In Search of Looted : The Nazi Theft of the Victor Family’s Paintings

Darby Linn

Undergraduate Honors Thesis University of Colorado Boulder Department: Art & Art History Thesis Advisor: Dr. David Shneer Summer 2019 Linn 1

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Chapter One: The Victor Family Story 12

Chapter Two: The Restitution Process 25

Chapter Three: Auction Houses, Museums, and Archives 38

Conclusion 50

Epilogue 53

Bibliography 60

Supporting Images 64

Linn 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I extend my sincerest gratitude to those who enabled me throughout this project with their suggestions, wisdom, and support. I thank the Art & Art History Department of the University of

Colorado Boulder, Dr. Hope Saska, Dr. Robert Nauman, Dr. Albert Alhadeff, Dr. Marina

Kassianidou, Elaine Paul, Lia Pileggi, and my thesis advisor Dr. David Shneer. My appreciation also goes out to Dr. Meike Hopp and Fanny Stoye for contributing insightful interviews. I also thank my family and friends for always inspiring and encouraging me to take on new challenges.

Linn 3

INTRODUCTION

Approximately 600,000 pieces of art were looted by the Nazis during the Second World

War.1 While many of these works were recovered during and after the war, over 100,000

paintings, drawings, sculptures, and other mediums continue to be classified as missing.2 Jewish art collectors and families with large personal art collections were targeted by Nazi art dealers

and officers under Hitler’s orders to confiscate Jewish-owned art. The confiscated art was used

to finance German war operations, establish the power of the Third Reich, and satisfy high-

ranking officials’ desire for fine art. Art was not only confiscated from museums and galleries,

but also from private Jewish homes. Such irreplaceable links to the personal lives of persecuted

Jews inspires researchers to do all that they can to recover these lost treasures

through restitution. My thesis pieces together the traumatic experiences of the Victor family,

reevaluates the restitution process for Holocaust victims, and analyzes the current endeavors of

museums, auction houses, and archives in relation to Nazi-looted art.

Jewish victims and their heirs continuously search for their lost property, including art,

even today. When preparing their individual cases, claimants often face challenges, such as the

filing of numerous legal forms, language barriers, and a lack of personal funding. Other

difficulties include limited surviving records, the frustration of denied requests, years of

paperwork processing, small amounts of restitution, and the intimidating unlikelihood of finding

the property that they are seeking. As the number of Holocaust survivors gradually decreases, the

victims’ children and grandchildren frequently claim restitution for physical and emotional

1 Gilbert, Sophie. 2018. “The Persistent of Nazi-Looted Art.” The Atlantic, March 11. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/cornelius-gurlitt-nazi-looted-art/554936/. 2 Eizenstat, Stuart Ed. 2019. “Art stolen by the Nazis is still missing. Here’s how we can recover it.” . January 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-trade-in-or-possess-art- stolen-by-the-nazis/2019/01/02/01990232-0ed3-11e9-831f-3aa2c2be4cbd_story.html. Linn 4

damage on their parents’ or grandparents’ behalf. The collection of evidence and the review

process for restitution cases may last many years due to the lack of priority given to old cases no

longer on federal agendas and due to the sluggish nature of bureaucratic systems. The evidence

necessary for the claimants to be granted restitution is almost impossible to obtain because

records were often destroyed or forcibly left behind when Jewish families were forced to flee or

were deported. The process designed to help those who lost everything requires from them what

they simply cannot prove. Proper restitution for Jewish victims can be considered as selective to

only a few fortunate individuals with sufficient resources.

Restitution remains heavily debated. According to The Getty Research Institute,

“restitution” is defined as “the action of restoring or giving back something to its rightful owner,

or of making reparation for a loss previously inflicted; restoration of a thing lost, taken, or

damaged.”3 Art restitution in the scope of the Second World War proves to be a challenge for victims and researchers partly due to auction houses, museums, and art institutions lacking transparency. This concept remains questionable when discussing Jewish victims, considering the irreparable damages, losses, and traumas they experienced at the hands of the Third Reich. In these cases, art restitution focuses heavily on returning a particular piece to its lawful owner as a symbol of healing or on providing compensation to victims and their families as an apologetic gesture.

From a young age, I knew that I wanted to recover missing art. Art always played a major role in my life, specifically as personal therapy. I began to understand the world around me

3 The Getty Research Institute, “Restitution.” Los Angeles, The Getty Research Institute. http://vocab.getty.edu/page /aat/300417843

Linn 5

through art. Whether traveling to the Museum in or researching the ancient Afghan

artifacts looted by ISIS terrorists, I noticed every society was rooted in art in its own meaningful

way. No matter how greatly groups of people conflicted in religions, politics, or military control,

they each used art to represent their cultural values and histories. Growing up in as a

child, I not only learned to speak German, but I also was able to witness the destructive effects of

the Second World War that are still evident to this day. Upon learning that the Nazis determined

which art pieces were deemed unfit and which were acceptable for Europe to indoctrinate the

Party’s ideologies within Germans and targeted victims, I was outraged that a person or group

could censor art. Victims were also still being deprived of their art decades after the war,

symbolically enabling the Nazis to still have a grasp on innocent families long after their military

defeat. This ignited my personal passion to take action against an overlooked injustice by restoring, at the very least, a small peace of mind to those victims who had become numb to loss, pain, and disappointment.

My passion for helping Jewish victims through art restitution inspired me to develop an ambitious project concerning the Victor family. Dr. David Shneer, a distinguished professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, introduced me to

Kassandra LaPrade Seuthe, an acquisitions curator, and Megan Lewis, a reference librarian, who are both employed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). After I explained my interests in recovering Nazi-looted artworks, Seuthe and Lewis suggested researching the “Peter and Berta Victor Papers” within the USHMM’s digitized collection. These papers concerned personal correspondences, legal documents, an autograph book, family photographs, and printed materials belonging to the Victors (Image 1), a Jewish family who lived in up until the summer of 1939. Records and photographs that belonged to Carl Victor Linn 6

(1879-1940) and Elsa Victor (1888-1942) indicated that the family owned oil paintings that went missing after 1939. The titles and artists of the paintings were not indicated in any of the family’s papers. I determined that if the titles and artists of the paintings could be found within the family’s records at the state and federal archives in Berlin, there was a possibility that the paintings could also be located within lost art databases. While there are no living members of the Victor family, finding their art would theoretically restore part of the family’s legacy preserved at the USHMM. While at the German archives,4 I planned to research the physical restitution claims filed by Peter Max Victor, the adopted son5 of Carl and Elsa Victor, in order to better understand the family’s story as well as find any indication as to what might have happened to the Victors’ paintings.

Prior to researching in Berlin, I examined the digitized photographs and papers in the

USHMM collections to learn as much about the Victor family as possible. Seuthe and Lewis directed me to two photographs (Image 2 and 3) that showed Carl and Elsa Victor in their Berlin apartment with three paintings faintly seen discerned on the wall behind them. While both paintings are out of focus, it appears that the painting in the top left corner of the photo is possibly a landscape while the one hanging in the top right corner appears to be of a cathedral.6

The frame edge of the third painting is faintly seen on the perpendicular wall. The Victor papers contain a 1957 letter from Peter Max to Dr. Fabian of the United Restitution Organization

(URO), which provides a detailed list of individual furniture pieces within each room of the

Victor apartment along with the estimated values of the items (Image 4). The estimated values

4 Through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) offered at the University of Colorado Boulder, I acquired the funding necessary to organize my travels to Berlin, Germany for four weeks of research at the Landesarchiv and Bundesarchiv. 5 See page 12 of this thesis for the Victor family history. 6 Megan Lewis, personal conversation with the author, October 24, 2019. Linn 7

were assigned by an unspecified source. Three unknown oil paintings valued at 600

Reichsmarks7 and one still life at 175 were recorded in the “gentleman’s study.”

One painting mentioned as a landscape piece is valued at 150 Reichmarks and is described as

having hung in the parlor.8 Since the majority of the owned paintings were located in the same

room, it is likely that the photograph of Carl and Elsa Victor with the paintings in the background was taken in the gentleman’s study.

After reviewing the inventory list and the correspondences found in the Victor papers, I wanted to know if records of Nazi officers entering the Victor home and confiscating the art existed, whether in archives, intelligence reports, online databases, or personal letters. No name was provided as to who took inventory of the property and assigned the estimated values. The lack of a name raised the question as to whether the list had been created early on by an insurance office since the list is based on what property stood in the home from 1925 to 1926.9

Wealthier Jews had also been required to register their assets beginning April 26th, 1938 through

the Law on the Registration of Jewish Assets, which “placed the property of German Jews

throughout the Reich under state control. Jews were forced to put their entire domestic and

foreign assets under state control if the value exceeded RM 5,000…”10 If the restitution file

mentioned how the inventory was recorded and valued, a second more detailed inventory record

possibly existed. I also wanted to know how difficult it would be to access the Victor records for

7 was the official currency of Germany from 1924 until 1948. In 1940, 1 USD was equivalent to approximately 2.5 RM. "Reichsmark, n.". OED Online. September 2019. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed- com.colorado.idm.oclc.org/view/Entry/250934? redirectedFrom=reichsmark (accessed November 14, 2019). 8 Peter Max Victor to Dr. H. E. Fabian of the URO, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, 1957, https://collections. ushmm.org/search /catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=49&xywh=-447%2C- 1%2C4510%2C3951&rsc=171578. 9 Ibid. 10 Meyer, Beate. Jews in Nazi Berlin: from Kristallnacht to Liberation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 85. Linn 8 someone who, like many claimants seeking restitution, was completely inexperienced with researching within German archives and requesting legal documents. The process seemed so overwhelming that I could not even imagine where to begin once I would arrive in Berlin. Would

I be denied access to the Victor records because I was not a legal representative of the family?

My mentors and personal contacts had all advised me that working within German institutions could prove to be a challenge, especially when researching a topic that is still sensitive in nature.

Although I speak German, I was unfamiliar with outdated German bureaucratic terminologies, which would frequently appear in my research. I was concerned that my limited understanding with German legal documents would determine how much information on the Victors I would find in Berlin, assuming that there would be any information to find at all. Was the restitution file still stored at the Landesarchiv? I also had to face common questions for art restitution cases of what would happen if I did not find the art. Rather than viewing the project as a failure, I needed to accept the normality of not finding the missing pieces of art and that my research would still be considered valuable to the discussion of art restitution regardless. While my initial questions would undoubtedly change throughout the research process, they provided guidance as to what I was hoping to achieve and why. My later discovery that the paintings were not physically stolen by the Nazis but still had a Nazi connection prompted a new series of questions concerning if a transaction record of the Victors’ assets existed and how paintings “purchased” by the Nazis were handled in restitution cases.

I used literary sources to understand both the historical context of early WWII and the systematic art conducted by the Nazis. Johann Chapoutot’s. Greeks, Romans, Germans:

How the Nazis Usurped Europe’s Classical Past detailed the early Nazi obsessive associations with great empires and highly idealized Greek art to communicate their values of perfection. Linn 9

Lynn Nicholas’ The Rape of Europa outlined the strategic Nazi art confiscations throughout the war in multiple occupied territories, specifically in , France, and Holland, as well as

Allied restitution efforts up until the mid-1990s. Dr. Jonathan Petropolous’ Art as Politics in the

Third Reich similarly overviews the role of art in Nazi operations but offers further insight into degenerate art and the personal greed for art of high-ranking Nazi officials. The documentary

“Under the Hammer of the Nazis” focused on the ongoing discoveries of looted art and the challenge of institutions dealing with past Nazi involvement. A 1958 newspaper article included within the Victor Papers at the USHMM analyzed the legal challenges that Jewish victims and their descendants encounter when filing for restitution of property not physically confiscated but was still forcibly left behind due to emigration or deportation. Each source broadened my understanding to Nazi infatuation with controlled art, to the current debates surrounding Nazi art , and to what efforts addressing the issue are currently being implemented.

Chapter One of my thesis provides a micro-history of the Victor family. The individual and collective stories of Carl, Elsa, and Peter Max Victor offer insight into the possible fates of the missing paintings and into German-Jewish daily life throughout the war, including persecution. Personal letters between the Victors reveal the heartbreaking circumstances of leaving their home and belongings behind in hope of escaping with their own lives. Historical context on the state of Germany during this time is also presented, creating an understanding of the influences that affected the Victors’ decision to emigrate to in the summer of 1939.

An overview is also included on the fate of the Victors’ home, business, and neighbors in Berlin after the family emigrated. The chapter concludes with the deaths of Carl and Elsa Victor in

Shanghai as well as Peter Max’s life in Shanghai before his emigration to America after the war. Linn 10

Chapter Two focuses on the post-war difficulties of obtaining restitution for Jews

claiming property damage or loss. I examine Peter Max’s restitution file compiled over more

than a ten-year period. Letters between Peter Max, the URO, family members, transportation

services, etc. reveal the difficulties that claimants face when trying to prove their cases with insufficient evidence. I also summarize the case proceedings, similar to that of the Victors,

outlined within the 1958 newspaper article located in the Victor Papers. Relevant German laws

concerning victims and restitution are also discussed to demonstrate a less-frequently addressed

point of view regarding restitution for Jews. I end the chapter with my final findings within the

restitution file and my theory as to the final fate of the paintings.

