Shauna Isaac, formerly The Central Registry for Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945, London, UK

Using the Internet to Find Looted Art: Success or Failure?

Keywords: looted art, World War II, Internet, Central Registry for Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945

It is estimated that over 100,000 objects looted by the Nazis during the World War II are still missing. Museums and government institutions from around the world have made information about looted objects, or objects with a dubious provenance, available on the Internet for anyone to view. This paper examines several websites that have posted object information online, and discusses their usability and effectiveness. First, some background information about Nazi-era looting and post-war restitution is presented in order to explain why so many objects are still missing.

Background

The Nazis set about systematically looting cultural property in every nation that they conquered. These orders came directly from Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a failed artist who became obsessed with owning art that conformed to the Nazi ideology. He falsely believed that most of the world’s finest art was Germanic in origin and was unrightfully taken from the Germans in earlier wars. He set about retrieving these objects and planned to house them in the Fuhrermuseum, a collection of galleries and museums based in his home town of Linz, Austria. Hitler set up organisations to confiscate specifically targeted public and private collections. The Third Reich amassed hundreds of thousands of objects from occupied nations and stored them in several key locations, such as Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Nazi headquarters in Munich. As the Allied forces gained advantage in the war, the Nazis began to hide the objects in places such as salt mines.

The Allies were aware of Nazi looting in Europe and began to plan a strategy for returning the pillaged objects to their rightful owners. In 1943, they set up a Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives (MFA&A) branch in an effort to protect art and architecture from damage during the Allied invasion. Their remit was extended when it became obvious how much art had been systematically looted from all over occupied Europe. The Allies collected thousands of looted artworks and needed a place to store them. It was decided that Munich would be the most obvious location for a collection point, since it was central and near several Nazi storage areas. ¹ Ironically, the MFA&A team was able to secure the Fuhrerbau in Munich, Hitler’s former headquarters, as their central collection point.

In May 1945, MFA&A officers were assisted by the Office of the Secret Service Art Looting Investigation Unit, which consisted of museum curators and art historians. They collected vast amounts of data from Nazi records, which made it possible to determine the provenance of many items.

The Allies agreed that identifiable works of art should be returned to the countries from which they were taken, and the countries could then return the artworks to the proper owners.² Representatives from throughout Europe came to claim their lost treasures. Both the British and American governments agreed that art should not be part of reparation, but the Soviets disagreed. The Soviet Union felt it was their right to plunder Germany of its artefacts as retaliation, and a special sector of the Red Army, known as the Trophy Brigade, confiscated major works of art from Germany. After the war, the Allies were committed to return the cultural objects they had recovered, but when the Munich collection point was closed in 1951, there were still many objects that were not returned, and they left some $30 billion (in 1995 US dollars) worth of art unaccounted for. ³

What happened in recent history affects the Western world even today. Press articles bring to the public’s attention the fact that spoils are re-surfacing on the art market, and that famous museums have Nazi-era looted art in their collections. These issues were addressed in 1998, at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets. Delegates from 44 countries met in Washington DC to discuss ways to improve restitution for Holocaust-era looted art. At the end of the conference, all delegates in attendance signed a non-binding declaration stating that “Every effort should be made to publicise art that is found to have been confiscated by the Nazis” and that “efforts should be made to establish a central registry of such information.” There was also a breakout session of the conference that focused on the identification of art, archives and databases, which emphasised the role of technology in helping to find looted cultural property. In the sixty years after the war, survivors and their families are scattered all over the world and objects move from place to place due to the international nature of the art market. Given the global scope of the Internet, it seems to be the ideal tool for helping to reunite owners with their missing objects, but how successful has this been?

