70 Years Later, Art Still Being Claimed (But Not Always Given Back)

Nowadays, we can put everything online. I can store everything from my medical records to my birthday pictures on one service or another. The Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against German and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has taken this one step further by creating the first online database to help people reclaim artwork that was stolen from them during the Holocaust. Though European countries have created post-war agencies where families can document their losses, there has never been such a centralized system. (Read the Time Magazine Article HERE).

However, other reports have been popping up in the New York Times (HERE and HERE) which illustrate that reclaiming art may not be any easier. While Nazi records help trace the provenance of many works of art, countries like Hungary don't have those kinds of records. This makes reclaiming art very difficult, especially when works are put into national museums or bought by someone else. While America and many European countries have laws about stolen property, there are no established laws for rightful ownership in regards to displaced works from World War II. In cases like Deweerth v.Baldinger 38 F. 3d (2nd Cir. N.Y. 1994) a German woman sued a New Yorker over the possession of a Monet painting. The American courts found for  the defendant because the German could not show how the painting escaped her possession. If this case sets a standard for subsequent cases filed in the United States, Europeans who stolen art will have a troublesome time making out a case. Not only are the records of artworks' whereabouts scant during the mid-nineteenth century, but it is inevitable that governments like Hungary will fight to keep works of art in their museums.