Chapter Three diverges from the Victor case by serving as a call to action for art

museums, auction houses, and galleries to becoming more accessible for researchers and

claimants. Fanny Stoye, a provenance researcher who previously worked at the Zeppelin

Museum in Germany, presents her personal views on the current state of art restitution within the context of WWII as well as her beliefs as to what institutions and individuals can do to improve the system, which is confirmed in the museum’s art exhibition. The museums’ art exhibition

“The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection Under Scrutiny” enables the museum to honestly come forward about the condition of acquisitions of its artwork through a color-coded labeling system. The museum hopes the transparent exhibition serves as inspiration for other art institutions to become transparent and to encourage discussion. Within this chapter I include my interview with Dr. Meike Hopp, a provenance researcher who works with German auction houses. She presents a brief overview of her remarkable finding within a Munich auction house and the significance of auction houses being honest about their history under the Third Reich. Linn 11

Both experts emphasize the essentiality of opening the barriers between claimants, researchers, and art institutions so that more cold cases can finally be solved.

Linn 12

CHAPTER ONE: THE VICTOR FAMILY STORY

Carl Nathan Victor was born to Louis and Henrietta (born Herzfeld) Victor on May 1st,

1879 in the northeastern town of Güsten, Germany, where Louis Victor worked as a cattle

farmer.11 The couple welcomed the birth of their second child, Rebecca Victor (later Adler), in

June of 1881 and their third child, Melanie Victor (later Lippmann) in 1885. From 1914 to 1918,

Carl fought in the First World War as a soldier in the German Army.12 Elsa Alexander, born

December 25th, 1888 in Berlin, married Carl between 1919 and 1920 after divorcing her first

husband, Curt Schirokauer.13 On April 19th, 1920, Peter Max Victor was born in Munich, but it is

unclear as to whether Peter Max was the son of Carl and Elsa or if he was adopted by the couple.

Elsa worked together with Carl in his chemical and food preservatives business first in Munich and later in Berlin. In 1924, the Victors decided to move from Munich to the Tiergarten district of Berlin.

The limited available information on the Victors forced me to draw my own conclusions on the individual relations within the family. In December of 1906, Rebecca Victor (1881-1970) married Gustav Adler (1882-1958), a German protestant, with whom she had two “mixed” sons,

Heinz and Werner, who were later killed by the Nazis. The deaths of the sons were not specified.

Letters and legal correspondences14 strongly suggested that Peter Max was a third biological son of Rebecca Victor and Gustav Adler, but no particular reason was stated as to when or why he was adopted by Carl and Elsa Victor (Image 5). Peter Max continuously refers to Carl and Elsa

11 Victor, Peter Max. Interview by USHMM employee. May 1, 1990. 12 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://collections.ushmm.org/search /catalog/irn515888. 13 "20 Million Members Have Connected To a Deeper Family Story." Ancestry. Accessed August 07, 2019. https://www.ancestry.com/. 14 Peter Max Victor to Rebecca Adler, 1959, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, https://collections.ushmm.org /search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=63&xywh=475%2C174%2C2638%2C2310&rsc=171578. Linn 13

as his father and mother within the restitution file to avoid complications in his inheritance.

Rebecca’s marriage to Gustav, a non-Jew, saved her from deportation while living in Berlin

during WWII. Leading up to the war, non-Jews were pressured to divorce their Jewish spouses, but Gustav refused to do so.15 Rebecca would later serve as an important witness for Peter Max

Victor when he filed for restitution in the 1950s. She lived in Berlin until her death in 1970.

The Victors took up their new residence at Siegmundshof 5 in the Tiergarten district of

Berlin. Carl also moved his chemical and food preservatives factory near the family home in

Berlin to NW 87, Bachstrasse, which still intersects the street of Siegmundshof today. Having

found the family’s address listed in a digitized 1938 phone book16 (Image 6), I visited the original sites of the home and business, which were completely gone and abandoned respectively. The factory was described as:

…consisting of 2 bureau rooms and a basement, where a big mixing machine stood.

[Carl] also had a storeroom opposite of the bureau under the light rail, where the raw

materials lay. He had 1 stenographer, 1 accountant, 2 workers (one who was also part of

3 traveling representatives). He had a passenger car with which he visited customers and

the car was used for small deliveries.17

The Victor’s five-room apartment was leveled by bombing during the war, and a modern

student-housing building can now be found adjacent to the original site (Image 7). Some buildings from the Victor’s time are still visible today with evident signs of bombing to the

15 Ibid. 16 Berliner Adreßbuch. 1938 ed. Germany, 1938. 2018. Accessed August 6, 2019. https://digital.zlb.de/viewer/image /34115495_1938/1/LOG_0003/. 17 Peter Max Victor to Dr. H. E. Fabian of the URO, 1957, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, last modified March 2019, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=49&xywh=-447%2C- 1%2C4510%2C3951&rsc=171578. Linn 14

façades of the structures. When filing his restitution case, Peter Max noted that the monthly rent

of their apartment was 175 Reichsmarks per month and that Carl maintained an annual net

income of 1,000 Reichsmarks until the forced giving up of the factory. The photographs,

apartment descriptions, and testimonies speak to the family’s originally comfortable lifestyle that

would be quickly ripped away from them.

In a 1990 interview, Peter Max recalled that his Berlin neighborhood was “not

particularly Jewish” despite over 200 Jews being documented as having lived on Siegmundshof throughout the war.18 In 1924, the Jewish community center of Adass Yisroel, which consisted of a synagogue, a secondary school, and a college, was established nearby in a studio house at

Siegmundshof 11. The center was the first and, until recently, the only Jewish secondary school in Berlin after its inauguration in 1926.19 In March of 1939, the ordered the Adass

Yisroel schools to close, but the Siegmundshof 11 synagogue was secretly used until the summer

of 1941, until it was destroyed in the bombing raids on Tiergarten’s Hansaviertel, one of the

most heavily-bombed neighborhoods in the city during the Second World War. According to

Mappingthelives.org20 (Image 8), a website run by the nonprofit “Tracing the Past” for mapping

out the addresses of persecuted Jews across Europe based on censuses, the Victors were the only

Jews within their apartment complex to escape deportation to the concentration camps. All of

18 "Tracing the Past." Mapping the Lives. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.mappingthelives.org/. 19 “Interbau 1957 Live.” Hansaviertel Berlin. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://hansaviertel.berlin/en/ geschichte/juedische-nachbarn/. 20 “Tracing the Past is a non-profit organization dedicated to the research and memorialization of the persecuted in Europe 1933-1945… Mapping the Lives is a project dedicated to creating biographies, online maps and smartphone applications pinpointing the residential street addresses of all known victims of the Nazi Regime who were persecuted for reasons of race, religion, political views, resistance, sexual orientation, social orientation, and physical or mental incapacity. Personal biographies will eventually be expanded with biographies, photographs and links to family members, implementing crowd sourcing for additional material. The goal is to virtually recreate the neighborhoods of 1933-1945 Europe on a grass-roots level, which will reach the current residents of Europe in a way that no list of names in a typical memorial book possibly could: It gives the victims of the Nazis back a physical place, a ‘home,’ and for many persecuted Europeans, a street address is the last remaining trace of their lives.” https://www.tracingthepast.org/. Linn 15

their Jewish neighbors living in Siegmundshof 5 were deported to Auschwitz and Theresienstadt

from 1942 to 1943.21

As residents of Berlin from 1924 until 1939, the Victors witnessed the overwhelming rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Through his new unchecked power from The Enabling Act of March 1933, Hitler began targeting those he believed soiled the purity of German society:

Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, the mentally challenged, and Afro-Germans. By July

14, 1933, all other political parties beyond the Nazi Party were banned under Hitler’s order, making Germany a one-party state. After the death of in the summer of

1934, Hitler remained unopposed and became Führer on August 2nd, ushering in a new wave of

extreme anti-Semitism. The persecution of Jews quickly accelerated beyond verbal harassment.

On April 1st, 1933, Jewish businesses were suddenly boycotted by German citizens and Nazi

soldiers with warning signs plastered across Jewish-owned stores.22 Peter Max noted that Carl’s

business was fortunately never restricted because his food preservatives factory was converted to

make rations for German soldiers.23 Jews were quickly isolated and ostracized by German

society through limited educational and occupational opportunities. From 1926 to 1930, Peter

Max was able to attend the local German parochial schools but was then forced to leave German

secondary school to attend a Jewish school until 1936 after the passing of Nazi law.24 According

to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:

21 “Mapping the Lives.org”. 22 “Antisemitic Legislation 1933–1939.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed August 7, 2019. https://encyclopedia. ushmm.org/content /en/article/antisemitic-legislation-1933-1939. 23 Peter Max Victor, Interview with USHMM, May 1, 1990. 24 Peter Max Victor to Gunter M. Kamm of the URO, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, 1957 https://collections .ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=28&xywh=481%2C170%2C2631%2C2305&rsc=1715 78. Linn 16

This new law limited the number of Jewish students in any one public school to no more

than 5 percent of the total student population. According to the census of June 16th, 1933,

the Jewish population of Germany was about 500,000 people out of a total population of

67 million or less than 0.8 percent of the total. In 1933, 75 percent of all Jewish students

attended general public schools in Germany.25

During the six years that Peter Max attended the local German schools, he likely witnessed the

Nazi ideals that were suddenly interwoven with the German school curriculum, including a love for Hitler, an unquestioning obedience to authority, and anti-Semitisms (Image 9). Textbooks glorified the Nazi Party while simultaneously depicting Jews through malicious caricatures. In his 1990 interview with the USHMM, Peter Max recalled that the quality of the education at the

Jewish school was so poor that there was no possibility for him to finish, therefore leading to his decision to instead work for Carl’s business until November of 1938. Restricted to only four years of elementary school-level education, Peter Max was unable to attend school between the ages of ten and eighteen. He also noted in the interview how he always grew up with a non-

Jewish nanny until the passing of the Nuremberg Race Laws in September of 1935.26 While the first law, the Law for the Protection of German Blood, outlawed marriages and sexual intercourse between a Jew and a German, the Law for German Honor forbade the employment of

German women younger than 45-years-old in a Jewish household.27 Even within the medical and legal fields, the number of Jews allowed to practice quickly decreased, increasing the opportunities for promotion of non-Jews in their positions. Jews were gradually marginalized

25 “Law Limits Jews in Public Schools.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/law-limits-jews-in-public-schools. 26 Peter Max Victor, Interview with USHMM. 27 Bartrop, Paul R., and Michael Dickerman, eds. The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017, 1087. Linn 17

from German daily life by the Nazis through a systematic passing of increasingly restrictive laws

and regulations. Such marginalization was also used to manipulate German citizens into

believing violence, “disappearances,” and the murder of Jews were all necessary to welcome in

the new era of glory for the country.

When the anti-Semitic violence reached a crucial turning point on the infamous

Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass on November 9th and 10th of 1938, the Victors began

planning their frantic escape from Berlin. Vandalism and assaults against Jews took place across

Germany, parts of Czechoslovakia, and annexed Austria. The windows of Jewish homes,

businesses, and synagogues were smashed by Nazi soldiers and members of the Hitler Youth as

revenge for the murder of a German official on November 7th in Paris.28 Author Alan Steinweis writes, “Throughout Germany, in large cities and small towns, synagogues lay in ruins, shattered glass littered the sidewalks in front of Jewish shops, and plundered Jewish property had been snatched up into a great many homes.”29 Kristallnacht set other strict anti-Semitic laws into

motion that would eventually lead to mass deportations and massacres of European Jews. While

Carl Victor’s business was not damaged during Kristallnacht, the organized violence prompted

the Victors to quickly decide to flee Germany. Peter Max recalled during his 1990 interview that

while Jews in his neighborhood were not necessarily being arrested or deported by the Nazis at

that time, they were being rounded up nearby. When Peter Max’s life was suddenly under threat,

Carl and Elsa purchased Peter Max a ticket to Shanghai, an open port that did not require a visa

at the time. Carl also decided to purchase a ticket for himself as a precaution in case he was

picked up by the Nazis, although he never was. On May 15, 1939, at the age of nineteen, Peter

28 Schmid, Monika S. First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance: the Case of German Jews in Anglophone Countries. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002, 57. 29 Steinweis, Alan E. Kristallnacht 1938. Cambridge (Mass): Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009, 119. Linn 18

Max left Germany, his home, and his family behind as he traveled to Italy to board a ship bound for Shanghai (Image 10). Carl and Elsa made plans to join Peter Max in Shanghai one month later. While Jews were still able to emigrate in 1938, they were nonetheless forced to pay the expensive Reichsfluchtsteuer, or “Reich Flight Tax.” A 1938 article published by the New York

Jewish Telegraphic Agency recalls the extreme requirements placed on emigrating Jews:

The obligations which must be met by the emigrating Jew are (1) the 20 percent fine

levied upon his entire fortune as punishment for the assassination of the German legation

secretary in Paris; (2) the 25 percent Reich flight tax, payable by all persons with fortunes

of 50,000 marks or more; (3) the 100 percent tax on all personal belongings purchased

after 1933; and (4) sale of his remaining marks to the Gold Discount Bank at the

prevailing rage of 6 1/2 percent–provided that the bank is willing to purchase.30

Peter Max provided a testimony to the family’s finances within the restitution file, which indicated that the Victors lived comfortably and owned many valuables within their apartment.