Since the advent of the Washington Conference, many museums and government institutions have set up websites with searchable databases for the purpose of the identification and recovery of looted art. In order for someone effectively to locate an artwork, websites that list objects should be easy to use and have a searchable database. The most helpful databases allow for searches on the following criteria: name of the artist, title of the object, object type and provenance. If possible, they should include images of the objects to help with identification. They should also be accessible to as many people as possible. It would be most helpful if national websites were in their native language as well as the languages of those most likely to access the website. ⁴ Content falls into essentially three categories: objects that were looted and whose whereabouts are known, objects that were looted and whose whereabouts are unknown, and objects from museums that contain gaps in their provenance from 1933-1945.

Czech Republic

The Czech ‘Restitution-Art’ database (www.restitution-art.cz, 1 November 2003) falls into the category of websites where the locations of the objects are known, but the rightful owners are unknown. It was created by the Czech Ministry of Culture in conjunction with the Moravian Museum in Brno and lists over 3,200 works of art that were looted from either public or private collections which are currently housed in over a dozen State Museums throughout the Czech Republic. The website is presented in both Czech and English, which makes it accessible to a wide number of users. The search engine allows searches by artist, title of object, provenance, current location and object type. The English version is somewhat cryptic in that the provenance field is called ‘acquired from.’ The website contains images if they are available, but many of the images are large and take a long time to load. Unfortunately, the website design lacks coherence and the information from different museums there is structured inconsistently. The Czech government is committed to carrying out research and has established a Centre for Documentation; sadly, there is nothing in their remit about finding the remaining family members of the rightful owners that are listed on their website. ⁵ In March 2003, 135 objects from the family of Arthur Feldmann were restituted from the Moravian Gallery in Brno, but the website has not been updated to reflect this.

France

The French government also has a website that contains approximately 2000 looted objects whose rightful owners are unknown. After the war, French officials were able to locate and return over 45,000 works of art to their proper owners, but 15,000 objects were left unclaimed. In 1949, the Office des Biens Privés (Office of Private Possessions) decreed that the Direction des Musées de France (DMF) could hold 2,000 of the remaining works for safekeeping. The decree stipulated that these objects, known as Musées Nationaux Récupération or MNRs, would not be owned by the museums, and should be listed in separate inventories from those of state-owned collections. The DMF has published the MNRs on the Embassy of France website (www.culture.gouv.fr/documentation/mnr/pres.htm, 1 November 2003). This website is only available in French, and contains six search fields, which include searches by artist, title and provenance. The results page returns the name of the artist, the title, medium and two icons. If there is an image available for viewing, it is represented by an icon of the Mona Lisa. Clicking on the Mona Lisa icon will bring up an image of the work of art. In order to receive full details, one must click on an icon that looks like a page. The full results page provides many details, including information about an object’s provenance if it is available. The usability of the website has improved since it was first launched, since more information is now available, and the icons provide clues about how to access it. There has been no press as to whether or not any MNRs have been claimed since the site went live or if they have been returned to their rightful owners.

The Netherlands

The Dutch government also had several works of art that were confiscated and then recuperated after World War II, and whose rightful owners are not known. These are called the Nederlands Kunstbezit-collectie or the NK collection. The government created a website to display these objects called ‘Origins Unknown’ (www.originsunknown.org, 1 November 2003). The website came about as a result of a study carried out by the Secretary of State for Education, Culture and Science. It was set up in 1998 following a pilot study on the research of the provenance of these objects. There are approximately 4,000 objects still in state custody and housed in Dutch museums, embassies abroad and government buildings. ⁶

The Origins Unknown team adopted a database that was being used by the Netherlands Institute of Cultural Heritage, but the team spent a great deal of time researching the best way to transfer their archival data into a user-friendly format for the web. The result is a highly efficient and well-organised website. The site is in both Dutch and English, and searches can be conducted by an artist’s name, the title of the object and by provenance. There is also an undirected search field that lets the user combine searches or search via the NK inventory number. Unfortunately, this last search field is not intuitive since it provides no clues about what can be searched. The results are displayed with images in an easy to read format. The Dutch government recently returned 233 works owned by Eugene Guttmann. The family filed this claim prior to the launch of the website, but there are still objects that belonged to Eugene Guttmann on the website, and it is unclear if these are among the ones that were restituted.

