substantive comparison between the Washington Principles and actual policies 64 viii Table of contents 3.2 Possible factors for the realization of policy concerning the restitution of Nazi-looted art (or the apparent lack thereof): an attempt to an historical interpretation 66 3.2.1 Factors that have led to restitution of Nazi- looted art immediately after World War II 67 3.2.2 Factors that have led to renewed or new policy 73 3.2.3 Factors that have led to the complete absence of lack of clear policy 77 3.3 Concluding remarks 79 Conclusions 83 Appendix I: Methodological Approach 89 1. Research methodology 89 2. Pilot 90 3. Questionnaire: draft and development 92 Appendix II: Questionnaire 95 Appendix III: Results per Country 99 A. Austria 101 B. Belgium 119 C. Czech Republic 131 D. Denmark 139 E. France 141 F. Hungary 151 G. Luxembourg 153 H. Norway 157 I. Poland 165 J. Russia 169 K. The Netherlands 179 L. Ukraine 191 M. United Kingdom 197 Bibliography 207 ix x INTRODUCTION 1. MOTIVATION OF RESEARCH The Second World War acquired its devastating reputation mainly because of the Holocaust, the systematic operation run by the Nazi’s to physically exterminate the European Jewish population. Apart from these atrocities of the Holocaust it is now well known that the Nazi’s also engaged in a systematic campaign of cultural genocide resulting in the large scale looting of valuable cultural assets, by way of confiscation or straightforward plunder. Until this day the issue of returning those artworks to their rightful owners and their heirs has still not completely been resolved. Although after the war attempts had already been made to restitute these works, many cultural assets disappeared into the hands of both private owners and public institutions. As of the 1990s, a rise in claims concerning Nazi-looted art emerged and is still ongoing despite the fact that the Nazi-looting campaign occurred more than sixty years ago. In 1998, at the ‘Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets’, the international (legal) community tried to act collectively upon the specific matter of Nazi-looted art by way of the so-called Washington Principles. All endorsing countries were asked to undertake the appropriate measures in order to restitute works that should never have been separated from their rightful owners in the first place. The adoption of the Washington Principles was a prelude for other similar declarations, principles and resolutions that would follow. In 1999 there was a European initiative, with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopting Resolution 1205 on Spoliated Jewish Cultural Property. With this Resolution, European member states were called upon to adjust their national legal frameworks in order to ban all possible obstructions to restitution. Furthermore, it pleaded for a European counterpart of the 1998 Washington Conference, which came to realization with the International Forum on Holocaust Era Spoliated Cultural Assets, held in 2000 in Vilnius. The so-called Vilnius Forum Declaration, amongst other things, urged all governments present to take all reasonable measures to implement the Washington Principles. At the 1 Introduction level of the European Communities, some action was taken by the European Parliament through the adoption of three resolutions of which the last one, adopted in 2003 (also) urged for certain action to be taken in light of the adoption of the Washington Principles on Nazi-looted art.

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