[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIEW OF THE REPATRIATION OF
HOLOCAUST ART ASSETS IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY POLICY, TRADE, AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 27, 2006
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 109-113
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31-542 WASHINGTON : 2007
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio MAXINE WATERS, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
RON PAUL, Texas JULIA CARSON, Indiana
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio BRAD SHERMAN, California
JIM RYUN, Kansas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio BARBARA LEE, California
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
Carolina HAROLD E. FORD, Jr., Tennessee
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
VITO FOSSELLA, New York WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
GARY G. MILLER, California STEVE ISRAEL, New York
PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota JOE BACA, California
TOM FEENEY, Florida JIM MATHESON, Utah
JEB HENSARLING, Texas STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida AL GREEN, Texas
RICK RENZI, Arizona EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois
STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin,
TOM PRICE, Georgia
MICHAEL G. FITZPATRICK, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
Pennsylvania
GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
CAMPBELL, JOHN, California
Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director
Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and
Technology
DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio, Chair
JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois, Vice Chair CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma MAXINE WATERS, California
RON PAUL, Texas BARBARA LEE, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois BRAD SHERMAN, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
TOM PRICE, Georgia JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on:
July 27, 2006................................................ 1
Appendix:
July 27, 2006................................................ 39
WITNESSES
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Able, Edward H., Jr., President and CEO, American Association of
Museums........................................................ 15
Cuno, James, President and Director, Art Institute of Chicago, on
behalf of the Association of Art Museum Directors.............. 19
Edelson, Gilbert S., Administrative Vice President and Counsel,
Art Dealers Association of America............................. 17
Eizenstat, Stuart E., former Commissioner, Presidential Advisory
Commission on Holocaust Assets in the U.S., Covington & Burling 10
Lillie, Catherine A., Director, Holocaust Claims Processing
Office, New York State Banking Department...................... 26
Rub, Timothy M., Director, Cleveland Museum of Art............... 23
Taylor, Gideon, Executive Vice President, Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany, Inc........................... 13
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Able, Edward H., Jr.......................................... 40
Cuno, James.................................................. 61
Edelson, Gilbert S........................................... 94
Eizenstat, Stuart E.......................................... 104
Lillie, Catherine A.......................................... 125
Rub, Timothy M............................................... 145
Taylor, Gideon............................................... 149
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Hon. Shelley Berkley:
Copies of pictures drawn by Deena Babbott at Auschwitz....... 209
Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney:
New York Times article....................................... 214
Responses to questions submitted to Gilbert S. Edelson....... 217
Hon. Debbie Wasserman Schultz:
Responses to questions submitted to Gideon Taylor............ 221
REVIEW OF THE REPATRIATION
OF HOLOCAUST ART ASSETS IN
THE UNITED STATES
----------
Thursday, July 27, 2006
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Domestic and
International Monetary Policy,
Trade, and Technology,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Deborah Pryce
[chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Pryce, Leach, Kennedy, Maloney,
Sherman, Wasserman-Schultz, and Frank.
Also present: Representatives Kelly, Israel, and Berkley.
Chairwoman Pryce. The Subcommittee on Domestic and
International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology will come
to order. Without objection, all members' opening statements
will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Frank. Madam Chairwoman?
Chairwoman Pryce. Yes.
Mr. Frank. Could I ask unanimous consent to have
participation by one Member who is on the Full Committee, but
not on the subcommittee, and one Member who is not on the
committee, both of whom have a great interest in and knowledge
of this subject, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Israel, and
the gentlewoman from Nevada, Ms. Berkley.
Chairwoman Pryce. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Frank. Thank you.
We will begin by thanking all of you who are here at this
hearing to review the Repatriation of Holocaust Art Assets in
the United States.
I would like to thank Ranking Member Frank and Ranking
Member Maloney for their work on the hearing, and for bringing
to the subcommittee's attention the need to review this very
important issue.
I would also like to recognize the efforts of Mr. Leach
over the years in keeping the focus on this, and he will be
presiding later on in the morning.
In 1993, and continuing through the second world war,
countless pieces of art were looted throughout Europe. After
being seized by the Nazis, some of the art made its way to the
United States, funneled into American collections through
various undetectable methods. In addition, some art remained in
Europe, arriving in the United States several years after they
were stolen.
This committee held a series of hearings, led by then-
Chairman Leach, from 1997 until 2000, to discuss the progress
of returning the looted property to the victims of the
Holocaust.
At those hearings, witnesses from various organizations
such as the American Jewish Committee, the Department of the
Treasury, and museum representatives testified on the process
of searching for the art and the difficulties in returning it.
Although much progress was determined to have been made at
that point, little attention since those hearings has been
given to the restitution of the Holocaust artwork and other
properties.
It is my hope that this hearing can bring us up-to-date on
efforts made by museums, and examine issues involving the ease
of transporting art across international borders, such as the
lack of public records documenting original ownership, the
difficulty of tracing our transactions over many decades, and
the lack of a central authority to arbitrate the claims for
artwork.
The struggles of the Jewish people affected by the
Holocaust continue to this day, as survivors and their families
struggle with governments and museums to recapture their
heritage and their culture.