Germany

The German website of the Coordination Office of Lost Cultural Assets (www.lostart.de, 1 November 2003) contains looted objects whose whereabouts are both known and unknown. In 1994 the German Federal States created a department to deal with cultural property removed from Germany during World War II, in particular, losses items looted by the Red Army. After the Washington Conference, the German Government extended the scope of the department to include cultural property looted by the Nazis.

The website lists over 37,000 objects. Most of these are missing from German museums, but it also contains objects that are still unclaimed from the Central Collection Point in Munich. Unfortunately, the website is confusing and difficult to use. Even though the website is in German, English and Russian, neither the English nor the German versions give concise explanations of the remit of the website or clear instructions on how the search engine works. It describes artworks that are currently in museums and part of the Munich Collection Point as ‘found’ objects, and calls works of art that were taken from German museums ‘search’ objects. Until very recently, the only way to search the objects was by clicking on a non-descript icon of either a magnifying glass or flowchart providing no visual or written explanation of what it does. When a user does find the detailed text search, they are able to search using the usual fields: artist, title, object type and provenance. The results pages contain information about the artist, title and object type, but the provenance information is rarely available online and one must write to the Coordination Office in order to obtain more information. The website does, however, contain a unique and helpful picture search, where a user can choose an object type, such as a painting, then keep narrowing down fields (portrait/portrait of a man, etc). This is very useful if someone does not know the artist or title of an object but has a recollection of what the item looked like. Unfortunately, not all objects listed have pictures. The website was recently updated, which makes it easier to navigate and find the search fields, but it is still unintuitive. This website contains extremely useful information, but it needs a more comprehensive update to make it easier to retrieve the necessary data. The Coordination Office also handles claims, but they have not published any statistics on how many people have filed claims or whether or not any objects listed on the website have been restituted.

Many websites publish objects that are currently in the custody of various government agencies, but could not be returned after the War. There are many countries, especially in Eastern Europe, where institutions have kept detailed records of objects that were looted from them but do not know where they are now, or if they even exist. To date, there is no publicly available searchable online database of objects that were looted and whose whereabouts are unknown.

Poland and Hungary

Two examples of countries that have had objects looted from them, but do not know of their whereabouts are Poland and Hungary. Both the Polish and the Hungarian governments have published catalogues of objects missing from their collections. Neither has ventured to put fully searchable databases online, but they have both agreed to transfer their publications to the Central Registry’s database. The Polish Ministry of Culture has published seven books with over 7,000 objects looted from either public buildings or private individuals. The objects range from antiquities and paintings to bells (over 1,200 bells are listed that were most likely melted down for ammunition). Even though these may no longer exist, it is still important to document them. The Hungarian National Gallery, in conjunction with a private researcher, has published a book called Sacco di Budapest which is meticulously researched. This book lists over 2,200 objects from both public and private collections that were looted by either the Nazis or the Red Army. Some of the objects have been located in Russian museums, but no known steps have been taken to return them.

Objects with Gaps in their Provenance

The third type of websites are those created by museums whose collections contain objects with gaps in their provenance between 1933-1945. Museums as far away as Canada and Australia have begun to post such websites, but the two largest national databases have been created in the United Kingdom and in the USA.

United Kingdom

In June 1998, the National Museum Directors' Conference (NMDC) in the United Kingdom established a working group to look at the issues surrounding Nazi-era looted art and to draw up a statement of principles and proposed actions for member institutions. This included identifying objects with gaps in their provenance 1933-1945. The National Museum Directors’ Conference published the results of their research online in February 2000 (www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/spoliation.html, 1 November 2003). There are approximately 2,500 museums, galleries and libraries in the UK and the majority contain collections that are mostly of British origin or acquired prior to 1933 or after 1945 and are unlikely to hold works that were looted. To date, 23 national museums and 22 non-national museums have conducted provenance research on their collections and posted the information on the NMDC website. This is an excellent example of one of the first museum consortiums to go online on a national level. Vigorous standards were created to display the object and provenance information, which the member institutions conformed to before publishing their reports.

