Looted Art and Jewish Cultural Property Initiative Salo Baron and members of the Synagogue Council of America depositing Torah scrolls in a grave at Beth El Cemetery, Paramus, New Jersey, 13 January 1952. Photograph by Fred Stein, collection of the American Jewish Historical Society, New York, USA. HANDBOOK ON JUDAICA PROVENANCE RESEARCH: CEREMONIAL OBJECTS By Julie-Marthe Cohen, Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, and Ruth Jolanda Weinberger ©Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, 2019 Table of Contents Foreword, Wesley A. Fisher page 4 Disclaimer page 7 Preface page 8 PART 1 – Historical Overview 1.1 Pre-War Judaica and Jewish Museum Collections: An Overview page 12 1.2 Nazi Agencies Engaged in the Looting of Material Culture page 16 1.3 The Looting of Judaica: Museum Collections, Community Collections, page 28 and Private Collections - An Overview 1.4 The Dispersion of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the West: Jewish Cultural Reconstruction page 43 1.5 The Dispersion of Jewish Ceremonial Objects in the East: The Soviet Trophy Brigades and Nationalizations in the East after World War II page 61 PART 2 – Judaica Objects 2.1 On the Definition of Judaica Objects page 77 2.2 Identification of Judaica Objects page 78 2.2.1 Inscriptions page 78 2.2.1.1 Names of Individuals page 78 2.2.1.2 Names of Communities and Towns page 79 2.2.1.3 Dates page 80 2.2.1.4 Crests page 80 2.2.2 Sizes page 81 2.2.3 Materials page 81 2.2.3.1 Textiles page 81 2.2.3.2 Metal page 82 2.2.3.3 Wood page 83 2.2.3.4 Paper page 83 2.2.3.5 Other page 83 2.2.4 Styles page 84 2.2.4.1 Art-Historical Considerations page 84 2.2.4.2 Internal Jewish Differences page 84 2.2.4.2.1 Ashkenazi Jewry page 84 2.2.4.2.2 Sephardi Jewry page 84 2.2.4.2.3 Oriental Jewry page 85 2.2.4.2.4 Caucasian and Crimean Jewry page 85 2.2.4.2.5 South East and Central Asian Jewry page 85 1 | P a g e 2.2.4.2.6 Others page 85 2.2.5 Symbols page 85 2.2.6 Colors page 89 2.2.7 Hallmarks page 89 2.2.8 Labels and Stamps page 90 2.3 Types of Objects page 92 2.3.1 Synagogues and Communal Objects page 92 2.3.2 Objects of Private Use page 103 PART 3 – Primary Sources 3.1 Resources page 115 3.2 The Museum Archive page 116 3.3 The Community Archive page 116 3.4 Museum Publications page 116 3.5 Publications of Jewish Communities page 117 3.6 Other Resources page 117 3.7 Archives and Databases page 117 3.7.1 Archival Resources of Plundering Agencies, the Allies and page 118 Jewish Organizations 3.7.1.1 Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) page 120 3.7.1.2 Sicherheitsdienst (SD), Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) page 120 and Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Amt VII) 3.7.1.3 Office of the Military Government for Germany, U.S. page 123 3.7.1.4 Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. page 146 3.7.1.5 The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) page 151 3.7.1.6 The Jewish Trust Corporation page 154 PART 4 – General Resources Judaica and Online Databases – An Overview page 156 APPENDICES Appendices to Part 1 A. Organizational Charts (ERR, RSHA) page 169 B. The Fate of Three Museum Collections that Illustrate the Impact of the Second World War and the Holocaust on Judaica Collections in Europe, by Julie-Marthe Cohen page 173 C. Lviv 1944 – 2009: Jewish Cultural Objects and Property. Some Cases page 189 and Tendencies, by Tarik Cyril Amar Appendices to Part 2 A. The Wertheimer Hanukkah Lamp, by Bernhard Purin page 201 B. The Grunwald Parochet, by Felicitas Heiman-Jellinek page 204 Appendices to Part 3 A. Relics of the Second World War: Dealing with Missing and Misplaced 2 | P a g e Objects in the Jewish Historical Museum Collection, by Julie-Marthe Cohen page 210 B. Overview – Fold 3 Database page 222 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Selected Bibliography of Pre-War Publications on Jewish Ceremonial Objects page 272 2. Selected Bibliography of General Pre-War Museum Publications that Include Judaica Objects page 281 3. Selected Bibliography of Post-War Publications Dealing with Pre-War Jewish Museums and Collections page 283 ABBREVIATIONS page 288 3 | P a g e Foreword Facilitating restitution of Judaica plundered during the Holocaust is a priority for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). Extensive efforts at identifying and returning Jewish ceremonial objects and Jewish manuscripts, archives, and libraries that were plundered by Nazi Germany, its allies and collaborators to their original owners started immediately after the end of the Shoah, but the task is far from completed, even so many decades later. To encourage provenance research to be done on Judaica, the Claims Conference-WJRO over the years has stimulated and encouraged the Association of European Jewish Museums (AEJM), the Council of American Jewish