Historical and legal documentation
The looting of the artistic heritage held by the Jews was organized in France by the German occupier and the Vichy government. The restitutions begin at the end of 1944 and continue until today, relying on legislative texts and international commitments.
The dispossession of cultural property
Restitutions from 1944 to the early 1950s
Continuation and relaunch of the process at international and national level
Legal texts and international commitments
Jurisprudence
Bibliography
The 2008 exhibition «To whom did these paintings belong?»
Between July 1940 and August 1944, the looting of the artistic heritage held by the Jews (works of art, works of art, books and manuscripts, musical instruments) was organized in France by the German occupier and the Vichy government.
Looting and plunder take 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 the apartments of the Jews by the Dienststelle Westen (Service West) began in 1942. Among the looted furniture may be works of art, which are generally transferred to the ERR.
- The Vichy government implemented a policy of «aryanisation» aimed at excluding Jews from all sectors of the economy. The Law of 22 July 1941 provides for the provisional administration of all property belonging to persons considered to be Jewish, with the exception of their principal residence, and their sale for the benefit of the State. The Vichy government created an administration specifically responsible for «aryanisation»: the Commissariat général aux questions juives (CGQJ), which appointed the provisional administrators. The «aryanisation» reached the entire Jewish population and all professions, including art and antique dealers for their business and collectors for their personal belongings. The dispossession takes place by the sale or liquidation of the property; the provisional administrator proposes to the CGQJ a sale if the company or the property have a financial interest, or liquidation otherwise. 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 forced sales due to circumstances, with selling owners often having to accept a price lower than the real value of the property.
It is estimated that the ERR’s seizures against Jewish collectors and art dealers amounted to about 40,000 works, looted from more than 200 people in France and Belgium.
From November 1944 until December 1949, a Commission de récupération artistique (CRA) was in charge of research into the recovery of works of art, in liaison with the Office des biens et intérêts privés, which ensured their restitution. The works are found mainly in deposits discovered by Allied troops in Germany and Austria.
The complaints to the Commission relate to approximately 100,000 works and works of art. About 45,000 were returned to their rightful owners between 1944 and 1950, 13,000 sold by the Domains, and more than 2,200 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 works of art are commonly identified today by the acronym «MNR» (National Museums Recovery), although it refers, in the strict sense, only to ancient paintings.
Restitution ceased in the mid-1950s, and the last claims for compensation of works of art by Germany were closed in the 1970s.
In the 1990s, the issue of stolen goods became more relevant in a new context. Interest in the memory of the Holocaust, the fall of the Soviet bloc, the reunification of Germany, access to archives, the arrival of a new generation of rights holders and researchers, scientific publications lead to the conclusion of several international commitmentsThese include, 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 spoliation of the Jews of France, called «Mission Mattéoli», in 1997, tasked with investigating all areas of dispossession, including art objects, relaunched the research and reactivated the restitution process.
The history is given in more detail in the chapters below.
The 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, plunder 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, with 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, les Bernheim-Jeune).
TheEinsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) , originally in charge of the operations of seizure of libraries and archives to lead the «fight against Judaism and Freemasonry» and led by the theoretician 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, the ERR gathered at the Musée du Jeu de Paume, in the Tuileries Garden, more than 400 cases of confiscated works, while continuing to use the first storage places opened in the summer of 1940, at the Louvre Museum (referred to as the «Louvre’s sequester») or the German embassy.
Rose Valland, 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 private collections that she saw passing through the museum and communicated information to Jacques Jaujard, director of the National Museums.
In December 1940, Hitler authorized the release from France of the works seized by the ERR. Between April 1941 and July 1944, 4,174 crates containing more than 20,000 lots were shipped to Germany.
From May 1942, the Möbel-Aktion («Action Meuble») loots the apartments left vacant by the internment, arrest or flight of their Jewish occupants. The collected works of art and valuable cultural assets are handed over to the ERR.
At the same time, in July 1941, the Commissariat général aux questions juives, created by the Vichy government, was given the right to appoint provisional administrators who could liquidate the property of the Jews for the benefit of «aryan» acquirers. The owners are deprived of the benefit of the sale, confiscated by the provisional administrator who placed their property under receivership.
The art market was very dynamic throughout the Occupation and participated in the plunder by promoting the sales of seized and «aryanised» goods. The Hôtel Drouot, in Paris, obtained permission to resume its auction business in September 1940.