As a result, their emigration tax was rather high. In a 1939 letter to Peter Max in Shanghai, Elsa described Carl visiting the tax office to get things in order before their emigration (Image 11).

The tax placed a price on Jewish freedom, extorting wealthy Jews and serving as a death sentence for those who could not afford to pay.

The Victors sold most of their possessions and the business to pay the costly tax.

Additionally, they were legally allowed to only bring a few items with them to Shanghai. Elsa

Victor described in her May 21st, 1939 letter to Peter Max the gradual selling of their items shortly prior to their departure. She remarked, “The armchair and mirror over the sink are now

30 “Nazi Restrictions, Special Taxes Strip Jews of Wealth.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.jta.org/1938/12/25/archive/nazi-restrictions-special-taxes-strip-jews-of-wealth. Linn 19

sold” and “We have sold everything but the sink,” but tells Peter Max not to ask at what price

they were sold, implying sales far below the values of the furniture.31 This information, as well

as the implication that there was more than one buyer, indicates that the Victors personally sold

their belongings, that they were not ransacked by the Nazis, and that their belongings were not sold in a Jewish house auction. Elsa further shared in the letter that she and Carl gifted baskets and sacks full of belongings but never mentioned as to what property was given or sold to whom.

The only specific items stated as being brought to Shanghai were a chest containing mattresses, a sewing machine, a gas cooker, a typewriter, cooking utensils, clothing, and a heater.32 Records of the Victors’ property sales were not likely made due to their eagerness to leave. In his 1990 interview, Peter Max noted that part of his family’s property was sold to an SS officer, but the

officer’s name was not specified. Carl likely sold his factory in accordance with Nazis pressuring

Jews to transfer their businesses to non-Jews. The USHMM website records that the number of

Jewish-owned businesses had declined from about 100,000 in January of 1933 to 39,552 in April

of 1938.33 Kassandra Seuthe comments:

In some cases, Jewish business owners would sell their businesses far below their value

to non-Jewish employees or business colleagues with the understanding that this person

would continue to support them financially as a way to subvert punitive forced sales

through Aryanization. Naturally many buyers took advantage and did not hold up their

end of the bargain.34

31 Elsa Victor to Peter Max Victor, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, 1939, https://collections.ushmm.org /search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-835%2C0%2C4454%2C3901&rsc=171562. 32 Peter Max Victor to Gunter M. Kamm of the URO, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, 1957, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=27&xywh=1066%2C47%2 C2631%2C2305&rsc=171578. 33 “Jewish Businesses.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/kristallnacht/jewish-businesses. 34 Seuthe, Kassandra. “Peter Max Victor.” E-mail message to author. June 26, 2019. Linn 20

The Nazis disguised many of their by labeling liquidations and confiscations as sales.

This proves to be a serious issue for those seeking restitution after the war. The lack of existing records today enables history to be retold through lies.

With only a few belongings, Carl and Elsa Victor left Berlin on the Italian ship

Biancamano in June of 1939 (Image 12). Peter Max had arrived in Shanghai on June 14th on the

Conte Rosso, which sailed from Trieste, Italy. Despite giving up almost everything, the Victors,

like many Jewish refugees, were looking forward to starting their new life away from the fears

and horrors of the Third Reich. Approximately 30,000 Jews emigrated to Shanghai from 1933 to

1941.35 Little did the Victors know that misfortune was still to come. According to Peter Max’s

interview, Carl had supposedly arranged with a unidentified friend to securely transfer the

remaining money from the Victors’ bank account in Berlin to a Chinese man’s account, which

Carl could access. Neither the Victors’ money nor the man in Shanghai were ever to be found, leaving the family utterly penniless in a foreign country. Their lack of money forced the Victors

to trade a comfortable lifestyle and five-bedroom apartment in Berlin for a single small room and the working of odd jobs in Shanghai. Things continued to take a turn for the worse when Carl

Victor died of amoebic dysentery on November 29th, 1940 at the age of 61. The family’s

stressful financial situation had made obtaining adequate food difficult, leading to Elsa’s

development of diabetes and tuberculosis. Elsa Victor soon followed in her husband’s footsteps

when she died on May 9th, 1942 at the age of 54. The death of Carl and Elsa suddenly left Peter

Max completely on his own at twenty-two in Shanghai.

35 Guang, Pan, ed. “Shanghai: A Haven for Holocaust Victims.” In Jews in : Legends, History and New Perspectives. 4th ed. China Intercontinental Press. Accessed August 7, 2019. https://www.un.org/en/holocaustrem embrance/docs/pdf/chapter6.pdf. Linn 21

The Japanese occupation of China forced Peter Max to leave his family shack and jobs in

a printing shop and bar to move to the Hongkew Jewish ghetto, which the Japanese established

as “The Designated Area for Stateless Refugees”.36 Personal photographs depict Peter Max working as a lifeguard at the pool in Hongkew Park from 1943 to 1944 (Image 13), which was a

country club for high-ranking Japanese authorities.37 As an employee, Peter Max could move

about Hongkew Park without a pass. The process of establishing the ghetto was not far from the

creation of a concentration camp. While serious problems such as death from malnutrition arose

within the camp, the Jews were still able to create their own culture and community by fixing

streets and constructing homes and shops out of rubble, giving the camp the appearance of a

German city.38 Like in European concentration camps and ghettos, Jews in the Hongkew ghetto

did have the liberty of enjoying various types of recreation such as theater performances, musical

concerts, and sports tournaments. Refugees were even able to create multiple print publications

such as the Shanghai Jewish Chronicle.39 As restricted as the Jews in Shanghai were, they were

able to maintain a sense of independence.

When Japanese forces officially declared war on the United States through the bombing

of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, an estimated 25,000 Jews were still living within

Shanghai.40 While Shanghai first appeared to be a haven for Jewish refugees, Japan, a Nazi ally,

took control of the city in the 1937 Battle of Shanghai. The Nazis planned to carry out the mass

36 Guang, 68. 37 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://collections.ushmm.org /search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1109,-214,4881,4275&rsc=171570. 38 Ibid, 69. 39 Ibid, 70. 40 Guang, 67-68. Linn 22

murder of Jews in Shanghai, similar to the Final Solution41 in Germany, through what was known as the “Meisinger Plan.” The plan was named after Colonel Joseph Meisinger, the chief representative of the Nazi Gestapo at the time, who promoted such a plan forward among

Japanese officials.42 In the The Fugo Plan, authors Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz write that the

Meisinger Plan was intended to be a two-part process:

Step one was to arrest all Jews in Shanghai in a surprise attack as they were spending the

Jewish New Year with families. Step two was to ‘deal with’ the problem they were

assumed to create in a decisive manner. The plan suggested three ways of ‘dealing with’

these Jews. They could be placed in old ships and set adrift on the East China Sea, so that

they would eventually die of hunger; they could be forced to toil themselves to death in

the abandoned salt mines on the upper reaches of the Huangpu River; or the Japanese

could set up a concentration camp on Chongming Island, where the Jews would be

subjected to medical experiments and die of their sufferings.43

To the good fortune of Jews like the Victors, the Meisinger Plan was never implemented. The

primary reasons for the plan not being implemented were that the Jews in Shanghai were seen as

an opportunity to restore good relations with the United States, Japanese leaders did not want to create hostility with since some of the targeted Jews would have been Russian, influential

Jews in Harbin and Japan advocated for the Jewish community in Shanghai with Japanese senior

41 “After the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Nazis began the systematic deportation of Jews from all over Europe to six extermination camps established in former Polish territory -- Chelmno , Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek. Extermination camps were killing centers designed to carry out genocide. About three million Jews were gassed in extermination camps. In its entirety, the "Final Solution" consisted of gassings, shootings, random acts of terror, disease, and starvation that accounted for the deaths of about six million Jews—two-thirds of European Jewry.” “The ‘Final Solution’.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-final-solution. 42 Ibid. 43 Tokayer, Marvin, and Mary Swartz. The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War II. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2004, p. 223. Linn 23

officials, and East Asia supposedly did not hold prejudices against Jews.44 While prejudices were

not necessarily held, Jews were still partially removed from Chinese society within the ghettos.

On May 8th, 1945, the Second World War ended, but not without claiming the lives of

millions of Jews and soldiers from around the world. The American forces would not reach

Shanghai until September of that year. Once the Allies came, Peter Max gave up working at a

local hospital kitchen to be a truck driver and then dispatcher for the US Air Corps. The

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) offered material and financial support to

Jewish refugees, including Peter Max, enabling them to emigrate and seek asylum globally. The

JDC was the main source of rehabilitation and relief for Jewish refugees in WWI, and the

organization continued to effectively operate throughout the Holocaust. When the headquarters

in Berlin were ransacked by the Nazis in 1933, the JDC moved its offices to Paris. Through the

JDC, approximately 190,000 Jews were able to escape between 1933 and 1939

and 80,000 Jews were able to leave Europe.45 Twenty thousand Jews in Shanghai also received

funding from the JDC.46 In 1947, the JDC primarily focused its budget on financially enabling

refugees to emigrate, including Peter Max.

Peter Max set sail for the United States on board the Marine Adder in December of 1947.

The ship had been a converted from a troop transport, and while Peter Max was on board, it

experienced a typhoon for approximately 24 days. He then settled in until 1949, and in 1951, he met and married Berta Niedermann in Chicago. Berta was a Jewish refugee from

Vienna who had emigrated to the US in 1938. While her brother and sisters managed to survive

44 Guang, 68. 45 “American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Refugee Aid.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. Accessed August 7, 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/american-jewish-joint-distribution-committee-and-refugee- aid. 46 Ibid. Linn 24 the war, Berta’s parents fled to Brussels in 1942 and were murdered in Auschwitz. Peter Max and Berta Victor moved to Washington D.C and started a gift business. They never had children, but they did become the sole heirs to the estate of Rebecca and Gustav Adler. After retiring,

Peter Max donated his family’s photographs and records to the USHMM to be preserved for perpetuity within the registry of 75,000 Holocaust survivors.47 Berta Victor passed away on May

28th, 1988 at the age of 71. Peter Max volunteered at the USHMM from 1990 until his death on

May 7th, 1993 at the age of 73.

47 “American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, Approximately 1990-1991.” Letter to Peter Max Victor. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, 1990, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/ catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m =0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-112,120,1919,1681&rsc=171558. Linn 25

CHAPTER TWO: THE RESTITUTION PROCESS

After experiencing emotional and physical trauma during WWII, Holocaust victims and

their families continue to face the many hurdles of the restitution processes. Through this project,

I gained exclusive experience in the German archives and bureaucratic offices and learned

firsthand the frustrations of Peter Max Victor while filing for restitution on behalf of his adoptive

father. The lack of records is a serious hindrance in distributing restitution funds to claimants and in tracing looted art. While many Jews wished to locate their lost property or seek restitution, few were able to provide the proper evidence or time needed for the complicated legal procedures. While more cases continuously reveal the complicated circumstances surrounding the Nazis physically seizing property from Jewish homes and businesses, such as the 2019 case involving Gari Melchers’ painting “Winter,”48 little discussion exists regarding Jews who were

forced to leave their property behind when fleeing or being deported.

Before visiting Berlin, I performed an initial search on the family in the archive’s online

public database. Despite searching many variations of the Victors’ names, no results on the

family were found, which would likely discourage someone from searching any further within

the archives. Once I arrived in Berlin, I located the Landesarchiv and introduced myself to one of the archivists as an American student seeking information on a Jewish family that lived in Berlin during Nazi occupation. I had been previously warned that German archives can seem rather intimidating and may not be willing to help me beyond a certain point, given that my topic was sensitive; however, this was not the case. Not only did the archivists show me how the archive’s programs and databases worked, but they also answered my questions and help me fill out

48 Williams, David. “Painting Stolen by the Nazis before WWII Recovered from a New York Museum.” CNN Style. October 24, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/fbi-recovered-painting-trnd/index.html. Linn 26

request forms. One prominent issue was that the Landesarchiv staff did not speak English, and

they did not provide English versions of their forms, making forms and file requests challenging

for non-German speakers. Learning that requesting large files could take up to four weeks also proved to be discouraging to me at first since I was only in Berlin for five weeks. The lack of

Wi-Fi, a strict no-photography policy, and the costly printing rates also left me relying almost solely on the archive’s computers for translating and looking at other websites instead of using my own computer. Rather than giving up when the archivists also did not receive search results for the Victors in their main database, I decided to explore the archive’s smaller databases that

were exclusively found on their onsite usable computers. It was not until searching through the

Wiedergutmachungs-Datenbank (WGA)50 that I finally found the restitution file of Peter Max

Victor (Image 14). Fortunately, such files could be requested and be viewed within a few hours,

assisted by the archivists to fill out the specific forms. Little did I know of the enormous amount

of legal documentation enclosed within the file.

