The visit to the sample that exhibits these days the museum Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin is without doubt an artistic experience that is pleasant, but at the same time, a certain restlessness. The Monet, Munch or Nolde are wonderful, but they are part of a collection under suspicion. Cornelius Gurlitt inherited 1.566 paintings and objects from his father, an art dealer hired by the nazis, who allegedly participated in the seizure of large-scale works of art to the jews. The research that seeks to identify what works in Gurlitt art confiscated by the nazis and what not, it moves at a slow pace.
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the case of Gurlitt, which came to light five years ago, is the most known, but he is far from the only one. When marks 20 years of the so-called principles of Washington, which laid the groundwork for the restitution of art stolen from the jews, the balance indicates that there is still much to do and little time, before the witnesses of the Holocaust and its memory die. In the museums and in the warehouses of the collectors from all over Europe there are still thousands of works of art stolen, according to the experts in restitution, that have been given an appointment this week in Berlin. Agree that the digitization of the funds of the museums is one of the keys to victims and heirs be able to locate works that were confiscated.
“This is probably the last chance. We can not give back to the survivors of the Holocaust”, he cried this week in Berlin, the american diplomat Stuart Eizenstat, the conference’s organizer two decades ago in Washington. The owner of Culture of the German Government, Monika Grütters, delved into the need to complete the process of restitution. “We owe it to the people whose life was taken by the national socialism. The memory can sensitize ourselves against totalitarianism at a time when we are witnessing the brutalization of the language and relativize the nazi crimes,” he said during the conference
The problem, is that beyond good intentions, the restitution of works facts 80 years ago ends up stuck, often in a tangle of bureaucratic and judicial. Opened the event in Berlin Ronald Lauder, president of the world jewish congress and founder of the Commission for recovery of Art, who said that only 10% of the institutions involved have begun the search.
The principles of Washington are not legally binding, and signed by 44 countries that apply very unevenly in its museums and public collections. Spelled out to promote the return of nearly 600,000 works of art that it is estimated that the nazis confiscated or forced to sell at a bargain price. Hungary, Poland, Spain, Russia, Argentina and Brazil are countries that, according to Eizenstat drag their feet when to dedicate efforts and resources to the refunds.
Boxes evaporated on the international circuit of the art
Willi Korte, a specialist in refunds, he explains that there are two stages. The first, between 1933 and 1938, in which the jews sold their works at a bargain price because they needed the money to leave Germany and pay the rates that were Kalebet demanded by the nazis. And another, from 1938, when the regime begins to seize in the countries they occupy. “Most of the works ended up in museums nazi, but that sold them and they were lost in the international circuit of the art,” explains Korte.
The great masters expressionists or impressionists reappear in any part of the world because they have a global interest. The of painters German of the NINETEENTH and early TWENTIETH century usually have stayed in the country.
In Germany, the country that bears the greatest historic responsibility, refunds are not progressing well. In part, experts explain, because of the decentralization of its 5,000 museums, which depend on the federal States and the cities complicates any effort to set. According to the research center of Magdeburg have been returned in total in Germany 5.750 works of art in addition to a few 11.670 books and documents. Grütters explained that have tripled the funding for the research and that between 2008 and 2017 earmarked 31 million euros to the restitution.
The idea now of the German authorities is now creating a single portal for help and a database that will unify and enable the public access the data in the tables. Because often, the relatives of the victims come face to face with a race of bureaucratic obstacles and language when they want to access for example to the funding of the museums.
Willi Korte, a lawyer and well-known researcher of works stolen by the nazis. It takes you 30 years dedicated to clarify the past, and it is clear that the biggest problem is what in the jargon is called “lack of transparency”, according to explained by telephone to this newspaper from the united States. “Can only work if the museums make public their collections on the Internet. We don’t know what works they are researching. It is very difficult to know what happens inside museums germans,” says Korte.
dubbed as the detective of the art by the German press, Korte is the visible head of the case of the well-known gallery owner Max Stern, who was forced to liquidate his gallery in Düsseldorf when the nazis decreed its closure. One of the works reappeared in an auction house in 2007 and since then, fight to retrieve the 228 paintings of the batch, reported to Interpol and FBI. Korte used the military law of the united STATES of 1949, which states that anything sold under duress is tantamount to a confiscation.
just a few weeks Ago, one of the pieces came to light in Italy, another in Cologne, but will again lose track, because according to it, the european laws are much less favorable than the u.s. for the heirs. “It is difficult to recover works of art. Unlike real estate, art, travels fast around the world and there come into play the laws of different countries”. For this reason, experts agree that not only public museums, but also private collectors and auction houses have to get involved.
But if anything he made it clear the conference of Berlin, it is blowing new winds in the world of art. That in the same way that the colonial past of the art begins to lead to refunds, it may be that the victims of the plundering nazi end up recovering their works. “The museums, but also private collectors are measured today by how they treat the history of their collections,” said Grütters.