Art is very personal, and each piece that is returned is a
way to bring what was lost in those years back to them.
So much of their lives, families, and homes were destroyed
in the war that returning this art allows them to throw off the
vestiges of the Holocaust in some small way. Each piece of art
is a symbol of hope, a freeing of the spirit, and a healing of
the soul.
Many survivors spend years working to get their property
returned, dogged by foreign governments and museums who will
try to wait them out until they resign in defeat or pass from
this world.
The efforts of the U.S. museums who have such a rich and
treasured history of support by the Jewish people has been
inspirational.
I commend the yeoman's work of the Museum Associations, the
Conference on Jewish Claims, and the--New York to set up its
own claims office.
Although American museums hold but a small percentage of
art that would qualify, they work tirelessly, using vital time
and resources to research the problems of the art in their
collections and build a searchable database.
I appreciate the witnesses being here with us today,
discussing this important issue, and I look forward to your
testimony.
Chairwoman Pryce. The ranking member of the Full Committee,
Mr. Frank, is recognized.
Mr. Frank. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate your
having this hearing, and I want to again note the work that the
former chairman of the Full Committee, the gentleman from Iowa,
who joins us today, has done on this.
I am very pleased to be having this hearing, and I do want
to say at the outset that I think we should make it clear to
everyone that this is not, in my mind, and I hope in the minds
of our colleagues, anything adversarial, and certainly not
prosecutorial.
There are times when people on Congressional committees
regard witnesses as opponents or potentially uncooperative. I
think, as a result, in part, of some of the urging that members
of this committee did under the gentleman from Iowa's
leadership, but also because of the goodwill of people here,
that we have made progress in working together.
I was pleased in reading the summary that just came out of
the Claims Conference, dated just a couple of days ago.
Basically, what they said is, in summary, there has been some
progress, but there is still a lot to do, and they acknowledge
that, in principle, there was broad agreement here, and we need
to work to keep it up, and I am pleased that is the spirit.
Something uniquely terrible in human history happened 60
years ago and more, and we are still dealing with the
consequences of that, not just of the lives lost but of the
lives scarred, and those of us who are Jewish, particularly,
feel scarred, also, indelibly by this experience. So, we come
together to do what we can, not to undo what happened--that
would be ridiculous to even talk about, but to the extent that
it is humanly possible to mitigate the terrible effects, and I
think it is important to recognize that yes, we are dealing
with as emotional a subject as has existed in human history,
and anyone who does not deeply feel this emotion is flawed, and
our job is to make sure that the deep emotions we feel--that
all of those things are kept in context and that they do not
become reasons that we turn on each other, and the people here
engaged in this are not each other's opponents.
We are, I hope, people who are going to be working together
on this small part of the task of addressing on an ongoing
basis the terrible history of the Holocaust.
So, I appreciate that sentiment.
I want to acknowledge that the gentleman from New York, Mr.
Israel, who is here, who has joined us, has had a particular
interest in this, and as a member of our committee, the
Committee on Financial Services, has been one of the ones
taking the lead.
I know our colleague, Ms. Berkley, has a particularly
relevant situation in her own district with regard to an
individual who was so tragically involved in this.
Others who are here, the gentlewoman from New York, Ms.
Maloney, and the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, have
had an ongoing interest.
So, I think this is a chance for Congress to be at its
constructive best, to help be a catalyst to get people of good
will together to work on a task which is both intellectually
challenging and emotionally wrenching, and I hope we will all
be able to go forward in that spirit.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you, Mr. Frank.
Mr. Leach?
Mr. Leach. Thank you, very much.
First, I want to commend you for holding this hearing, and
for your thoughtful opening statement. Also, Mr. Frank's words,
I think, were as wise as any I have heard in this committee.
In the late 1990's, this committee undertook a task of
reviewing history, which is a very unusual thing for any
Congressional committee. We worked closely with the Clinton
Administration and particularly with one extraordinary figure
in that Administration, who is with us today, Stuart Eizenstat,
and I do not know of anyone on any issue who dedicated more
effort, with greater professionalism, than Mr. Eizenstat did at
that time.
We all know of the depth of the Holocaust, as Mr. Frank has
indicated.
The committee attempted to undertake the examination, not
just of the largest mass murder in history, but also the
greatest mass theft in history. We looked at the dimensions of
the holocaust from a mass theft dimension, which is our
committee's jurisdiction, and we began with Swiss and other
bank accounts. We looked at issues of gold, life insurance, and
the whole spectrum of issues, of which, in one sense, art is a
subset, and maybe even a footnote, but it is not a small
footnote. Art is part of culture. Preceding the Holocaust, we
had international law that suggests as much. One of the great
quotations comes from a sculpturist named Emmerich de Vattel
who wrote in the Law of Nations in the 18th century, ``For
whatever cause a country is ravaged, we ought to spare those
edifices which do honor the human society and do not contribute
to increase the enemy's strength, and it is to call oneself an
enemy to mankind to deprive people of monuments of art,'' and I
think that is part of the aspect of why art is important. We
all know there were the Nuremberg trials, which held,
symbolically, a very few people accountable for genocide.
