Historical and legal documentation

The looting of the artistic heritage held by the Jews is organized in France by the German occupier and the government of Vichy. The restitution begins at the end of 1944 and continues until today, based on legislative texts and international commitments.

Dispossession of cultural property
Restitution from 1944 to the early 1950s
Continuation and relaunch of the process at international and national level
Legal texts and international commitments
Case law
Bibliography
The 2008 exhibition “Whose paintings were these?”

Between July 1940 and August 1944, the looting of the artistic heritage held by the Jews (works of art, objects of art, books and manuscripts, musical instruments) was organized in France by the German occupier and the government of Vichy.
Looting and plunder are carried out in three forms:

The looting of works of art is implemented mainly by theEinsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR, intervention staff of the Reich Commander Alfred Rosenberg for the occupied territories). The ERR organizes the seizure of the collections. If the collections of Jewish owners are the main targets of the Nazis, the collections of Freemasons or individuals considered «enemies of the Reich» are also concerned.
The looting of Jewish apartments by the Dienststelle Westen (Service Ouest) began in 1942. Among the looted furniture can be found works of art, which are generally transferred to the ERR.
The Vichy government implemented an Aryanisation policy aimed at excluding Jews from all sectors of the economy. The law of 22 July 1941 provides for the temporary placement of all property belonging to persons considered Jewish, with the exception of their principal residence, and its sale for the benefit of the State. The Vichy government created a special “Aryanisation” administration, the Commissariat général aux questions juives (CGQJ), which appointed the provisional administrators. Aryanisation affects the entire Jewish population and all professions, including art and antiquities dealers for their business and collectors for their personal belongings. Dispossession takes place through the sale or liquidation of property; the provisional administrator proposes to the CGQJ a sale if the business or property is of financial interest, or liquidation if not. The proceeds of the sale are not paid to the owner but placed by the provisional administrator at the Caisse des dépôts et consignations.

In addition, owners sometimes have to sell their property to finance their survival or flight. These are sales that are forced by circumstances, with owner sellers often having to accept a price that is lower than the real value of the property.

It is estimated that the ERR seizures of Jewish art collectors and dealers have resulted in approximately 40,000 works, looted from more than 200 people in France and Belgium.

From November 1944 until December 1949, an Artistic Recovery Commission (CRA) is responsible for the research relating to the recovery of works of art, in liaison with the Office for Private Property and Interests, which ensures the restitution. The works are mainly found in deposits discovered by allied troops in Germany and Austria.

The claims made to the Commission relate to approximately 100,000 works and works of art. Approximately 45,000 were returned to their rightful owners between 1944 and 1950, 13,000 were sold by the Domains, and more than 2,200 were retained by “commissions of choice” set up at the end of 1949 to be entrusted to the custody of the National Museums. These works and objects of art are commonly identified today by the acronym “MNR” (National Museums Recovery), although in the strict sense it only refers to ancient paintings.

Restitution ceased in the mid-1950s, and the last cases of art compensation by Germany were closed in the 1970s.

In the 1990s, the issue of dispossessed property was revived in a new context. Interest in the memory of the Shoah, fall of the Soviet bloc, reunification of Germany, access to archives, arrival of a new generation of rights holders and researchers, scientific publications lead to the conclusion of several international commitments, including, primarily, the “Washington Principles” in 1998.

In this new context, the recognition in 1995 by the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac of the responsibility of France in the deportation of the Jews, then the creation of the study mission on the plunder of the Jews of France, called «Mattéoli Mission»In 1997, responsible for investigating all areas of plunder, including art objects, relaunched the search and reactivated the restitution process.

The history is given in more detail in the chapters below.

Dispossession of cultural property

The armistice between the French and German authorities was signed on 22 June 1940. In the days following the occupation of the capital, the dispossession began under the aegis of the German ambassador in Paris, Otto Abetz. He ordered the seizure of works of art owned by the Jews in the occupied territories. He sends to the Gestapo the list of the fifteen main Parisian art dealers, to whom he requests an emergency police search, with seizure of the works (among them: Jean A. Seligmann, Jacques Seligmann and André Seligmann, Georges Wildenstein, Paul Rosenberg, the Bernheim-Jeune).

TheEinsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) , originally responsible for the seizure of libraries and archives to carry out the «fight against Judaism and Freemasonry» and directed by the theorist of the Nazi regime Alfred Rosenberg, is represented in France by Baron Kurt von Behr. From September 1940, this service was responsible for confiscating the property of Jews and Freemasons in occupied Europe.

At the end of October 1940, at the Jeu de Paume Museum, in the Tuileries Garden, the ERR gathered more than 400 crates of seized works, while continuing to use the first storage places opened in the summer of 1940, at the Louvre Museum (referred to as the «sequestration of the Louvre»). or the German embassy.
Rose Valland, a conservation attaché, remains at the Jeu de Paume. Until the Liberation of Paris, she spied on the activities of the Germans, noted the works of the private collections that she saw pass through the museum and communicated information to Jacques Jaujard, director of the National Museums.

In December 1940, Hitler authorized the release from France of works seized by the ERR. Between April 1941 and July 1944, 4,174 cases containing more than 20,000 lots were shipped to Germany.

From May 1942, the Möbel-Aktion («Action Meuble») pillages the apartments left vacant by the internment, arrest or flight of their Jewish occupants. The collected works of art and valuable cultural objects are returned to the ERR.

At the same time, in July 1941, the Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives, created by the Vichy government, was granted the right to appoint provisional administrators who could liquidate Jewish property in favour of “Aryan” acquirers. The owners are deprived of the profit of the sale, confiscated by the provisional administrator having placed their property under receivership.

The art market is very dynamic throughout the Occupation and participates in the plunder by promoting the sales of seized and «aryanised» goods. The Drouot Hotel in Paris was granted permission to resume its auction business in September 1940.

Certain works of art known as «degenerate», seized by the German services and which should be destroyed by the ERR, are, because of their high market value, sold or set aside for use in exchange for old paintings available on the art market, in France and Switzerland.

The ERR seizures of Jewish art collectors and dealers are estimated at about 20,000 works, the number of goods (works of art and movable cultural property, excluding books) stolen in France and sent to Germany at about 100,000, and the number of stolen books at least 5 million.

Restitution from 1944 to the early 1950s

Following the London Allied Declaration of 5 January 1943, the French Committee for National Liberation adopts 12 November 1943 an order declares the acts of plunder carried out by or under the control of the enemy to be void. The Provisional Government of the French Republic, constituted on 2 June 1944, undertook to ensure that the restitution of the stolen property was an integral part of the reparations owed by Germany.
The specificity of the problems posed by the identification and location of cultural objects led to the creation in November 1944 of a Artistic Recovery Commission (CRA) under the Ministry of Education and installed at the Jeu de Paume. The CRA is responsible for research related to the recovery of artwork, historical memorabilia, valuables, archival records, and books and manuscripts, taken by or under the control of the enemy, from communities or individuals.

The CRA first dealt with works intercepted on French soil, then, from the spring of 1945, was responsible for identifying objects and works of art that would come from France, among those found in the territory of the former Reich. Indeed, from May 1945 onwards, repositories of works stolen by the ERR were discovered by the allied armies, thanks in particular to the information provided by Rose Valland. The recovered works (stolen, confiscated works, which have been the object of a transaction of legal appearance or sold under duress, but also the goods bought by Germans and sold without constraint) are collected in points of grouping (Collecting Points), established in each area of occupation in West Germany, before being repatriated.

Restitution proceedings are initiated on the basis of a declaration made by the owners or their successors to the Office for Private Property and Interests (OBIP), which reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or directly to the CRA. As far as possible, applications must be based on supporting documents: lists of works, certificates, photographs.

For the books, Jenny Delsaux, librarian at the Sorbonne, joined the newly established Sub-Committee on Books (SCL) in 1945 Artistic Recovery Commission (CRA). It is in charge of organizing the activities of the sub-commission: finding the repositories of the looted collections, both on French territory and in Germany and in other Eastern countries, having them transported to Paris, classify them, then identify the owners victims of dispossession to return their property. The SCL recovered approximately 1.2 million volumes, from which it was able to return or allocate a large share to the dispossessed owners or their successors. A majority of the books had no ownership mark, which made the work of the sub-commission particularly difficult. Identified works bearing the name of their owner – ex-libris or manuscript name – were immediately returned.