When the website first went live, it was not searchable and a user would have to rummage through a long list from each museum. In March 2003, the information was transferred into a searchable database and posted online. The user can now search over 3,000 objects by artist, title, object type and provenance. The results display matches from different museums, and one can click on a link to see the detailed results. As thorough as this list is, it does not contain images of the artworks. Arguments against posting images online are that it could lead to copyright problems and could put museums in a bad light with donors who do not want to have any association with looted art. It is a disappointment that the NMDC has not included posting images online as part of their requirements.

So far, one claim has been launched against a national museum that has seen its way to resolution. A family came forward to claim a painting displayed in the Tate. The claim was brought to the Spoliation Advisory Panel, which was set up by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to adjudicate on claims made against British national museums and galleries. The Panel upheld the claim and awarded an ex gratia payment to the claimant. It is interesting to note that this claim was made prior to the lists being posted on the NMDC website.

USA

The most recent addition to national museums posting provenance information online is in the USA. In September 2003, the American Association of Museums launched the Nazi-era provenance Internet portal (www.nepip.org, 1 November 2003). This grew out of a set of procedures recommended by American Museums for investigating Nazi-era cultural assets, calling for research into the provenance of US museum collections and making that data available to the public. The website acts as a portal to over 70 participating museums with over 8,400 registered objects. The participating museums are required to provide information about the artist, his or her nationality, the place the object was created, the object title and type; these are the only searchable fields. In order to obtain more information about an object, such as its provenance, one has to go to the actual museum’s website, and several participating museums have not posted any provenance research online. When searching for ‘Picasso’, the first result was a sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The ‘more information’ link generated an instruction to click on a link to the Cincinnati Art Museum’s website. From there, one had to go through three more links to find the provenance and an image of the Picasso sculpture. This website is relatively new, and it will be interesting to see if any claims are filed from the information listed online. The portal is well organised and user friendly, but having to search through different websites and click on various links can be cumbersome. It would have been more efficient to display all the information on one website.

Central Registry

The Central Registry website (www.lootedart.com, 1 November 2003) is an ambitious project that runs under the auspices of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and has been set up to fulfil the Washington Principle that states “Efforts should be made to establish a central registry of such information.” The goal of the Central Registry is to put all information regarding Nazi looting in a single place, because many users do not know what information is available or where to look for it. The Central Registry is designed to be a reference for all levels of users, from an elderly person new to the Internet to a power-user who spends a great deal of time conducting research online. The object database currently contains around 4,400 objects, but there are agreements to add several more objects. The database allows the user to search by artist, object and provenance. Both the object and provenance searches allow the user to search by date, which is a rare but useful tool when researching looted objects. The results display an image if available, the artist, title and object type. ‘Details’ links to a page with full object and provenance information, as well as contact details and, if available, reference material and the exhibition history of the object.

The Central Registry website was originally launched in English, but it was designed so that it could be localised for other languages in the future. When developing the object database, all the information that was available had to be examined in order to create a system which could take disparate data and create a standard way to display it. The Central Registry adopted the Getty Object ID standard, which provided a helpful basis for object information, but it did not cover all aspects of what was needed. One challenge was in determining standards for object types. The list could not be too long as too many choices could confuse the user and make the search engine less efficient. As a solution, a basic list of approximately 25 of the most common objects was created, with the option to add more items when necessary. For example, one of the categories is ‘Furniture.’ The future plan is that once the Registry receives an abundance of different kinds of furniture, it will create subcategories to assist in the search. Currently, the only object type that consists of sub-categories is Judaica. Experts were consulted to ensure that the list was comprehensive but not overwhelming. Many Judaica were looted and destroyed during the war and the Central Registry staff felt it was crucial to include them in the provenance research database.