According to the USHMM digital collection and the restitution file, Peter Max Victor

began the process for filing for restitution as early as 1957, but the case was not officially closed

until 1971, forcing Peter Max to wait fourteen years before an official decision could be reached.

Dr. Meike Hopp, a provenance researcher specializing in the history of German auction houses,

explained that immediately after the Second World War, restitution for Jewish victims was given

serious priority. However, between 1948 and 1949, cases were suddenly closed and less

50 Reparation Database; “The Landesarchiv Berlin contains over 800,000 procedural files from the Berlin Restitution Offices, which from 1949 processed requests for restitution by victims of National Socialism in the western part of the city based on the Restitution Order (REAO). Since 1957, the Federal Restitution Act also included assets that were located in the eastern part of the city and that had been confiscated or otherwise acquired by the German Reich, the NSDAP, the State of and others. The Berlin reparation offices were then also responsible for these proceedings.” “File number,” WGA Datenbank, Landesarchiv, Berlin, http://wga-datenbank.de/records- explanations.php?s=2&sub=3. Linn 27

restitution was awarded as Germany wanted to move forward and leave the issue in the past.51

Peter Max’s restitution file revealed that he first filed for property restitution and then compensation for persecution. Peter Max also marked “yes” next to the questions in the restitution application asking if there was “damage” to life and health, to freedom through the payment of fines, and to property, as well as if emergency aid was provided.52 I discovered that

the same inventory list found in the Victor file at the USHMM was copied into the 1958

application for the restitution of damaged property and assets to describe what was left behind

during the emigration.53 Neither the creator of the list nor the titles or artists of the paintings

were mentioned, making the odds of locating the paintings much slimmer. Much later in the

Landesarchiv file, Peter Max filed a separate claim in 1970 for three specific assets of Carl

Victor’s business: a large mixing machine, a 4-door Fiat, and chemicals and spices (Image 15).54

The claim was quickly rejected because he did not personally use such assets.

The missing information in the inventory list led me to seek alternative solutions for

locating the paintings pictured in the archival photo of the Berlin apartment. My first thought

was to search for property tax receipts. Once I confirmed with the German Federal Ministry of

Finance (BMF) that they did not keep personal financial records from that time period, they

suggested to me that if such were records were still to exist, they would be kept within the

Bundesarchiv55, which was also located in Berlin. While the Bundesarchiv’s appearance was

51 Hopp, Dr. Meike. “Findings on the Victor Family.” 21 June 2019. 52 Entschädigungsamt Berlin, Verweisung an Haupttreuhänder, 344181, Berlin: Wiedergutmachungsämter, 1958. Legal Document. 53 Entschädigungsamt Berlin, Schaden an Eigentum, 344181, Berlin: Wiedergutmachungsämter, 1958. Legal Document. 54 Entschädigungsamt Berlin, Verweisung an Haupttreuhänder, 344181, Berlin: Wiedergutmachungsämter, 1970. Legal Document. 55 German Federal Archives; “The Federal Archives have the legal mandate to secure the archives of the federal government in the long term and to make them available for use. These are documents (including files, maps, pictures, posters, films and sound recordings in analogue and digital form) that have been produced by central

Linn 28

much more intimidating than that of the Landesarchiv, the archivists were equally as willing to

help me and make suggestions for my project once I completed the proper forms, which they

provided with an English translation. The lack of results on the Victors within their databases led

me to once again seek a new course of action.

One of my final attempts to find information included a visit to the Tiergarten tax office,

which was described as the place where Carl Victor paid the Reichsfluchtsteuer. When I

revisited the restitution file, I discovered that even Peter Max was unable to access Carl’s

financial information. On August 29, 1963, the Tiergarten tax office wrote to the Berlin

Compensation Office on Carl Victor:

The power of attorney of the claimant did not accompany your letter. Documents or

records of discriminatory charges are not available. Also, files about assessed income tax

and sales tax are no longer available. Records in the assessment list indicate that the

claimant has been assessed: sales tax 1939 - should be 5.95 RM - Account deleted as of

March 3, 1939; for income tax 1939 - not assessed (nv.) - Account deleted as of June 1,

1939. Since debit cards are also no longer available, it is not possible to determine

whether the value-added tax and income tax payments have been made.56

Not only was I confused as to why the tax office would completely erase any data on the family

without making copies, but I was also left wondering why the Victors’ account was closed

offices of the Holy Roman Empire (1495-1806), the German Confederation (1815-1866), of the German Reich (1867/71-1945), the Occupation Zones (1945-1949), the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990) and the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949). The Federal Archives decide whether these documents are worthy of archival preservation, that is, whether they have lasting value for the research and understanding of history and the present, for the protection of legitimate interests of citizens or for legislation, administration and jurisdiction.” “The Federal Archives' tasks,” Das Bundesarchiv, Berlin, https://www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Use/Visit-On-Site/visit- on-side.html. 56 “Entschädigungssache Carl Viktor.” Letter to Entschädigungsamt Berlin. August 29, 1963. In Rückerstattungssache. Berlin: Landesarchiv. Linn 29

months prior to the family leaving for Shanghai. Answering these questions proved to be unsuccessful when I was denied access because of my lack of legal representation for the Victor family, despite all the family members having already passed away. One possible answer was that from 1939 forward, Jewish bank accounts were not only marked as Jewish, but also typically frozen.57 The denial of access and the lack of definite information served as the final closed door

in locating more information on the inventory list.

The lack of success with the inventory list led me then to revisit the Victor restitution file

to focus on understanding Peter Max’s restitution process as a whole. Peter Max first opened the

case in a 1952 letter to the URO, requesting assistance with several claims that he wished to file.

At the time, Peter Max felt helpless because of the lack of available support in Washington for

the complicated form process and because of his sincere need for money. In examining a letter

dated April 10th, 1953 between Peter Max and the URO, a requirement of proof for matters not

normally documented was repeatedly requested. For Peter Max’s case, the URO requested

evidence to prove that Peter Max lived in Berlin before leaving Germany and that a witness, who

was also in the Shanghai ghetto, testified that Peter Max was in the Shanghai ghetto (Image 16).

The office also requested the details of his life story, including the events that led to the

“damage.”58 While these three requirements seemed straightforward, Peter Max struggled to prove the smaller details within each category. Throughout the letters between Peter Max and the

URO, Peter Max’s impatience and desperation to settle his case becomes increasingly apparent.

57 “The Expropriation and Economic Destruction of the Jews in Germany and Western Europe | EHRI Online Course in Holocaust Studies.” EHRI Online Course in Holocaust Studies. Accessed August 11, 2019. https://training.ehri-project.eu/expropriation-and-economic-destruction-jews-germany-and-western-europe. 58 URO to Peter Max Victor. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”. Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 10, 1953. Linn 30

In 1959, Dr. Fabian of the URO requested further proof of Peter Max’s life in Berlin and the

Shanghai ghetto, to which Peter Max responded:

This restitution case was started in 1957, and there are times, when I feel you are not

really trying to represent me as you should. If you feel, that you – or the regional office in

Berlin are unable to help me in my claim, then I would appreciate your returning my

papers to me, so that I can try on my own. I am sure you must have many cases like mine,

and I am also sure that very few documents were available. Somehow my sworn

statements and letters should be enough. I did not try to save documents when I left

Berlin, I tried to save my life.59

Peter Max felt as though the restitution process was too demanding of victims who were barely

able to survive, let alone retain any personal documentation after the war. In a 1957 letter, the

URO returned document photocopies sent by Peter Max because the photocopies were not

certified, and therefore not accepted by the German government.60 They also requested information on Carl Victor’s education, vocational training, the size of the container that the

Victors brought with them to Shanghai, and the detailed list of furniture left behind.61 Such

information can be particularly difficult to produce for the descendants of victims filing claims

on their relative’s behalf since they were likely too young to learn or understand such

information from their parents. The URO further mentioned that if there was insufficient

documentation and records for any matter, affidavits of witnesses confirming Peter Max’s

59 Peter Max Victor to the URO. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”. Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 12, 1959. 60 The URO to Peter Max Victor. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”. Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, September 4, 1957. 61 Ibid. Linn 31

personal details were necessary.62 Peter Max, for example, was required to submit affidavits from three different witnesses, stating that he did attend specific schools in Berlin, that he could

not finish his education as a Jew, and that it was his father’s intention for him to study chemistry.

The testimonies not only needed to state what Peter Max studied, where, and for how long, but

they also had to state the witness’s backgrounds and their relation to Peter Max. Based on how many Jews died during the war, the chances of being able to locate and contact three living witnesses with the knowledge of something as trivial as someone else’s education were slim even immediately after 1945. Requiring witnesses be a requirement for a victim’s claim makes restitution almost impossible to obtain.

The final rulings of Peter Max’s restitution case raise the question of whether the legal

process should be modified for victims in ongoing cases. The office explained that the request

for compensation on the mixing machine, the car, and the chemicals and spices was denied

because claims for damages under reimbursement would only be justified if the assets belonged

to the persecuted, if the property was physically confiscated by the German Reich, or if the

claimant had use for the confiscated objects, none of which were proven.63 Peter Max was

merely granted 2,311 DM64 for his family’s furniture and the emigration costs. According to the

inventory list, the value of the furniture alone was estimated at 1,424 DM, which equals

approximately $2,420 USD today.65 Peter Max also received 415 DM from the Berlin Disconto

Bank as compensation for his “damage to freedom.”66 Peter Max’s small amount of

62 Ibid. 63 Oberfinanzdirektion Berlin. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, n.d. 64 Entschädigungsamt Berlin, Verweisung an Haupttreuhänder, 344181, Berlin: Wiedergutmachungsämter, 1958. Legal Document. 65 Peter Max Victor to Dr. H. E. Fabian of the URO, 1957. 66 Berliner Diskonto Bank. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Linn 32

compensation in return for such a lengthy and demanding restitution process, in addition to the

rejection of some of his claims, illustrated similar cases of thousands of Jews who filed for

restitution after the war.

A digitized 1958 newspaper article donated by Peter Max to the USHMM Victor file

revealed that other Jews who were seeking restitution faced similar challenges as Peter Max

(Image 17 and 18). Both the claimant and the claimant’s mother, who died in a Nazi

concentration camp, were unnamed in the article. The article accounts how the son of a wealthy

Jewish woman filed for the restitution of his mother’s assets after she was deported to the

Theresienstadt concentration camp where she later died. Her property had been forceably left

behind during the deportation. The Reparations Office dismissed the son’s claim because

existing files did not mention a seizure of the woman’s assets, which would have established an

unjustified confiscation of property. The issue with such a dismissal was that when Jews were

deported, their forceably left-behind property was labeled as abandoned and confiscated by the

Nazis. Such confiscations were normally not recorded. The author of the article mentioned that it

should have been more likely assumed that the home furnishings were removed from the

woman’s apartment rather than abandoned.67 Before deportation, the woman was ordered to

move out of her large apartment into a smaller one designated for Jews and was only allowed to

take a small portion of her property with her. Since not all property was moved between both of the woman’s apartments, the furnishings in the apartment from which she was deported could not have been the same furnishings from her former apartment. When moving from the original

apartment to the housing designated for Jews, a substantial part of her furniture had to be

67 Dosmar-Kosterlitz, Edith. “Zur Beweislast Bei Entziehung Des Mobiliars Deportierter Juden.” Die Wiedergutmachung, September 5, 1958. Linn 33

abandoned or given away. The article mentioned that a letter from the Jüdischen

Kultusvereinigung Berlin,68 dated August 24, 1942, made clear that “the part of the furniture that

[Jews] could not take with [them] had to be made available to the nursing home in the protectorate.” Based on the letter, it was to be readily considered proven that not only were the woman’s possessions in the second apartment withdrawn, but also that the most valuable assets

had to be made “available” at the forced removal from the former apartment. The original

decision to dismiss the claim was then annulled, and the case was remanded to the regional court

for the purpose of making further inquiries into the fate of the assets. Since the regional court

could not provide any concrete evidence proving the assets were not seized, it was assumed that

1.) at least some of the home furnishings were withdrawn in the last dwelling based on the size ratios of the two dwellings, and 2.) the rights of the woman were taken away from her in the forced relocation.

