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Art looted by the Nazis: the difficult quest for recovery
September 7, 1997
Web posted at: 5:21 p.m. EDT (2121 GMT)From Correspondent Gary Tuchman
NEW YORK (CNN) -- When Nazi German forces occupied most of Europe in World War II, it not only resulted in the deportation and deaths of millions of Jews, but also led to one of the most systematic government-supported art robberies and lootings in modern history.
Watch Gary Tuchman's two-part series.
Stolen art investigator Willie Korte described it as "the biggest art looting operation in the history of mankind." It was looting "sponsored, conducted and supported" by fascist Nazi Germany, he said.
"They had lists of every painting all over Europe. They knew exactly where they were, which ones were targeted and what they wanted," said Nick Goodman, who has been trying to reclaim art looted from his grandparents.
Goodman said that his grandfather sent his art collection to France, where he thought it would be safe. But all the paintings that were sent to Paris were stolen.
Goodman's grandparents were Christians, as an earlier generation converted from Judaism. But the Nazis discovered that his grandfather had one Jewish grandparent. That was enough for the Nazis to declare the whole family Jewish and deprive them of any rights, Goodman said.
In other cases, like that of Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski-Borbon, a descendant of Polish royalty now living in London, Nazi German occupation meant the loss of their former palaces and the works of art inside them.
When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, the German invaders occupied the aristocratic palaces in Kracow and confiscated thousands of priceless paintings.
The Nazis took possession of paintings by classic artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and Rembrandt, as well as more recent painters like Renoir, Degas or Picasso.
Czartoryski's family is still missing the Renaissance painting "Portrait of a Young Man" by Raphael.
Another 400-year-old portrait from Czartorisky's family is "A portrait of lady" by the Dutch artist Jan Mostaert.
Goodman's family is still trying to prove its rights to Degas' "Landscape with Smokestacks." That painting has been owned by an American art collector for 10 years. Daniel Searle, the former chairman of Searle Pharmaceutical, bought the painting legitimately from a previous owner in 1987.
A court in Illinois will have to decide in February if Searle must hand it over to Goodman.
The Art Loss Register in New York is a main data base of nearly 100,000 works reported lost. This register already helped recover $40 million worth of works of art to their rightful owners.
"A thief takes possession of what is stolen, but legal ownership resides with the theft victim. It does not pass to the thief's buyers," said Connie Lowenthal of the International Fund for Art Research.
But tracing the rightful owners is difficult. "Unfortunately, the collectors, buyers and sellers of works of art have traditionally paid little, if any, attention to the provenance of a work of art in terms of its ownership history," Korte told CNN.
Art dealers and auction houses such as Sotheby's say they routinely check the ownership history to the best of their ability and never knowingly sell stolen work.
But then, with different claimants, ownership cases now often end up in the courts. And proving ownership by document can be difficult, particularly as the looting was done during times of war, when staying alive was more important than saving documents on art ownership.
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