Since a goal of the Central Registry is to have records from all the institutions providing information on looted art, it is essential that they agree to supply this data to the Central Registry. Many organisations were happy to comply and very much appreciated the work carried out by the Central Registry. To make participation as easy as possible, the Central Registry accepts data in any format, from ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) files to handwritten notes. The Central Registry encourages the use of images on the database since a visual record is extremely helpful to anyone researching looted cultural property.

When soliciting information from various organisations, it became apparent that some were more helpful than others. There is an example of a museum in Germany that agreed to let the Central Registry put their data online and sent them photocopies of the cards they created. They originally only had slides of the images, but when asked if they could send the information electronically, they obliged despite this being their first foray into using technology. Unfortunately, others were not so helpful. Some believe that a Central Registry will never work because too many objects are unaccounted for, and some agencies feel that it is a matter of national pride to have the information only affiliated with their country. The Central Registry does not deal with claims. Any requests for claims are passed on to its sister organisation, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. The Central Registry was well received when it went live, but there has been very little publicity, and not many people are aware of its existence.

Criticisms and Effects

Despite the positive steps taken to make information about Nazi looting available online, there are some who believe that this can cause more harm than good. One critic argued that posting lists of stolen art online invites false claims to be made. ⁷ Retrieving property that was taken from them is a sensitive issue for most Holocaust survivors. It is difficult for many survivors to come forward and claim material possessions so long after the war because it can be very emotional and bring back horrific memories. In most cases, restituting a cultural object is a long and complicated process. Restitution can take years, and even countries with laws regarding restitution do not necessarily make it an easy process.

Some opponents feel that posting looted cultural property online could cause a current owner to hide the object and make sure that it does not go back into the art market. While this is a possibility, the current owner might also try to reach a settlement with the rightful owners.

Another criticism is that publishing objects online for the rightful owners to find is passive research, and that the real work should lie in finding the families. This is true, but posting information online is a strong first step, since it makes the data available to anyone who might be interested. The next phase should be to continue with provenance research and actively find the last known rightful owner or their heirs. Many organisations will argue that they were able to secure funding to post the object information online, but do not have means for taking the next steps.

In the past five years many countries have created websites to make information about looted cultural property more readily available. Has this been a success? It is still too early to tell. The majority of the previously mentioned websites fit the criteria for finding and recognising an object. People will make enquiries about objects placed online, and this may or may not lead to further investigation about the item and information about how to file a claim. Even if only a handful of objects are recognised via the Internet, a claim filed, and the work of art returned to its rightful owner, then it has proved some degree of success. This process can take years and many claimants wish for their cases to stay out of the public eye, so it is difficult to measure success at this early stage. The Internet has been very successful in one aspect: it has made the public more aware of the scope and lasting effects of Nazi looting.

November 2003

Notes

1. Nicholas, L., The Rape of Europa, London, Macmillan, 1994, p. 357.

2. Nicholas, L., The Rape of Europa, London, Macmillan, 1994, p. 323.

3. Harclerode, P. and Pittaway, B., The Lost Masters, Orion Books Ltd, London, 1999, p. xiii.

4. A report by Global Reach, September 2003, states that only 35 percent of current users speak English.

5. Jirasek, P., ‘Special Edition: International Conference Database Assisted Documentation of Lost Cultural Assets. Requirements, Tendencies and Forms of Co-operation, Magdeburg, November 28-30, 2001’, Spoils of War Newsletter, December 2002, pp. 45f.

6. Van Regteren Altena, F., ‘Special Edition: International Conference Database Assisted Documentation of Lost Cultural Assets. Requirements, Tendencies and Forms of Co-operation, Magdeburg, November 28-30, 2001’, Spoils of War Newsletter, December 2002, p. 29.

7. Sewell, B., ‘Nazi loot or not, it is far too late to question this art’, The Evening Standard, February 29, 2000, p. 3.

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