The significance of the case’s final decision can be summarized by the precedence of the final decision:

Housing facilities of deported Jews, which had to be left behind at the time of

deportation, must be considered unjustifiably deprived even if they are not included in the

OFP69 files and that Germany, as the restitutor, is responsible for the burden of proof for

68 “The Law on the Legal Status of Jewish Religious Organizations came into effect on March 28 [1938]. It stripped Germany’s Jewish Communities of their protected status as ‘public bodies’. From then on, they were treated merely as registered associations.” Meyer, Jews in Nazi Berlin: from Kristallnacht to Liberation, 85. 69 Oberfinanzpräsident or Chief Finance President; The Oberfinanzpräsident represents the Bundesamt für zentrale Dienste und offene Vermögensfragen (BADV), which “settles restitution or compensation claims regarding property losses sustained during the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945 as a result of persecution for racial, political, religious or ideological reasons. BADV also supports the Länder in implementing legislation pertaining to compensation and reparation for loss of property sustained under Soviet jurisdiction and the German Democratic Republic.” “Responsibilities.” Bundesamt für zentrale Dienste und offene Vermögensfragen. Accessed January 1, 2020. https://www.badv.bund.de/EN/FederalOffice/BADV/BADVResponsibilities/start.html. Linn 34

its possible allegation that despite the deportation of the persecuted woman, her home

furnishings had not been withdrawn.70

The new decision ruled in favor of claimants by placing the burden of proof on Germany instead

of those seeking restitution. Unless Germany could prove that items were not seized from a

persecuted person, the property was to be assumed as having been confiscated. The decision was

supported by the November 4, 1941 letter of the Reich Minister of Finance, which stated that the

seizure of property of deported Jews took place automatically and that precise instructions were

given to Nazi officers on the handling of movable property. The article concluded with praises of

the Berlin Supreme Restitution Court’s overruling of the “formalistic and unrealistic attitude of

the lower courts” and that it did not consider a proof of the deprivation in each case necessary.71

While proof of deprivation was suddenly not necessary for such legal cases, claimants filing for

restitution still faced the challenge of proving personal information when much of their records were altered and wiped out by the Nazis. While the decision was intended to help claimants, it did not alleviate the restitution process for Peter Max since the Victor family was not forced into deportation.

Modern-day Germany continues to deal with the dilemma of focusing on victims like the

Victors versus financing a future for the country. The Landesarchiv currently houses

approximately 800,000 case files from the Berlin restitution offices.72 While the closed cases

reside in the archives, no data mentions how many, though one can presume only a few, of these

cases resulted in the claimant receiving proper compensation. According to Germany’s Federal

Foreign Office, “The Federal Government has, from the very outset, made the process of

70 “Zur Beweislast Bei Entziehung Des Mobiliars Deportierter Juden.” 71 Ibid. 72 Startseite - WGA Datenbank, n.d. http://wga-datenbank.de/records-explanations.php?s=2&sub=3. Linn 35

providing moral and financial compensation for the crimes committed by the National Socialist

regime a key priority and continues to attach great importance to this task today…”.73 One must

question whether the process actually prioritized compensation for Nazi victims when Peter Max

Victor was required to wait at least fourteen years before his restitution case was closed. As of

November 2018, the German government pays approximately one billion annually to

victims via state benefits.74 Jewish victims of Nazi persecution are entitled to either a one-time compensation payment or an ongoing payment, depending on circumstances, under the Federal

Government Directives on Payments to Persecuted Jews to Compensate for Individual Hardships within the Context of Restitution of October 3, 1980.75 The qualifications for such compensation,

however, continue to change, meaning that not all victims are currently receiving a portion of the

government’s annual payout. Not until 2013, for example, were survivors of open ghettos,

meaning ghettos without walls, eligible to receive compensation despite these ghettos sharing

similar brutal living conditions with closed ghettos.76 Waiting until 2013 to decide new

qualifying conditions allows hardly any of those victims to collect compensation, since many

have passed away at that point. The Final Federal Compensation Act of 1965 officially stated

that new claims for compensation could not be filed after December 31, 1969,77 but such a policy

silences victims and their descendants who were previously unaware that a claim needed to be

filed or who were not deemed qualified for compensation until new amendments were made in

the following years. While the Federal Foreign Office emphasized that there are extra-legal

73 Auswärtiges Amt. “Federal Foreign Office - Compensation for National Socialist Injustice.” German Federal Foreign Office, n.d. https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/themen/internatrecht/entschaedigung-node. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Online, Spiegel. “Holocaust Reparations: Germany to Pay 772 Million Euros to Survivors - Spiegel Online - International.” Spiegel Online. Spiegel Online, May 29, 2013. https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-to-pay-772-million-euros-in-reparations-to-holocaust- survivors-a-902528.html. 77 Amt, Auswärtiges. “Federal Foreign Office - Compensation for National Socialist Injustice.” Linn 36

compensation provisions for victims of Nazi persecution who have not received either any or

insufficient compensation, it does not specifically indicate which provisions are available, how

long the process is, or how many complicated forms and what pieces of evidence are necessary

for obtaining such provisions.

Non-binding guiding principles were only recently established for the handling of

Holocaust-era assets during the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art of 1998, in

which representation from more than forty governments were requested to participate. One

unique point made during the conference was that in addition to the art plundered by the Nazis,

American G.I.s and allied forces looted artifacts as spoils of war. This expands the need for

taking responsibility of the missing art beyond Germany. Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos of Loyola

University, an honorary speaker at the Plenary Session on Nazi-Confiscated Art Issues at the

Washington Principles, argued:

I would note in closing that this project of ascertaining precisely what was plundered by

the Nazis is just one of the three major tasks that are necessary to bring closure to this

history. Additionally, we need more comprehensive international agreements to facilitate

the repatriation of artworks, and we need a more precise and consistent legal framework

in order to settle the claims. Only through a combination of research, diplomacy, and

legal reform can the issue of displaced cultural property be resolved.78

Missing art and property from the war only stands a chance of being recovered with global

cooperation. Art and objects were not only confiscated within Germany, but also from German-

78 Petropoulos, Jonathan “Art Looting during the Third Reich: An Overview with Recommendations for Further Research,” Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, Florida Center for Instructional Technology, November 5, 1998, https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/assets/heac4.pdf. Linn 37

occupied countries, making the cultural theft a world crime. According to independent scholar

Lynn H. Nicholas, Western Allies and the USSR handled issues involving the restitution of

Holocaust-era assets differently. While the Western Occupation has focused on returning looted objects to countries of origin, including Eastern Europe, and turning them over to recuperation commissions to sort through individual claims, the Soviet Trophy Commission officers were under orders to bring looted art back to the USSR as spoils of war.79 While much of the art was

returned by Soviets to museums and galleries in Eastern Europe in the 1950s, many objects

looted from Jewish owners and from Western institutions are still held by the Russians as a type

of reparation for the damage done by the Nazis.80 The Washington Principles on Nazi-

Confiscated Art produced unanimously-approved suggestions for handling the Holocaust-era assets since each government must act within the context of its own laws. Publishing non- binding principles, however, removes the obligation to take the principles seriously and allows them to be ignored. While it is important to have an international understanding on what ought to be done with the cultural objects, it is equally important that action be taken. Establishing a global organization dedicated to locating stolen Nazi art, researching the provenance of such assets, and reforming the restitution process must be prioritized. Making the organization global

promotes conversation on the topic between countries and enables them to work together to

create the best possible solutions for finding and determining the fates of looted art.

79 Ibid, 450. 80 Ibid. Linn 38

CHAPTER THREE: AUCTION HOUSES, MUSEUMS, AND ARCHIVES

While Peter Max faced many difficulties from the claimant side of restitution cases,

museums, archives, and auction houses continue to face the dilemma of becoming transparent or

protecting their reputation. Museums, archives, and auction houses play key roles in both

recovering art and coming to terms with current or historic collections containing questionable

artifacts. The accessibility of these institutions serves as a vital component for tracing the provenance of a piece or understanding what ties those institutions had to the Third Reich. Out of

fear for the safety of a museum or auction house’s respected reputation, few institutions choose to publicly come forward about their historic collusion with the Nazis or with the art in their collections that were likely stolen during the Second World War. In cases where the provenance of the auction house or of specific artworks is not known, museums and auction houses often deny access to researchers to avoid any unwanted publicity or potential legal disputes. The

Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany and the Neumeister Art Auction House in

Munich, Germany are revolutionizing the field by choosing to be transparent with their histories.

The Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, Germany houses a historic art collection that was appealing to former Nazi art agents who wanted to personally gain from covertly selling looted art, including degenerate art, to nearby art collectors. Looted art that was not claimed after the war was almost instantaneously sold on the , further dispersing such art across the globe. It is possible that the Victor family paintings shared this same fate. Some looted pieces composed the collection of the Zeppelin Museums’ predecessor, the Bodensee Museum, which opened in 1869. The entire collection of the Bodensee Museum was destroyed in the 1944 bombing air raids, but a new collection was created upon the Bodensee Museum’s second Linn 39

inauguration in 1957,81 which the Zeppelin Museum eventually acquired.82 Nazi art agents and

art dealers such as Joseph Angerer and Benno Griebert83 sold additional pieces of degenerate art

to the Zeppelin Museum because the museum was close enough to neutral territory on the Swiss

border as well as to the growing Swiss art market for degenerate pieces. The art collection itself

is currently only 72-years old, but it is comprised of an impressive array of 3,882 works, including works on paper, photographs, sculptures, installations, and time-based media art.84 In

honor of the 20th anniversary of the 1998 Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and a

recognized need for art provenance, the Zeppelin Museum took on the challenge of taking a

deeper look into the histories behind each of its pieces initially within the Bodensee Museum.

The two-year exhibition focuses on creating a connection between Nazi art provenance research

and the public, encouraging new discussions and others to investigate the provenance of their

own artworks at home. While the museum cannot always fully determine whether a piece in the

collection was looted by the Nazis, unveiling the research process for visitors welcomes new

perspectives and hypotheses. When people investigate the provenance of their own artworks,

they often report their findings to lost art databases, increasing the likelihood of solving cases

like the Victor family’s missing paintings.

The museum’s temporary exhibition, The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection

under Scrutiny (Image 19),85 focuses on twenty pieces that were acquired into the collection after

81 “The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection under Scrutiny,” Friedrichshafen, Germany: Zeppelin Museum, 2018, 5. 82 Sources did not specify when and under what conditions the Bodensee Museum Collection was acquired by the Zeppelin Museum. 83 Ibid, 14. 84 Ibid, 4. 85 “The exhibition is thus one of the first to approach the significant role of provenance research after 1945 with the aim of discussing particularities, challenges, and problems. The stories behind certain objects and the chronology of the steps leading to the establishment of the collection shed light on the evacuation and translocation of artworks around 1945, the structures of the revived art market, and important art dealers – especially those who quietly re-

Linn 40

1945. A total of 400 pieces were additionally privately researched behind the scenes. While these

pieces were not purchased during the war, researching the provenance of works obtained after

1945 can prove to be even more difficult due to the little information available on the post-war

growing art market and the obstructed evidence found on the art, revealing the suspicious nature

of the art trade.86 According to the exhibition guide, “…the aim of the exhibition is to create

transparency, to draw attention to the necessity of ongoing research, and to rule out, as far as

possible, that the [Zeppelin Museum] is in possession of artworks derived from thefts or confiscations.”87 Researching the provenance of artworks that were purchased between 1933 and

1945 is becoming much more of a standardized practice, but little thought is given for art

purchased directly after the war despite the strong connections to Nazi looting. The labor- intensive process of archival research as well as the lack of known information on the post-war activities of Nazi art dealers makes the ongoing process much more difficult. When embarking on the research process, the museum raised the important questions of “Did dealers involved in

the Nazi art trade inevitably deal with Nazi-looted art after 1945 and is general suspicion against

them justified?” and “Where did [the dealers] obtain their goods after the Second World War?”88

The project’s findings firmly indicated that many of the Nazi art dealers referred to their personal

contacts from the war and were obtaining information on missing artworks in order to build up

their careers after 1945.89 The art market dramatically shifted from Berlin to , Italy,

Austria, and Liechtenstein, which dispersed the of artworks across the map.90 In

established themselves as recognized art experts in the idyllic holiday resort at Lake Constance after their careers under the National Socialists.” “The Obligation Of Ownership. An Art Collection Under Scrutiny: Exhibition.” ArtFacts, https://artfacts.net/exhibition/the-obligation-of-ownership-an-art-collection-under-scrutiny/853615. 86 “The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection under Scrutiny”, 5. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid, 9. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. Linn 41

addition to researching through German archives, archives across Europe need to be examined to trace the international histories of artworks, placing a much larger obstacle in the path of the provenance researcher.

The twenty selected pieces on display showcase a range of confirmed, unconfirmed, and suspicious provenances. A color-coded sticker labeling system is used on each of the piece’s description cards to clearly communicate the art’s status to the public. A green sticker indicates that a piece has a clean history. A yellow sticker means that the provenance is incomplete while an orange sticker, which two pieces received, symbolizes that a provenance is suspicious in nature. A red sticker is reserved for pieces with provenances that are confirmed as likely stolen, but as of yet, none of the pieces in the collection have been labeled as such. In addition to the labeling system, the exhibition also incorporates an unusual perspective by publicly displaying the backside or underside of the artworks. Carvings, stickers, writings, and various stamps can be found scattered on the backside of frames or on the underside of sculptures, revealing the exchanging of a piece among dealers and institutions and the inventory markings within various collections. Some of the labels or markings appear to have been erased or destroyed, preventing a definitive tracing of history. Photos and physical examples of record books and archival index cards are displayed throughout the show, enabling museum visitors to step into the shoes of a provenance researcher and catch a glimpse of the research process firsthand. One of the two paintings with an orange label, Otto Dix’s Bouquet, 91 serves as a highlight of the exhibition.