The activity of the Commission de récupération artistique ceases on 31 December 1949, after reviewing over 2,400 application files and allowing 61,233 objects and works of art to return to France. Over 45,000 of them have been returned to their owners or beneficiaries.

The Domains Administration is responsible for selling what has not been claimed. However, museums argue that the importance of certain properties requires special treatment. In September 1949, two commissions of choice were responsible for selecting, one from among the works and objects of art, the other from the books and manuscripts, the pieces of greatest interest according to various criteria - notably artistic interest, but not only.

More than 2,200 works of art are retained and recorded in an inventory now called “National Museums Recovery” (MNR). These works are deposited in the national museums and may, in the event of spoliation, be returned to their rightful owner; the State is only the provisional holder.

A number of stolen books and documents have joined the French public collections, by deposit, through two processes:

The Commission of Choice of Books, chaired by Julien Cain, Administrator of the National Library and Director of the Library and Public Reading Directorate at the Ministry of National Education, awards 15,450 documents to 47 public libraries (national, university or municipal). Accompanied at the time by a note specifying the conditions of deposit, and inviting to return the documents if they belonged to despoiled owners, these documents were later integrated into the collections, most of the time without mention of their origin.
At the same time, the Sub-Committee on Books sold almost 294,000 damaged books to the Domaine administration, of which nearly 60,000 were sold at very low prices to 43 public libraries. Although the origin of these purchases has often been lost, the Diplomatic Archives keeps a number of lists and the inventories and entry registers of libraries can sometimes be traced.

After the closure of the CRA at the end of 1949, the issue of refunds remained the responsibility of the OBIP. Between 1950 and 1955, 41 MNR properties were returned. The OBIP investigates the files in collaboration with the Department for the Protection of Works of Art (Direction des musées nationaux), headed by Rose Valland. Until the beginning of the 1960s, the latter continued to conduct investigations and, in particular, exchange information with the services of the Federal Republic of Germany.
From the Paris Agreement of 23 October 1954, the arrangements for dealing with the dispossession of any assets still in Germany changed: it was now up to the German Federal Government to continue the research under its sole authority and to carry out itseven refunds. With the Law of 19 July 1957, known as the BRüG Law, the Federal Republic of Germany introduced a procedure for the compensation of spoliations, and in particular for works of art not recovered.
The last cases of compensation for works of art were closed in the 1970s, and the subject of the dispossession of cultural property disappeared from the public debate until the mid-1990s.

Continuation and relaunch of the process at international and national level

The subject of stolen property, forgotten or forgotten for nearly 40 years, came to the fore in the mid-1990s, in the broader context of the new interest in the Second World War and the Holocaust, at a time when we began to fear the disappearance of the last survivors and to wonder about memory and its transformations. At the same time, therefore, the question of plundered cultural property was emerging.

In France, from 1995

Following the recognition of France’s responsibility for the deportation of Jews in 1995 by the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, the issue of cultural property stolen from France resurfaces in France – as in other countries. The movement is encouraged by two books. The plundering of Europe, by Lynn Nicholas, published in 1994, is the first historical approach to the issue; The museum disappeared. Investigation on the looting of works of art in France by the Nazis, published in 1995 by Hector Feliciano, is aimed at a wider audience.

In November 1996, the Direction des musées de France and the Direction des archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a symposium entitled «Pillages et restitutions: le destin des œuvres sorties de France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale». The MNR database is then made available to the public; it includes a descriptive sheet for each of the works in this collection, and the available information is regularly updated.

In February 1997, Prime Minister Alain Juppé «Study Mission on the Dispossession of the Jews of France», chaired by Jean Mattéoli, one of whose projects deals with the looting of cultural property. In April and May 1997, the "MNR" works were presented in four major national museums – Louvre, Sèvres, Orsay, Musée national d'Art moderne – and in 120 regional museums.
In 1999, following the reports of the Mission Mattéoli, the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Dispossession, was created because of the anti-Semitic legislation in force during the Occupation (CIVS). It is responsible for examining individual claims made by victims or their beneficiaries for compensation for damages resulting from the dispossession of property due to the occupier or the authorities of Vichy.

