After a 4-year research period during which works acquired by approximately 400 museum institutions were analyzed between 1933 and the present, several German museums have identified 139 works of art now in there collections as possibly confiscated by the Nazi regime from their Jewish owners.
This is the second such investigation of the issue in museums and galleries across Germany. The first one took place almost a decade ago and focused on art acquired in the post-war period, between 1940 and 1948. On that occasion, the German government returned a total of 202 items to the daughter-in-law of Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer whose collection was dispersed during the war. One of those works, titled Episode From the Conquest of America, by Jan Mostaert, was later valued at $14 million.
After announcing the latest investigation in 2009, the director of the German Museum Association said that "new information: had surfaced that forced them to reformulate the process. "We know that there were doubtful transactions with regards to works acquired before 1940, after the Kistallnacht", said Siebe Weide. The Kristallnacht—the "night of broken glass"—was a coordinated attack on the Jewish population of Germany and Austria on November 9th and 10th, 1938, and it marked the beginning of a systematic campaign of terror that evolved into the Holocaust. Ninety one Jewish individuals died in the event, as Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues were vandalized and torched, and innumerable valuable objects and works of art were sacked. It is estimated that, in raids that continued through the entire WWII period, around 650,000 religious objects and artworks were stolen from their Jewish owners throughout Europe.
At a cost of 1.3 million Euros, the current investigation focused specifically in tracking the records of artwork acquisitions where a gap is evident. Among them are a Matisse and many works by German artists, including Isaac Israels, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky.
A website has been implemented to process claims by possible heirs to the items. They can identify them there and then proceed to establish a claim before the German Restitutions Committee. The complete list with the 139 works of art is available on the website since Tuesday, October 29th, 2013, at 4:00 pm.
Although many of these valuable objects have been recovered, thousands in private collections and in museums await identification.