Otto Dix, a German Expressionist who was deemed a degenerate artist during the war, had fled

91 “‘Blumenstrauß’ (Bouquet) is an exceptional early work by Otto Dix (1891–1969) who was primarily known for provocative portraits, brothel scenes, and representations of urban life. The painting of the bouquet was presumably a gift to his wife Martha to celebrate the birth of their daughter Nelly. Not only the motif, but also the pastose application of paint in alla prima technique is unusual for this period. For a long time, the work was believed to have been lost during the war. However, in 1990 it was presented as a spectacular new acquisition at the Bodensee Museum.” “The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection under Scrutiny”, 29. Linn 42 to southern Germany with hope of escaping Nazi rule. While the painting was originally believed to have gone missing during the war, Bouquet was acquired by the Bodensee Museum in 1990 and is currently a prized addition within the Zeppelin Museum’s art collection.

I conducted an interview with Fanny Stoye, the curator behind The Obligation of

Ownership, to better understand the current stances of German museums regarding the topic of art provenance. Stoye’s answers provided exclusive access into creating an exhibition, both praised and criticized by the public and other museums respectively, that is at the forefront of museums addressing their past Nazi compliance. When I asked about what led her to her current career in art provenance research, Stoye recalled her internship at the Grassi Museum of Applied

Arts, during which there was a possibility of Nazi-looted art within the collection. This possibility not only put several German museums at risk of being associated with the circulation of the looted pieces, but it also generated discussion that transformed Stoye’s views regarding the impact of artwork. She describes:

I [began to] understand that a work of art is not just a relic of an art-historical epoch, but

rather it has its own biography and is inextricably intertwined with human destinies - a

silent remnant full of stories. Since then I can no longer look at a work of art without

asking myself: “To whom did you once belong, into which hands did you come, and why

are you here now?” That has remained so to this day…But it was only during my

internship that I thought about the whereabouts of the possessions of all the millions of

persecuted and murdered people. Behind every work of art stolen during the Nazi era, Linn 43

and incidentally also behind technical or natural objects there is a human being, a life that

could have been ours! And that was filled to an unbearable degree with suffering...92

According to Stoye, while the damages and losses of Nazi victims are irreparable, art provenance

can contribute to making amends. Few art museums unfortunately choose to investigate the

provenance of their collections out of fear of confirmed looting and a ruined reputation. The

Zeppelin Museum exemplified a radical determination to face the issue head on and generate a larger discussion on the sensitive topic within the museum community and with the public through the blatant transparency of its art collection. Stoye continues:

[The museum staff] all quickly agreed that we could set a new benchmark with an

exhibition in the Zeppelin Museum based on complete, non-self-evident transparency and

offering an invitation to the outside [world] to join in the discussion. In the end, the

Zeppelin Museum has proven that museum work can tackle highly topical issues and

make them debatable in terms of societal breadth. Although provenance research is

carried out in the museum, the results and gray spots also affect the entire society.93

The Zeppelin Museum recognizes the importance of inviting the public to participate in the

conversation on Nazi-looted artworks, generating greater awareness and encouraging other

people to take action. Stoye praises the museum’s decision of displaying the markings on the

back and undersides of the exhibition’s featured pieces, as well as any archival documentation,

because it offers information on the subject, invites the visitor to be a part of the provenance

process, and inspires them to take a closer look at their own art at home.

92 Fanny Stoye, email interview with author, August 3, 2019. 93 Fanny Stoye, email interview with author. Linn 44

I asked Stoye for her observations on the current state of German auction houses, museums, and art restitution, which revealed her clear personal frustrations. She emphasized how significant gaps in art provenance research could potentially be closed with the help of auction house archives. She further described how these archives commonly deny access to vital information, even to provenance researchers whom the auction houses have hired. Institutions covering up their past collusions with Nazi risk severely damaging their reputations in the case of Nazi-looted art being discovered in their possession today. Stoye explained how the

“non-public institutions are not obliged to take on the topic of art provenance research” and that

“many [institutions] are more likely to do provenance research [behind closed doors] out of

greed or out of fear of losing very rare pieces from their collections.”94 What many museums and auction houses believe to be currently protecting them from bad press can actually cause them to be in graver danger than if they were honest from the beginning.

Not all institutions are secretive about their past Nazi collusions. The Neumeister Art

Auction House in Munich made headlines in 2014 when the catalogs of Nazi art auctioneer

Adolf Weinmüller95 were discovered in one of the filing cabinets. According to Holocaust- looted-art expert Dr. Jonathan Petropoulos, the forty-four found catalogs are the first known

“annotated catalogs for an auction house during the Third Reich.”96 Each catalog, which dated

from 1936 to 1944, contained the personal notes of Weinmüller during the time of Nazi art

94 Ibid. 95 “Art dealer Adolf Weinmueller was a Nazi party member who directed the pilfering and sale of the Laemmle collection, among others in Bavaria, for the Reich Chamber of Fine , which oversaw the liquidation of the Jewish art trade…For years after the war's end in 1945, historians knew Weinmueller was an agent of the Nazi party. But without records, they had no way of enumerating the nature of his misdeeds, let alone prove them. He was allowed to keep his business until his death in 1958, when German businessman Rudolf Neumeister took over the business.” “A German auction house is helping return Nazi-looted art to their rightful owners.” CNN, April 21, 2019. https://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_a258741cb4a11cb92aa6416c4fe6cd58. 96 Under the Hammer of the Nazis. Directed by Thomas Staehler, Ammo Content, 2013. Amazon. www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07DCZNSVC. Linn 45

confiscations, including which pieces were picked up by the Gestapo and his clients who

purchased the artworks. Weinmüller, like many Nazi colluders, claimed that the records were

destroyed during the war. Such invaluable information became a dilemma for the director of the

Neumeister auction house, Katrin Stoll. Publicly releasing the information would have exposed

the names of Neumeister’s clients, which violates auction house policy of granting anonymity to

buyers. Withholding the information would have jeopardized Neumeister from losing its

established reputation and prevents many victims from finding their sought-after property. Katrin

Stoll eventually made the difficult decision to step forward about Neumeister’s history by

publishing the artworks mentioned in the catalogs within the lostart.de digital database.97 Since releasing the information, Neumeister continues to experience great praise by the public and has even been recognized in the documentary Under the Hammer of the Nazis. Katrin Stoll and

Neumeister exemplify that museums and auction houses can be transparent about their pasts while still maintaining a successful business and an esteemed reputation in the eyes of the public.

Dr. Meike Hopp98 willingly shared her insights with me on researching in the archives,

working on the Neumeister case, and her observations regarding provenance research as a whole

in an interview. As I had in my interview with Fanny Stoye, I focused my questions for Hopp on

97 “The Lost Art Database contains data on cultural objects which as a result of Nazi persecution or the direct consequences of the Second World War were removed and relocated, stored or seized from their owners, particularly Jews, or on cultural objects where, because of gaps in their provenance…” LostArt.de Index. Accessed November 9, 2019. lostart.de/Webs/EN/Datenbank/Index.html.

98 “Meike Hopp studied Art History, Classical Archeology and Theater Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität (LMU) in Munich. In 2008, her master's thesis was awarded the Heinrich Wölfflin Prize of the LMU. In 2012 she earned her doctorate on the topic “Art Trade in National Socialism. Adolf Weinmüller in Munich and Vienna "(Cologne: Böhlau 2012). Since 2009, she has been working as a researcher at the Central Institute for Art History (ZI) in Munich on numerous projects in the field of provenance and art market research, in cooperation with the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München and the project “Provenance Research Gurlitt” of the German Cultural Heritage Center Magdeburg. Since 2017, she has directed the research project “Dealers, Collectors and Museums: The Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler in Munich, Lucerne, Berlin and New York, made possible by the support of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation. Development and documentation of the traded works of art 1903- 1994.” Forum Kunst und Markt, May 28, 2018. https://www.fokum.org/en/dr-meike-hopp-sophie-kriegenhofer-ma/. Linn 46

the relationship between German auction houses, museums, and transparency as well as on her

approach for conducting research projects within German archives. Hopp described the role of auction houses within the Third Reich through the example of Weinmüller, who “in 1933 took over the Association of German Art and Antique Dealers to eliminate the so-called ‘Jewish’ dealers and competitors, and from 1936 he profited from the first forced sales of Jewish art dealers and collectors.”99 When auction houses were being ‘Aryanized’ by forcing Jewish

dealers and auctioneers out of jobs in place of non-Jewish Germans, the Nazi-supporters within

the field were quickly promoted. The Weinmüller catalogs (Image 20) indicate that individuals

like Weinmüller were not only monitoring Gestapo art confiscations, but they were also secretly

keeping confiscated pieces to privately sell or expand their personal art collections. When I

asked Hopp for her opinion on the current conditions of museums and auction houses in terms of

provenance research, she expressed her dissatisfaction:

Much of [provenance] research, [no matter] whether in Germany or Europe in general, is

still based exclusively on short-term third-party funded projects, which hardly provide

longer-term perspectives for the researchers who do the actual work. This really is

scandalous, considering [the] masses of cultural objects [that need] to be researched for

their origin…At the same time, there is a large and economically lucrative ‘restitution

market’ where lawyers or dealers earn money or politicians boast. [To] me, this is not a

good [situation]...100

Provenance research projects cannot be fully completed by a certain deadline since information

is scattered within various institutions across the globe, and only certain institutions are willing

99 Under the Hammer of the Nazis. 100 Dr. Meike Hopp, email interview with author, August 4, 2019. Linn 47 to be transparent by making their information accessible. The lack of more permanent positions associated with provenance research risks temporary researchers ineffectively handling cases to the best of their abilities and serves as “an obstacle to the sustainable and transparent documentation of research.”101 Hopp specifically notes that despite the media hype surrounding provenance research, the field remains a recent phenomenon in which researchers are expected to thoroughly understand the legalities of the exploitation and the relocation of assets. Many governments, including that of the U.S., fail to understand the larger amount of funding and expertise necessary to continuously support research staff traveling internationally to investigate potential case leads.

Fanny Stoye and Dr. Meike Hopp’s insights voiced many of the struggles I had while conducting provenance research on the Victor family’s paintings. While the Victors’ case differs from the Nazi-involved pasts of museums, auction houses, and archives, it does overlap concerning transparency. Despite that there are not any living members of the Victor family today, German archives and institutions repeatedly denied me access to certain documents or records. Even Peter Max struggled obtaining access to his own family’s records throughout the restitution case, confirming that the restitution process remains too demanding of claimants.

Peter Max’s letters with the URO indicated that the URO was not fully transparent in communicating its intentions for or reasoning behind requiring testimonies and specific documentation from him. While museums, auction houses, and archives have made improvements towards becoming more transparent over the years, much work has still yet to be done in digitizing collections. Such transparency not only creates a more open relationship with the public, but it also helps alleviate the work of the provenance researcher. Since Nazi looted art

101 Ibid. Linn 48

is scattered around the world, these institutions must take the steps necessary towards becoming

accessible to not only the German public, but also to an international public through online

archives, in-house linguists and translated request forms, and public resources that educate the

essentiality of provenance research. The Victors’ case serves as an example of why immediate

change is necessary and why time is of the essence for other claimants.

CONCLUSION

The effects of Nazi art looting have maintained a looming presence over victims and

provenance researchers even eighty years since the Second World War. While there has been a

recent resurgence in public interest on Nazi-looted art, the subject is frequently ignored or

misunderstood around the globe. As the number of immediate victims and their families still

alive today unceasingly dwindles, there remains a need to urgently address the filed restitution

cases still being processed. While claimants battle the frustrations of the restitution process to

seek out potentially awarded money, claims by immediate victims are also arguably a personal

declaration that the war against the Nazis is still far from over. Many claimants likely understand the risk of receiving little to no financial compensation for their cases, yet they continue to file Linn 49

anyway because of the opportunity “to return not only objects, but also pasts, to connect families,

cultures and societies.”102

A larger public effort must be made to encourage the recording of victims’ stories and to

demand amendments to the victim compensation processes around the globe. As the last survivors pass away, testimonies enable restitution cases to continue processing as new pieces of

looted art resurface and new claims are presented. Firsthand accounts also help prevent the door

from closing on the topic of Nazi-looted art as an issue of the past. Regardless of the recovery of

art, victims must be treated as the priority in cases. At the core of provenance research are people

who have been wronged seeking help. Dragging out the restitution process over the course of

many years, as with the fourteen year case of Peter Max Victor, to such an extent that the

immediate victim has passed away transforms a system designed to fight injustices on behalf of

victims into another injustice forced upon the victims. Even if cases do not involve art, many

cases involving financial compensation from the Holocaust are still being processed as late as

2014.103 The governments of France and of the United Kingdom, for example, previously agreed to set aside millions of dollars for victim compensation funds, yet only a small fraction of the claims were approved to receive any money. The conditions as to who qualifies for money as a victim continue to evolve in the modern day, affecting only a small number of people since most eligible victims have passed away. By making claimants wait decades for their cases to be heard and for a final decision to be reached, victims are once again ignored or swept under the rug as a low priority. The question must be asked as to why so many claimants are still being denied compensation when scholars, government officials, and researchers have repeatedly proven the

102 Dr. Meike Hopp, email interview with author. 103 “Germany to Pay Holocaust Victims New Compensation.” BBC News, May 29, 2013. www..com/news/ world-europe-22707483. Linn 50

vast array of circumstances that Holocaust victims suffered under, circumstances that are not

always directly addressed within legal guidelines. Amending such guidelines and preserving the

stories of survivors are extremely time-sensitive issues. No longer can decades go by before

anything is done because within the next decade, most if not all, survivors will be gone.