In the world

At the same time, an international conference on the plunder of Jewish cultural property during the Second World War was held in Washington. On 3 December 1998, the representatives of 44 governments adopted a set of principles aimed at helping the heirs of Jewish owners to recover the art stolen by the Nazis.
The « washington principles » can be summed up as follows: countries must strive to open their archives and simplify searches; cultural property confiscated by the Nazis must be reported and this information must be centralized; the requirement to provide evidence must take into account historical circumstances; when a work of art is recognized as spoliated, a “fair and equitable solution” must be quickly found.

These principles mark a decisive step by encouraging the resumption of searches for sources, facilitating the submission of applicants' applications and speeding up and simplifying refund procedures. They are reaffirmed at the Forum on Cultural Property Dispossessed during the Holocaust Vilnius under the auspices of the Council of Europe in October 2000. The final declaration recalls the need to open the archives and seek fair and equitable solutions to requests for restitution. In 2009, 46 countries adopted the Terezin statement, which affirms the moral commitment to implement good practices in research and restitution of stolen works.

Searches and retrievals

Research and mobilization allow for many restitution. Between 1994 and 2012, France returned 63 MNR works and cultural properties or equivalent.
Between 2013 and 2021, 66 MNR or equivalent works and cultural property were returned.

Since 2018-2019, a new impetus

In 2018, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wanted to give a new impetus to the policy of research and restitution of looted cultural property. Raising the issue in July 2018 during the commemoration of the Vell’Hiv’ round-up, he asked the CIVS and the Ministry of Culture to “do better” in this regard.
In order to develop provenance research and to facilitate, where possible, refunds, the procedure before the CIVS has been modified and a new structure has been created within the Ministry of Culture (General Secretariat) in April 2019: «Mission of search and restitution of the cultural property plundered between 1933 and 1945».

Building on and strengthening the action taken in previous years, the new organisation brings more visibility to the research and retrieval policy concerning public collections and more coherence to the retrieval procedure.
The competence of the CIVS is reaffirmed; it becomes competent for all files relating to cultural property when the plunder took place in France during the Occupation. From now on, the families and rights holders of the dispossessed know only one procedure with two complementary actors: the Ministry of Culture coordinates and investigates files, with museums and libraries, while the CIVS recommends a remedy.

In this context, beyond the MNR works, the search for provenance extends to the works of national collections and, more broadly, public. Works legally entered into public collections may have previously been the subject of spoliation. The museums, often with the help of the Mission de recherche et de restitution des biens culturels spoliés between 1933 and 1945, therefore began to carry out research on the path of works acquired since 1933. The blurred works between 1933 and 1945 are identified in order to clarify their provenance and, if necessary, to identify the owner dispossessed for their restitution.

Restitution of books and libraries

After the immediate post-war restitution by the Artistic Recovery Commission, the restitution was extremely few, if any, before 2017 and the surrender, in March, by the Bibliothèque nationale de France to the family of Victor Basch of a book that came from the latter’s library.
A new impetus was given by the creation in 2019 of a working group made up of representatives of the ministries and libraries of Higher Education and Culture.

Legal texts and international commitments

Selection of French legislative texts on the dispossession of Jewish property

- 12 November 1943 : order on the nullity of acts of spoliation
- 9 August 1944 : ordinance on the restoration of republican legality
- 29 September 1944 : Order appointing members of the CRA
- 14 November 1944: order for the first application of the order of 12 November 1943 on the nullity of acts of spoliation carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting the restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the object of acts of disposition
- 24 November 1944 : Decree establishing the Commission de récupération artistique
- 11 April 1945 : Ordinance on the devolution of property recovered by the State
- 21 April 1945: Order for the second application of the Order of 12 November 1943 on the nullity of acts of spoliation carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting the restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the object of acts of disposition
- 9 June 1945: Order for the third application of the Order of 12 November 1943 on the nullity of acts of spoliation carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting the restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the object of acts of disposition
- 30 September 1949: Decree terminating the CRA’s activities and defining NRMs
- 13 May 1998 : Decree on the opening of public archives for the period 1940-1945
- 10 November 1998 : Order derogating from consultation of archives
- September 10, 1999 : Decree establishing the Commission for the Compensation of Victims Due to Anti-Semitic Legislation In Force During the Occupation (CIVS)
- October 1, 2018 : Order Amending the CIVS Order (and consolidated version of the decree of 10 September 1999 as amended)