Some works of art called «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 to be used for exchanges against old paintings available on the art market, in France and Switzerland.
The ERR seizures against Jewish art collectors and dealers are estimated to be about 20,000 works, the number of goods (works of art and movable cultural goods, excluding books) looted in France and sent to Germany to about 100,000, and the number of stolen books at least 5 million.
Restitutions from 1944 to the early 1950s
Following the Allied Declaration of London of 5 January 1943, the French Committee of National Liberation adopted 12 November 1943 an order declaring the nullity of acts of plunder carried out by or under the control of the enemy. The Provisional Government of the French Republic, constituted on June 2, 1944, undertakes that the restitution of the stolen property is an integral part of the reparations due by Germany.
The specificity of the problems posed by the identification and localization of cultural property led to the creation in November 1944 of a Artistic recovery commission (CRA) under the Ministry of National Education and based at the Jeu de Paume. The CRA is responsible for research related to the recovery of works of art, historical memorabilia, precious objects, archival documents and books and manuscripts, removed 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 on the territory of the former Reich. Indeed, from May 1945, deposits of works looted by the ERR were discovered by the allied armies, thanks in particular to the information provided by Rose Valland. The works found (stolen, confiscated, legally traded or sold under duress, but also the goods bought by Germans and sold out of any constraint) are collected in consolidation points (Collecting Points), established in each occupation zone in West Germany, before being repatriated.
The restitution proceedings are opened on the basis of a declaration made by the owners or their successors in title to the Office of Private Property and Interests (OBIP), which reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or directly to the CRA. Wherever possible, applications must be supported by supporting documents: lists of works, attestations, photographs.
For the books, Jenny Delsaux, librarian at the Sorbonne, joined in 1945 the newly established sub-committee of books (SCL) within the Artistic Recovery Commission (ARC). It is responsible for organizing the activities of the subcommittee: find the repositories of the looted collections, both on French territory and in Germany and in other eastern countries, have them transported to Paris, classify them, then identify the owners victims of dispossession to return their property. The SCL has recovered about 1.2 million volumes, of which it has been able to return or allocate a large share to the looted owners or their successors. A majority of the books bore no ownership marks, making the work of the sub-commission particularly difficult. The identified works bearing the name of their owner – ex-libris or handwritten name - were immediately returned.
The activity of the Commission de récupération artistique ceases on 31 December 1949, after reviewing more than 2,400 applications and allowing 61,233 objects and works of art to be returned to France. Over 45,000 of them have been returned to their owners or beneficiaries.
The administration of the Domains is responsible for selling what has not been claimed. However, museums argue that the importance of certain assets requires special treatment. In September 1949, two commissions of choice were appointed to select, one among works and works of art, the other among books and manuscripts, the pieces of most interest according to various criteria - including artistic interest, but not only.
More than 2,200 works of art are retained and recorded on an inventory now called “National Museums Recovery” (MNR). These works are deposited in the national museums and may, in case of spoliation, be returned to their legitimate owner; the State is only the provisional holder.
A number of stolen books and documents have been deposited into French public collections through two processes:
- The Commission de choix des livres, chaired by Julien Cain, administrator of the National Library and director of the Directorate of Libraries and Public Reading 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 looted owners, these documents were later integrated into the collections, most of the time without mention of their origin.
- At the same time, the Books Sub-Committee sold nearly 294,000 damaged books to the Domaine administration, of which nearly 60,000 were sold at very low prices to 43 public libraries. If the origin of these purchases has often been lost, the Diplomatic Archives keep a number of lists and the inventories and entry registers of libraries sometimes make it possible to trace them.
After the closure of the CRA in late 1949, the issue of restitution remains under the responsibility of the OBIP. Between 1950 and 1955, 41 MNR properties were returned. The OBIP investigates cases in collaboration with the Department for the Protection of Works of Art (Direction des musées nationaux), headed by Rose Valland. Until the early 1960s, the latter continued to carry out investigations and, in particular, to exchange information with the services of the Federal Republic of Germany.
From the Paris Agreements of October 23, 1954, the treatment of stolen property still in Germany changed: it is now up to the German Federal Government to pursue research under its sole authority and to carry outeven refunds. With the law of 19 July 1957, known as the BRüG law, the Federal Republic of Germany set up a procedure for compensation for spoliations, including works of art not found.