Museums and archives must also continue pushing beyond their past traditions of secrecy

in order to create greater transparency between the information from the Nazi era and the

researcher and public. Lost art databases rely on individuals coming forward about the art pieces

that they or their relatives lost or that they now possess but believe to have been previously

looted. As confirmed by Dr. Meike Hopp, hiring a provenance researcher does not necessarily

guarantee finding answers within archives since even she, a well-known German provenance

researcher, is still denied access to certain documentation. Many families still wish to explore the

provenance of their art even if they cannot afford to hire an expert for their case. People typically

do not understand the provenance of the art that they own aside from perhaps a relative passing it

onto them or a local art dealer having sold them the piece. By taking the time to educate the

public on the importance of provenance research and encouraging them to personally research

the background of their art, as demonstrated by the Zeppelin Museum, more looted art might be

reported as found and more cases may be solved in a short period of time. Making information in

auction houses and archives more accessible would also generate more awareness on Nazi-looted art in the modern era, enabling the provenance research for such objects to remain a relevant

issue and for the field to potentially gain more funding.

Through their own greed and merciless ideologies, the Nazis robbed innocent men,

women, and children of their security and livelihoods. The Victor family is just one of the

millions of stories of Jewish refugees and victims during the Second World War, each one Linn 51 unique and heartbreaking in their own way. Carl and Elsa’s brave and costly decision to leave their country, family, friends, and home behind was the very reason that Peter Max survived, despite that it came at their own expense. As the number of Holocaust survivors continues to decrease each year, the question must be asked as to what can be done so that these victims and their families can be remembered.

Linn 52

EPILOGUE

The 6th German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program104 (PREP)

conference, held in Washington D.C. on October 25, 2019, created an open discussion between

museums and the public concerning modern provenance research efforts. I attended the

conference and took notes of the panel speakers. Irmgard Fellner of the Federal Foreign Office

opened the event with an introduction of PREP as a German government grant. She referenced

the 1998 Washington Conference and remarked that since the conference, Germany has tripled

its budget for provenance research.105 Fellner also briefly mentioned the 2019 German-United

States “Wunderbar Together” initiative that celebrates the cooperation and now peaceful alliance between the two countries.

Originally scheduled to speak at the conference but unable to attend, Special Expert

Advisor for Holocaust Issues at the US Department of State Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat106

104 “This panel discussion will reflect on the historical development of Holocaust-era provenance research in museums and research institutions over the past 20 years, from challenging beginnings to present-day accomplishments. German and American experts will compare and contrast approaches to this work; consider how access to research resources and to provenance online have been supported and sustained in our institutions; and explore the vital role of transnational exchange. More broadly, they will discuss the civic role museums play, and how historical, political, and legal contexts impact this work.” “German/American Provenance Research Exchange”, Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) Program: 2017-2019, file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/prep- dc_oct_25_public_program_at_ghi_w_bios%20.pdf. 105 Irmgard Fellner, “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. 106 “Stuart Eizenstat serves as Special Expert Advisor for Holocaust Issues at the US Department of State, and is a senior member of Covington & Burling LLP’s international practice. His work at Covington focuses on resolving international trade problems and business disputes with the US and foreign governments, and international business transactions and regulations on behalf of US companies and others around the world. During fifteen years of public service in four US administrations, Ambassador Eizenstat held key senior positions, including chief White House domestic policy adviser to President (1977-1981); U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs. Much of the interest in providing justice for victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi tyranny during World War II was the result of his leadership of the Clinton Administration as Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues. He successfully negotiated major agreements with the Swiss, Germans, Austrian and French, and other European countries, covering restitution of property, payment for slave and forced laborers, recovery of looted art, bank accounts, and payment of insurance policies. His book on these events, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II (2003), was favorably received in publications like , The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post,

Linn 53

contributed his printed remarks. Eizenstat expanded on the Washington Conference he convened under the support of the Clinton Administration, in which eleven Washington Principles on Nazi-

Confiscated Art were negotiated with forty-four countries. The first three principles concerned

provenance research by calling for the identification of art looted by the Nazis, making archives

more accessible, and enabling sources and experts available for the identification of Nazi-looted

art. He specifically noted that the 2000 Vilnius Forum107 and the 2009 Terezin Declaration108 strengthened the Washington Principles. One significant issue is that the Washington Principles were introduced as moral obligations rather than legal ones, making accountability of countries extremely difficult. The Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses have set the example by employing full-time staffs dedicated towards provenance research and implementing new guidelines for the handling of works with suspicious provenances. According to Eizenstat, such actions have enabled Christie’s alone to resolve one hundred claims.109

Business Week, and Publisher’s Weekly. It has been translated into German, French, Czech and Hebrew.” “German/American Provenance Research Exchange”, Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) Program: 2017-2019. 107 “In 2000, the Lithuanian government organized the Vilnius International Forum on Holocaust Era Looted Cultural Assets. As a result of the conference, the Vilnius Forum Declaration was drafted to ask all governments to reach just and fair solutions to restitute looted art.” “Conferences, Declarations & Resolutions.” Claims Conference/ WRJO Looted Art and Cultural Property Initiative. Accessed November 10, 2019. http://art.claimscon.org/home- new/resources/additional-resources-2/. 108 “On June 30, 2009, the 47 states attending the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, signed the Terezin Declaration. The Declaration calls, among other things, to strengthen and sustain previous efforts, notably those by the Washington Conference to ensure just and fair solutions regarding cultural property, including Judaica which was looted or displaced during or as a result of the Holocaust (Shoah). In regard to Looted Art, the Declaration calls for the recognition that restitution cannot be accomplished without the knowledge of potentially looted art and cultural property. It therefore calls for continuous provenance research, in addition to an ongoing effort to make available results on the internet, with due regard to privacy rules and regulations. Concerning Judaica and Jewish Cultural Property, the Declaration calls for “Recognizing the urgent need to identify ways to achieve a just and fair solution to the issue of Judaica and Jewish cultural property, where original owners, or heirs of former original Jewish owners, individuals or legal persons cannot be identified, while acknowledging there is no universal model.” Moreover, the Declaration notes that measures for the protection of sacred scrolls and ceremonial objects should be taken and where these items are currently in government hands to make them available for synagogue use where needed.” Ibid. 109 Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, printed remarks for the “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. Linn 54

In 2016, the United States passed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR)

to help victims recover their art against the blocked claims by American museums.110 The recent

2018 Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST)Act mandates that Congress create a report

on how the forty-six countries under the Terezin Declaration have demonstrated the Washington

Principles.111 Despite the many global accomplishments, Eizenstat also addressed the areas

where further development is still necessary. Many countries under the Terezin Declaration have implemented little effort to comply with the Washington Principles thus far. Provenance researchers continue to struggle with insufficient resources, including the ineffective and outdated Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) portal. European countries continue to do little regarding the research of their public museums, leaving thousands of paintings still to be traced and published.112 Countries such as France113 and the Netherlands114 either have no de-

accession law or a “balance-of interests” policy respectively, preventing families with a looted

110 U.S. Congress, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, 130 STAT. 1524, 114th Congr., Introduced December 16, 2016. https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ308/PLAW-114publ308.pdf. 111 “The Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act would mandate the State Department report on the progress of European nations in either returning or paying restitution for stolen property or assets from Holocaust victims in the 1930s and 1940s. The report is to contain findings on ‘the return to the rightful owner of any property, including religious or communal property, that was wrongfully seized or transferred’ and ‘the extent to which such laws and policies are implemented and enforced in practice, including through any applicable administrative or judicial processes’”. U.S. Congress, Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017, S. 447, 115th Congr., Introduced December 12, 2017. www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s447/summary. 112 Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, October 25, 2019. 113 “The French Republic created public museums who saw their role as ‘a national heritage assembled and presented for the benefit of the public.” Sue Chen, Art Deaccessions and the Limits of Fiduciary Duty (2009); “Curators…[point] to France’s centuries-old ‘inalienability’ law [which states that] national institutions do not have the right to deaccession anything in a public collection.” Farago, Jason. “Artwork Taken From Africa, Returning to a Home Transformed.” The New York Times, 3 Jan. 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/arts/design/african- art-france-museums-restitution.html?. 114 “The policy asks the [government] panel to weigh ‘the significance of the work to public art collections’ against the emotional attachment of the claimant. In 2013, for example, a claim for the Bernardo Strozzi painting ‘Christ and the Samaritan Woman,’ filed by the heirs of a German-Jewish refugee, was rejected because it was important to the Dutch museum that housed it… The balance-of-interests test means that even if a claimant submits a claim to the restitution committee for a work of art, and even if the panel finds that the claim is good, is right, the claimants don’t automatically get their painting back, nor do they get any remedy.” Siegal, Nina. “Are the Dutch Lagging in Efforts to Return Art Looted by the Nazis?” The New York Times, 12 May 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/arts/ design/are-the-dutch-lagging-in-efforts-to-return-art-looted-by-the-nazis.html. Linn 55

art claim from removing a piece from the public museum. These countries, while not entirely

socialist, incorporate socialist aspects that further complicate restitution because they view what

belongs in private and public spheres differently. France, for example, has such strict acquisition criteria that all objects within museum inventory are considered as classified, important cultural heritage.115 Eizenstat emphasized “what is most needed going forward is a recommitment to

additional provenance research and publication of suspect works on transnational websites easily

accessible to potential claimants worldwide”116 and that European nation panel decisions must be made public online to generate discussion.

Christian Fuhrmeister117 advocated that provenance research is understaffed and

underfinanced, which is a serious issue since such research is one hundred percent reliant on

funding. Over the course of seventy years, the issue is still yet to be resolved. He concluded that

the funding issue suddenly becomes a political issue when international legal cases involving art

need to be thoroughly researched by experts with specific sets of skills but are not properly

supported. If provenance research projects remain underfunded, hired researchers will be

pressured by time constraints instead of being able to conduct work thoroughly, and they have

limited opportunities to travel in order to access international archival information. Rather than

exclusively stored within German archives and museums, the information and records

115 Wijsmuller, Dieuwertje. “Deaccessioning in France.” Museums and Deaccessioning in Europe. Creative Culture Consultancy, January 5, 2018. https://www.museumsanddeaccessioning.com/countries/france/. 116 Ibid. 117 “Christian Fuhrmeister has initiated and coordinated research projects at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich since 2003. His work focuses on 20th-century art, architecture, and art history (including war cemeteries, Max Beckmann, National Socialist art, and provenance research). His Ph.D. dissertation was published as Beton, Klinker, Granit. Material Macht Politik- Eine Materialikonographie (Berlin 2001), and he co-edited Kunstgeschichte im Nationalsozialismus. Beiträge zur Geschichte einer Wissenschaft zwischen 1930 und 1950 (Weimar 2005). In 2012, Fuhrmeister completed a Habilitation at the Ludwig-Maxmilians Universität München, which came out in 2019 as Die Abteilung "Kunstschutz" in Italien. Kunstgeschichte, Politik und Propaganda 1936– 1963. He continues to teach at the LMU on a regular basis and is a member of the PREP Steering Committee.” “German/American Provenance Research Exchange”, Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) Program: 2017-2019, file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/prep-dc_oct_25_public_program_at_ghi_w_bios%20.pdf. Linn 56

surrounding Nazi-looted art are now dispersed among institutions across the globe. Until auction houses, archives, and museums become more transparent online, however, an increase in government funding is necessary to finance travel expenses for provenance researchers.

Sharon Cott,118 a lawyer at the Metropolitan Museum and another speaker at the

German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program, emphasized provenance research

helps establish the facts, and that the legal analysis is wrong if not based on these facts.119

Lawyers such as herself have had to review claims ranging from Nazi-looted gold, insurance policies, and art. She specifically mentioned the directors of the AAMD take the initiative to return looted art by pledging to find the families of pieces deemed looted. In the past twenty years, some archives have gravitated towards publishing their collections online and new research tools have been developed. There also still remains a debate as to what constitutes as looted art since it previously only entailed art directly confiscated by the Nazis from families.

Now, there is also the issue of looted art sales. Cott’s biggest takeaway was that situations in restitution cases cannot be generalized because both the art in question and the patterns of movement per piece are unique.