Museums (CAJM), and the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) to adopt declarations in this area, which they all have done, and to move forward with examination of their collections. And we have worked in cooperation with Hashava-The Company for the Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets to ensure that Israeli museums, libraries, and archives do the same. To better understand the situation in all countries, we compiled a Descriptive Catalogue of Looted Judaica (published online in 2009, updated in 2016 – see http://art.claimscon.org/our- work/judaica/descriptive-catalogue-of-looted-judaica/), which provides a worldwide snapshot of what is known concerning the fate of Judaica. The Catalogue presents a summary of the history of Nazi looting of Judaica and of Judaica restitution efforts after the war divided by 70 separate countries. For each country, projects to identify looted Judaica are described, if they exist, followed by discussion of objects of Judaica in the country that are known to have been looted or to have gaps in their provenance that have been identified in databases, publications, or other sources. In some instances, information exists on the individual object level, while in other cases only more general descriptions of looted collections as a whole are available. The Catalogue also contains a list of relevant archives and a bibliography. The compilation is based on information from existing published and unpublished literature and archives, as well as information obtained from experts in various countries. In 2009, 47 nations, observer countries, and relevant non-governmental organizations, including the Claims Conference and the WJRO, convened for the Prague Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets. Among the reports prepared by the Claims Conference/WJRO was Holocaust Era Judaica and Jewish Cultural Property: A World-Wide Overview (see http://www.claimscon.org/forms/prague/Judaica.pdf), which recommended actions to be taken by participating nations to address the challenges in restitution of looted assets. The report was based on the Descriptive Catalogue of Looted Judaica. The Prague Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets resulted in the Terezin Declaration, which for the first time specifically dealt internationally with looted Judaica separately from looted art. The Prague Conference was followed by the establishment of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI), which as part of its Advisory Council appointed a Working Group on Judaica and Jewish Cultural Property chaired by Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek and with the following members: Inka Bertz, Julie- Marthe Cohen, Daniel Dratwa, Wesley Fisher, Karen Franklin, Rhoda Rosen, Hila Tene-Gilad, Photini Tomai-Constantopoulou, and Magda Veselská. Over the years that followed, many of the members of this Working Group held discussions among themselves – generally in conjunction with meetings of the Association of European Jewish Museums (AEJM) – about what would be most 4 | P a g e helpful to the field of provenance research on Judaica and what should happen concerning the restitution or other disposition of looted Judaica. These discussions led to the identification of two main goals. The first was the creation of a guide to how to do provenance research on Judaica – it was recognized that while some similar guides or manuals exist regarding provenance research on looted art, nothing comparable has existed for Judaica. The second was the eventual creation of an online exhibition on plundered Judaica that would provide a mechanism and opportunity for discussion of what best practices and standards should be in this field. The present Handbook on Judaica Provenance Research is an attempt under the auspices of the Claims Conference-WJRO Looted Cultural Property Initiative to reach the first of these goals in regard to ceremonial objects. It constitutes a major step forward in assisting museum and synagogue curators, dealers, researchers, survivors and their heirs to be able to determine the history of the ritual items in their collections or to learn more of the fate of cherished objects that may have been lost in the Holocaust. We have long supported databases, projects on archival sources, and training programs that are relevant to provenance research on art and cultural property generally, some of which are mentioned in the pages that follow. Among the grants that the Claims Conference has provided specifically in Judaica was one to help publish the book Neglected Witnesses. The Fate of Jewish Ceremonial Objects During the Second World War and After, edited by Julie-Marthe Cohen, with Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek [Crickadarn, 2011]. We are most pleased that these two specialists agreed to author this Handbook.