The last works of art compensation cases were closed in the 1970s, and the subject of the dispossession of cultural property disappeared from public debate until the mid-1990s.
Continuation and relaunch of the process at international and national level
The subject of stolen property, whether you or forgotten for nearly 40 years, came back to the fore in the mid-1990s, in the more general context of the new interest in the Second World War and the Holocaust, at a time when we were beginning to fear the disappearance of the last survivors and to wonder about memory and its transformations. At the same time, therefore, the issue of cultural property plundered emerged.
In France, from 1995
Following the recognition of France’s responsibility in the 1995 deportation of Jews by the President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, the issue of cultural property that had been looted resurfaced in France – as in other countries. The movement is encouraged by two works. The looting of Europe, by Lynn Nicholas, published in 1994, is the first historical approach to the issue; The museum disappeared. Investigation into 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 Directorate of Museums of France and the Directorate of Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a colloquium entitled «Looting and restitution: the fate of works released from France during the Second World War». The MNR database is then made available to the public; it includes a description 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 spoliation of the Jews of France», chaired by Jean Mattéoli, one of whose projects concerns 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 Mattéoli Mission, the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation Caused by Anti-Semitic Legislation in force during the Occupation (CIVS). It is responsible for examining individual claims submitted by victims or their successors in title for compensation for damages resulting from the dispossession of property due to the occupier or the Vichy authorities.
In the world
In parallel, an international conference on the spoliation of Jewish cultural property during the Second World War was held in Washington. On December 3, 1998, representatives of 44 governments adopted a set of principles aimed at helping heirs of Jewish owners to find works of art stolen by the Nazis.
The « washington principles » can be summarized 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 looted, a “fair and equitable solution” must be quickly found.
These principles mark a decisive step in encouraging the resumption of searches for provenance, facilitating the submission of applicants' applications and speeding up and simplifying restitution procedures. They are reaffirmed at the Forum on Cultural Property Looted during the Holocaust, held in 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 restitution requests. In 2009, 46 countries adopted the Terezin’s Statement, which affirms the moral commitment to implement good practices in research and restitution of stolen works.
These principles are completed on March 5, 2024. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Principles of the Washington Conference, more than 20 countries adopted and made public on March 5, 2024 proposals («Best Practices») - non-binding - to clarify and improve the implementation of these Principles.
As with the Washington Principles, the signatory states recall that these «Best Practices» can only be applied in accordance with their domestic law.
Discover the Best Practices: https://www.state.gov/best-practices-for-the-washington-conference-principles-on-nazi-confiscated-art/
The Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (“Claims Conference”) and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) produced a report in the form of a review and evaluation of the practices of the 47 countries that adopted the Washington Conference Principles.
Research and retrieval
Research and mobilization allow many restitution. Between 1994 and 2012, France returned 63 works and cultural objects MNR or equivalent.
Between 2013 and 2021, 66 works and cultural property MNR or equivalent are returned.
Since 2018-2019, a new impetus
In 2018, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe wanted to give new impetus to the policy of research and restitution of cultural property. Referring to the issue in July 2018 during the commemoration of the Vél’ d’Hiv’ roundup, 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, restitution, the procedure before the CIVS was modified and a new structure was created within the Ministry of Culture (General Secretariat) in April 2019: the «Mission of research and restitution of cultural property stolen between 1933 and 1945».
As an extension of the action carried out in previous years, but by strengthening it, the new organization brings more visibility to the research and restitution policy concerning public collections, and more coherence to the restitution procedure.
The competence of the CIVS is reaffirmed; it becomes competent for all cases relating to cultural property when the spoliation took place in France during the Occupation. Now, the families and rights holders of spoliated people know only one procedure with two complementary actors: the Ministry of Culture coordinates and studies the 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 the public collections may have been the subject of previous dispossession. Museums, often with the help of the Mission for the Research and Restitution of Cultural Property Looted between 1933 and 1945, therefore began to research the course of works acquired since 1933. The works with a blurred path between 1933 and 1945 are identified in order to clarify their provenance and, if necessary, identify the owner who was robbed for their restitution.
Book and library returns
After the immediate post-war restitutions operated by the Commission de récupération artistique, the restitutions were extremely few, or even non-existent before 2017 and the remission, in March, by the Bibliothèque nationale de France to the family of Victor Basch of a book which came from the library of the latter.