Also speaking at the conference, Anne Helmreich,120 the Associate Director at the Getty

Research Institute, advocated that transparency within auction houses and archives happens

118 “Sharon Cott oversees the wide range of legal issues the Museum faces, from litigation over title to works of art in the collection to negotiations of gifts, supervising a staff of six attorneys. She coordinates corporate-governance issues for the Board and is responsible for assuring the Museum's compliance with various laws and regulations. A leader in the field of museum ethics, Cott has served as counsel to the committees of the Association of the Art Museum Directors and the American Alliance of Museums that drafted guidelines related to antiquities and to art confiscated during World War II” Ibid. 119 Sharon Cott, “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. 120 “Helmreich has also served as Senior Program Officer, The Getty Foundation, and Associate Professor of Art History and Director, Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, Case Western Reserve University. Her current research focuses on the history of the art market and the productive intersection of the digital humanities and art history. She recently co-edited The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850-1939 (Manchester University

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through the digitization of collections. In order to trace information, there must be an archive.

The world continues to move into a digital age, which also must include museums, auction

houses, and archives. Since provenance information is so widely spread around the globe,

digitizing collections enables researchers to access information more easily and efficiently and to

help ensure the most complete assortment of known existing facts is presented for restitution

cases. The transnational Getty Provenance Index recently included 9,000 digitized art catalogues

into its searchable database, which equates to an estimated 830,000 items now being tracked.121

Helmreich further shared the current development of linked open data, which would organize

data so it would hypothetically connect and “talk” to other databases, allowing provenance

researchers to easily move between sources. The Getty, as well as thirteen other institutions,

continue to digitize auction catalogues into the joined International Consortium of Photo

Archives (Pharos) database, which will feature 25 million objects.122

Some issues I observed at the conference were the contradiction surrounding the global

approach to provenance research and the lack of claimant representation. PREP Senior Advisor

and conference speaker Laurie Stein noted that because the nature, location, and circumstance questions vary per case, there is no global approach to provenance research. Vice President of the Stiftung Preuβischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin and conference speaker Gero Dimter then remarked that because art is dispersed globally, any approach to redressing must be international, such as with the Washington Principles. While such speakers recognize that an individualized system for provenance research and restitution must be created within each country via national

Press, 2011) with Pamela Fletcher, and co-authored with Fletcher “Local/Global: Mapping Nineteenth-Century London’s Art Market,” the first article in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide’s Digital Humanities and Art History series, which won the ARIAH 2015 prize for best online essay.” Ibid. 121 Anne Helmreich, “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. 122 Ibid. Linn 58 lawsF, allowing such countries to create their own standards prevents them from being held accountable to international implementations of standards and enables them to get away with doing little or nothing.

The conference, while filled with prominent individuals in the museum field, lacked representation from the opposing side of the claimants fighting against museums. Museum representatives seemed much more focused on using the conference as a personal relations event to glorify their individual institutions. During the panel question session, a woman in the audience asked what funding is being made available for the families wanting to conduct provenance research but the art in question is not part of a high-stake case. Rather than directly addressing the question, the panelists once again returned to discussing how each of their museums has made significant breakthroughs rather than admitting where change is still needed.

Conferences such as that of PREP must be cautiously and objectively observed. While it is essential that museums and archives create discussion between them and the public on the prominent issues within the fields of provenance research and art restitution, the public should be presented both sides of the issue from both the institution and from the individual. Only when the complete picture is provided can effective discussion be held, and change be implemented.

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Wiedergutmachung, September 5, 1958. Dr. Meike Hopp, email interview with author, August 4, 2019. Eizenstat, Stuart Ed. 2019. “Art stolen by the Nazis is still missing. Here’s how we can recover it.” The Washington Post. January 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-one-should-trade-in-or- possess-art-stolen-by-the-nazis/2019/01/02/01990232-0ed3-11e9-831f-3aa2c2be4cbd_story.html. Elsa Victor to Peter Max Victor, 1939, In “Peter and Berta Victor papers”, last modified March 2019, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=- 835%2C0%2C4454%2C3901&rsc=171562. Entschädigungsamt Berlin, Verweisung an Haupttreuhänder, 344181, Berlin: Wiedergutmachungsämter, 1958. Legal Document. “Entschädigungssache Carl Viktor.” Letter to Entschädigungsamt Berlin. August 29, 1963. In Rückerstattungssache. Berlin: Landesarchiv. Falconer, Morgan. “Review: Birgit Schwarz, Hitlers Museum: Die Fotoalben, Gemäldegalerie Linz.” Burlington Magazine, July 2005, 498. Fanny Stoye, email interview with author, August 3, 2019. “File number,” WGA Datenbank, Landesarchiv, Berlin, http://wga-datenbank.de/records-explanations.php?s=2& sub=3. Forum Kunst und Markt, May 28, 2018. https://www.fokum.org/en/dr-meike-hopp-sophie-kriegenhofer-ma/. “German/American Provenance Research Exchange”, Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) Program: 2017-2019, file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/prep-dc_oct_25_public_program_at_ghi_w_bios%20.pdf. “Germany to Pay Holocaust Victims New Compensation.” BBC News, May 29, 2013. www.bbc.com/news/ world- europe-22707483. Gilbert, Sophie. 2018. “The Persistent Crime of Nazi-Looted Art.” The Atlantic, March 11. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/03/cornelius-gurlitt-nazi-looted-art/554936/. Guang, Pan, ed. “Shanghai: A Haven for Holocaust Victims.” In Jews in China: Legends, History and New Perspectives. 4th ed. China Intercontinental Press. Accessed August 7, 2019. https://www.un.org/ en/holocaustrem embrance/docs/pdf/chapter6.pdf. Hopp, Dr. Meike. “Findings on the Victor Family.” 21 June 2019. “Interbau 1957 Live.” Hansaviertel Berlin. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://hansaviertel.berlin/en/ geschichte/juedische-nachbarn/. Irmgard Fellner, “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. “Jewish Businesses.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special-focus/kristallnacht/jewish- businesses. “Law Limits Jews in Public Schools.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. Linn 61

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/law-limits-jews-in-public-schools. LostArt.de Index. Accessed November 9, 2019. lostart.de/Webs/EN/Datenbank/Index.html. Megan Lewis, personal conversation with the author, October 24, 2019. Meyer, Beate. Jews in Nazi Berlin: from Kristallnacht to Liberation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 85. “Nazi Restrictions, Special Taxes Strip Jews of Wealth.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.jta.org/1938/12/25/archive/nazi-restrictions-special-taxes-strip-jews-of-wealth. Online, Spiegel. “Holocaust Reparations: Germany to Pay 772 Million Euros to Survivors - Spiegel Online – International.” Spiegel Online. Spiegel Online, May 29, 2013. https://www.spiegel.de/international /germany/germany-to-pay-772-million-euros-in-reparations-to-holocaust-survivors-a-902528.html. Peter Max Victor to Dr. H. E. Fabian of the URO, 1957, In “Peter and Berta Victor papers, last modified March 2019, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=49&xywh=-447%2C- 1%2C4510%2C3951&rsc=171578. Peter Max Victor to Gunter M. Kamm of the URO, 1957, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, last modified March 2019, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=28&xywh=481%2 C170%2C26 31%2C2305&rsc=171578. Peter Max Victor to Rebecca Adler, 1959, In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”, last modified March 2019, https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn85075#?c=2&m=0&s=0&cv=63&xywh=475%2C174%2C 2638%2C2310&rsc=171578. Peter Max Victor to the URO. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”. Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 12, 1959. Petropoulos, Jonathan “Art Looting during the Third Reich: An Overview with Recommendations for Further Research,” Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, Florida Center for Instructional Technology, November 5, 1998, https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/assets/heac4.pdf. Plaut, James S. “Hitler's Capital.” The Atlantic, no. October 1946. Accessed November 25, 2018. doi:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1946/10/hitlers-capital/354837/. "Reichsmark, n.". OED Online. September 2019. Oxford University Press. https://www-oed- com.colorado.idm.oclc.org/view/Entry/250934? redirectedFrom=reichsmark (accessed November 14, 2019). “Responsibilities.” Bundesamt für zentrale Dienste und offene Vermögensfragen. Accessed January 1, 2020. https://www.badv.bund.de/EN/FederalOffice/BADV/BADVResponsibilities/start.html. Rothfeld, Anne. “Nazi Looted Art.” Prologue, 2002. National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/publications /prologue/2002/summer/nazi-looted-art-1.html. Schmid, Monika S. First Language Attrition, Use and Maintenance: the Case of German Jews in Anglophone Countries. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002, 57. Linn 62

Seuthe, Kassandra. “Peter Max Victor.” E-mail message to author. June 26, 2019. Sharon Cott, “German/American Provenance Research Exchange” conference, October 25, 2019. Startseite - WGA Datenbank, n.d. http://wga-datenbank.de/records-explanations.php?s=2&sub=3. Steinweis, Alan E. Kristallnacht 1938. Cambridge (Mass): Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009, 119. “The Federal Archives' tasks,” Das Bundesarchiv, Berlin, https://www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Use/Visit- On-Site/visit-on-side.html. “The ‘Final Solution’.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-final-solution. The Getty Research Institute, “Restitution.” Los Angeles, The Getty Research Institute. http://vocab.getty.edu/page /aat/300417843 “The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection under Scrutiny,” Friedrichshafen, Germany: Zeppelin Museum, 2018, 5. “The Obligation Of Ownership. An Art Collection Under Scrutiny: Exhibition.” ArtFacts, https://artfacts.net/exhibition/the-obligation-of-ownership-an-art-collection-under-scrutiny/853615. Tokayer, Marvin, and Mary Swartz. The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War II. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House, 2004, p. 223. "Tracing the Past." Mapping the Lives. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://www.mappingthelives.org/. Under the Hammer of the Nazis. Directed by Thomas Staehler, Ammo Content, 2013. Amazon. www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07DCZNSVC. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed August 08, 2019. https://collections.ushmm.org/search /catalog/irn515888. URO to Peter Max Victor. In “Peter and Berta Victor Papers”. Washington D.C.: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, April 10, 1953. U.S. Congress, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, 130 STAT. 1524, 114th Congr., Introduced December 16, 2016. https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ308/PLAW-114publ308.pdf. U.S. Congress, Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017, S. 447, 115th Congr., Introduced December 12, 2017. www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s447/summary. Victor, Peter Max. Interview by USHMM employee. May 1, 1990. Wijsmuller, Dieuwertje. “Deaccessioning in France.” Museums and Deaccessioning in Europe. Creative Culture Consultancy, January 5, 2018. https://www.museumsanddeaccessioning.com/countries/france/. Williams, David. “Painting Stolen by the Nazis before WWII Recovered from a New York Museum.” CNN Style. October 24, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/style/article/fbi-recovered-painting-trnd/index.html.

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SUPPORTING IMAGES

Image 1: An circa 1930s photograph of the Victor family with relatives or friends: Carl Victor (top right), Elsa Victor (top left), and Peter Max Victor (bottom left).

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Image 2: A 1929 photograph of Carl Victor in the Victor family apartment in Berlin. Three missing paintings are faintly depicted hanging on the wall.

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Image 3: A 1929 photograph of Elsa Victor in the Victor family apartment in Berlin. Three missing paintings are faintly depicted hanging on the wall.

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Image 4: The inventory list included within Peter Max’s 1957 letter to the URO. The list is based on what property stood in the home from 1925 to 1926.

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Image 5: Peter Max writes to Rebecca Adler, who he addresses as “Mutti”, in 1959 to request her testimony for the restitution case. He emphasizes that he did not tell the URO that he was adopted.

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Image 6: Carl Victor and his address were listed in a digitized 1938 Berlin telephone book. His occupation of “chemist” is also provided.

Image 7: The modern student living complex stands adjacent to the site of the Victor family’s Berlin apartment on Siegmundshof 5.

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Image 8: MappingtheLives.org listed all of the known Jews who lived in the Siegmundshof 5 apartment building based on the 1939 census. The Victors were the only ones in the building to escape deportation and death by the Nazis.

Image 9: A 1935 photograph depicting two Jewish students being humiliated in front of their classmates. The board reads, “The Jew is our greatest enemy! Beware of the Jew!”

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Image 10: A 1939 photograph of Peter Max in Berlin prior to his emigration to Shanghai. He was nineteen at the time.

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Image 11: A 1939 letter from Elsa Victor to Peter Max describing her and Carl’s preparations before leaving for Shanghai. Elsa describes Carl visiting the financial office and the tax office.

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Image 12: A photograph dated between June 14th, 1939 and July 9th, 1939 shows Carl and Elsa Victor posing with an unidentified passenger on board the Conte Rosso.

Image 13: A summer 1942 photograph taken of Peter Max while working as a lifeguard at the Hongkew Park pool.

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Image 14: When I searched in the “Reparations Database” of the Landesarchiv, I found Peter Max’s restitution file information.

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Image 15: In the restitution file, Peter Max filed for a large mixing machine, a car, and “chemicals and spices”.

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Image 16: The URO requested that Peter Max confirm the details of his life through witness testimonies.

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Image 17 and 18: Peter Max included this 1958 newspaper article as part of his donation to the USHMM.

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Image 19: The Zeppelin Museum presented The Obligation of Ownership: An Art Collection under Scrutiny to create greater transparency of its art collection and to educate the public on art restitution.

Image 20: The 2014 discovery of the Weinmüller catalogues revealed that Weinmüller was monitoring Gestapo art confiscations for his personal benefit.