Exhibition: Looting and Restitution: Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present at the Jewish Museum Berlin

Exhibition: Looting and Restitution: Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present at the Jewish Museum Berlin

(ISJM) Sixty years after the end of the war, looting and restitution of Jewish cultural artifacts remains a topic of intense interest and relevance. The Jewish Museum Berlin will open an exhibition later the month that addresses numerous open questions and unsolved cases. The exhibition Looting and Restitution. Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present narrates the historical events, context, and consequences of the looting carried out by the Nazis throughout Europe.

According to the Museum, "the exhibition tracks what happened to individual cultural artifacts confiscated by the Nazis - from paintings and libraries through porcelain to silverware and private photos - and the fates of their rightful Jewish owners. Alongside well-known names such as the Rothschild family or the art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, long-forgotten collections such as Sigmund Nauheim's Judaica collection and the pianist Wanda Landowska's collection of historical musical instruments will also be shown. The exhibition also looks at those who profited from and played an active role in the looting. It highlights Nazi organizations such as "Sonderauftrag Linz" and "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg" and the disreputable role played by museums, libraries, and art dealers. Not least, the exhibition looks at the shortfalls and inadequacies of the politics of restitution following the war, and the claims that were not settled at the time which shape the current debate."

Exhibition previews begin 18 September 2008

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