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
Fundamental texts endorsed by the international community
5 January 1943: solemn declaration of London
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 (English)
30 June 2009 : Terezin Statement - in French / in English
March 5, 2024: Best Practices for the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art
Selection of French laws and regulations relating to disposals
- 12 November 1943: Ordinance on the Nullity of Acts of Dispossession
- 9 August 1944: Ordinance on the Restoration of Republican Legality
- September 29, 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 dispossession carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the subject of acts of disposition
- 24 November 1944: Order for the creation of the Commission de récupération artistique
- 11 April 1945: Ordinance on the Devolution of State Property
- 21 April 1945: order for the second application of the order of 12 November 1943 on the nullity of acts of dispossession carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the subject 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 dispossession carried out by or under the control of the enemy and enacting restitution to the victims of those acts of their property which have been the subject of acts of disposition
- 30 September 1949: decree terminating the activity of the CRA and definition of NCMs
- 13 May 1998: Decree on the opening of public archives for the period 1940-1945
- 10 November 1998: decree derogating from the consultation of archives
- 10 September 1999: Decree establishing the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Legislation in force during the Occupation (CIVS)
- 1 October 2018: decree amending the decree establishing the CIVS (and consolidated version of the decree of 10 September 1999 as amended)
- 21 February 2022: Law on the return or surrender of certain cultural property to the rights holders of their owners victims of anti-Semitic persecution enabled the restitution or delivery of 15 works from the public collections
- 22 July 2023: Law on the Restitution of Cultural Property Subject to Dispossession in the Context of Anti-Semitic Persecution between 1933 and 1945. This law creates in the heritage code a derogation from the principle of inalienability of public collections; it establishes a framework allowing the removal from the public domain of stolen property belonging to public collections in order to return them to their legitimate owners, without having to resort to specific legislation (“species laws”).
- January 5, 2024: Decree No. 2024-11 establishing a commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic dispossession and taken pursuant to Articles L. 115-3, L. 115-4 and L. 451-10-1 of the Heritage Code. This decree implementing the law of 22 July 2023 confirms the CIVS in its missions of compensation and also extends its jurisdiction on the issues of restitution of cultural property belonging to public or private collections and having been the subject of a plunder between 1933 and 1945.
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence in France concerning cultural property «MNR»
1999, Court of Appeal, Gentili di Giuseppe: Court of Appeal of Paris
2001, Court of Appeal, Karaim
2002, Court of First Instance, Grandidier
2008, Tribunal de Grande Instance, MNR 591
2009, Council of State, MNR 973
2010, District Court, L-Rosenberg
2014, Council of State, REC-129-141-155: Conseil d'Etat_30.07.2014_REC 129-141-155 / Board of States_Spoliation_oeuvres d_art / 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, jurisprudence and comments: 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, jurisprudence 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 Comments: Dalloz_1947_Cass_civ_04-06-1947
1948, Doctrine: JCP_1948_735
1949, case law and comments: 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 focus of the proposal is on the history of the dispossession of cultural property during the Second World War. It includes general works, works on collections of works of art, books and libraries, musical instruments; Paris, museums, the art market, during the war; post-war, trials, reparations, restitutions; institutional reports; testimonies on the period and current family narratives.
The 2008 exhibition «To whom did these paintings belong?»
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: "Who did these paintings belong to?" It was held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem from 18 February 2008 to 3 June 2008 and at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism in Paris from 24 June 2008 to 28 September 2008. This exhibition presented 53 paintings each evoking various aspects of plunder and restitution in France. The exhibited paintings are still presented online on the website of the Israel Museum 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, edited by the Réunion des musées nationaux. The texts of the catalogue explain in detail the context and the dispossession of cultural property. Thanks to the kindness of the two authors and the editor’s understanding, some texts of the catalogue are accessible below.
Book reference: "To whom did these paintings belong? 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 reconstructing the artistic heritage 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 Art Plunder from the 1990s to the Present [2008]
New approaches of art looting from the 1990s till today [2008]
NB: In the catalogue, the note system is published at the end of all introductions; for convenience, the notes appear here at the end of each text; as a result, calls for notes do not necessarily start at number 1.
Consult the other sections
- Request for restitution or compensation
- Mission, objectives and skills
- Stolen cultural property
- MNR and Base Rose Valland (MNR-Jeu de Paume)
- Provenance search, tools and method
- Museum and library professionals
- Partners
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