Fundamental texts endorsed by the international community

3 December 1998: Washington Declaration (Washington Principles) - in French / in English
4 November 1999: resolution adopted by the Council of Europe
5 October 2000: Vilnius Declaration
30 June 2009 : Terezin statement - in French / in English

Case law

Jurisprudence in France concerning cultural property «MNR»

1999, Court of Appeal, Gentili di Giuseppe: Court of Appeal of Paris_02.06.1999
2001, Court of Appeal, Karaim
2002, Tribunal de Grande Instance, Grandidier
2008, Tribunal de Grande Instance, MNR 591
2009, Council of State, MNR 973
2010, Tribunal de Grande Instance, L-Rosenberg
2014, Council of State, REC-129-141-155: Council of States_30.07.2014_REC 129-141-155 / Art State Tip / HEDARY conclusions on EC-30.07.2014
2017-2018_affaire-Vollard: TA_26.10.2017_Incompétence-MCC_Vollard / CA_03.07.2018_Incompétence-TGI_Vollard

Jurisprudence in France concerning other cultural property

1945, case law and commentary: Gaz-Pal_1945-2 / Gaz-Pal_CA_Bordeaux_31-07-1945 / Gaz-Pal_CA_Paris_27-08-1945 / Gaz-Pal_CA_Paris_05-11-1945 / Gaz-Pal_Doctrine_Paul-Esmein
1946, Case Law and Comments: Dalloz_1946_30e_et_31e_especes_4et16-01-1946 / Dalloz_1946_29-03-1946 / Gaz-Pal_1946_p28-30 / Gaz-Pal_1946_p52-58
1947, Case Law and Commentary: Dalloz_1947_Cass_civ_04-06-1947
1948, Doctrine: JCP_1948_735
1949, case law and commentary: Dalloz_1949_Cass_civ_05-04-1949 / Dalloz_1950_C-Paris_29-10-1949 / JCP_1950_5314
1968, a principle: Legifrance_Cass_civ_19.02.1968
2017-2020, Bauer case: Cour-Cass_11.09.2019_QPC_Bauer / Cour-Cassation_01.07.2020_Bauer
2019-2020, Gimpel case: TGI_29.08.2019_Gimpel / CA_Decision_30.09.2020_Gimpel

Bibliography

The bibliography the history of the plunder of cultural property during the Second World War. It includes general works, works on art collections, books and libraries, musical instruments; Paris, museums, the art market, during the war; the post-war period, trials, reparations, restitution; institutional relationships; testimony about the period and current family accounts.

The 2008 exhibition “Whose paintings were these?”

In 2008, the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the Direction des Musées de France and the Réunion des musées nationaux, in collaboration with the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, organized an exhibition entitled: "Whose paintings were these?" It was held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem from February 18, 2008 to June 3, 2008 and then at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism in Paris from June 24, 2008 to September 28, 2008. This exhibition presented 53 paintings each evoking various aspects of plunder and restitution in France. The paintings exhibited are still presented online on the Israel Museum website in Jerusalem.

The exhibition was accompanied by a bilingual French and English catalogue written by Isabelle le Masne de Chermont, General Curator of Heritage, and Laurence Sigal-Klagsbald, Director of the Museum of Art and History of Judaism, published by the Reunion of National Museums. The texts of the catalogue explain in detail the context and the dispossession of cultural property. Thanks to the friendliness of both authors and to the editor’s understanding, some of the catalogue’s texts are accessible below.

Reference of the book: To whom did these paintings belong? La politique française de recherche de provenance, de garde et de restitution des œuvres d'art pillées durant la Seconde guerre mondiale / Looking for owners: French policy for provenance research, restitution and custody of art stolen in France during World War Two; ISBN 978-2-7118-5543-8).

The looting of works of art in France during the occupation: organized and large-scale actions
Art looting in France during the occupation: far-reaching and concerted actions
The extent of post-war restitution: the policy of reconstituting the artistic patrimonies of the occupied countries
The large scale of post-war restitution: the restoration policy of the cultural heritage of the occupied countries
New Approaches to Looting Art from the 1990s to the Present [2008]
New approaches of art looting from the 1990s till today [2008]

NB: In the catalogue, the system of notes is published at the end of all introductions; for convenience, the notes appear here at the end of each text; it follows that calls for notes do not necessarily start at number 1.