These Congressional hearings have been duplicated and quite
possibly precipitated by this committee's action in a dozen
other countries in Europe and elsewhere. Each of these hearings
has raised the notion of accountability, and the precept that
there is not a statute of limitations on genocide. There are
also monetary implications: there was a multi-billion-dollar
recompense that Stuart Eizenstat negotiated. The settlement may
be minuscule compared to the losses, but it is symbolic and
profoundly significant. I will just conclude with this: WWII
caused the greatest displacement of art in history. The notion
that avarice might have played a small role in the mass
genocide has to be looked at as more than a monetary issue.
Genocide and theft go hand in hand, and that is why this
committee entered this field. It is also why I think the
Clinton Administration should be commended most highly for its
effort to end this all by the end of the 20th century, which it
largely succeeded in doing. But we are looking at elements that
go beyond that, which is why this hearing is today.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Pryce. Our ranking member, my good friend, the
gentlelady from New York.
Mrs. Maloney. I would like to thank Deborah Pryce, the
chairwoman and my good friend, for calling this incredibly
important hearing.
I also want to publicly congratulate Stuart Eizenstat for
his commitment and really effective work with the Swiss bank
accounts, with the art, with so many areas, and thank him for
the support that he gave me with the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure
Act, which has now been turned into a book, and is probably the
biggest opening of records during that period for scholars, and
I was proud to have authored it and passed it.
I also particularly want to mention that one of my
constituents, Catherine Lillie, is here from New York.
Catherine is the director of the Holocaust Claims Processing
Office of the New York State Banking Department, and she is
representing Diana Taylor, our banking commissioner, and for 10
years, they have been assisting claimants, and do a very, very
fine job.
In the interest of time, I am going to place my comments in
the record, but I do want to know that the Claims Conference
noted that about a third of the museums did not respond to the
survey, and those that did did not provide complete
information, which is discouraging, and we need to work on
that, but I am proud of one of the institutions that I
represent, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was cited in a
New York Times article, and I would like permission to place it
in the record.
Not only do we have to work to make museums and
institutions comply, but we should also applaud those that have
transparency and have obeyed the law and have responded to it
and have worked hard on it.
Chairman Leach, you played a very vital role in this, in
creating this legislation in 1998, the Presidential Advisory
Committee on Holocaust Assets, and I am indebted to you, as are
many of my constituents, some of whom are Holocaust survivors.
I often associate my comments with the distinguished
ranking member of this Committee on Financial Services, Barney
Frank, but today, I particularly would like to associate my
feelings and support of his comments and be associated with
them.
Again, we have several panelists here. I thank the
chairwoman for responding to the minority's request for
representatives on this panel, and I request permission to
place my long statement in the record, but I am really anxious
to hear what our panel has to say today. Thank you for being
here on this important issue.
I yield back.
Chairwoman Pryce. Without objection.
We will recognize members for opening statements, and
realize that your full statements can be submitted for the
record, and because we have such a large panel, just ask you to
be brief, if possible.
Mr. Sherman.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you for holding these hearings. They are
important.
I served with our distinguished witness, Stuart Eizenstat,
on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in
the United States, and as others have said, his tremendous work
on this shows a real dedication.
With 600,000 pieces of artwork stolen by the Nazis and
their collaborators, obviously stolen art during the Holocaust
is a very important problem, but an even greater problem are
the other assets stolen during the Holocaust, during World War
II, and even during World War I and the Armenian genocide that
followed.
We should recognize that in terms of a family portfolio,
even in Europe last century, art would have been, for most
families, a small percentage of their total assets, and that
art, unlike almost everything else that you would invest in, is
not centrally recorded. There are bad records or no records as
to who owns all but the most valuable paintings.
So, to put a value for restitution we would be able to
achieve even if we worked diligently is modest compared to the
total value of all the assets stolen in the Holocaust in World
War II and the Armenian genocide.
We are the Financial Services Committee, and I hope that we
will focus on financial institutions, as well as brokerage
accounts, bank accounts, and insurance policies. Right now, we
have seen some restitution from the banks, but I have been very
concerned about life insurance companies who have said that
they sold policies to Armenians in the 1800's or the first
decade of the last century and no one has made a claim, so they
do not have to pay, or they sold policies in Poland to gentiles
and Jews in the 1930's, and no one has made a claim, and they
have not heard from the families, so they do not owe any money.
I have introduced legislation, and I hope that we can move
forward to hearings and markup on legislation that would
require every insurance company doing business in this country
and its European affiliates to simply post on a central
Internet site a list of insurance policies, life insurance
policies, where the insured is over 100 years old, where it is
likely that the insured perished in the great tragedies of
Europe and west Asia of the last century, and where families
could come forward and show that they are the next of kin.
The same steps should be taken with regard to bank accounts
and brokerage accounts.
I think it is important that we have these hearings on
artwork, but the records are available, the power is in this
committee.
Every one of those major European companies wants to do
business through affiliates here in the United States, and it
is about time that we protect American consumers from companies
so rapacious that they would sell policies and then hide behind
the Holocaust so that they do not have to pay.
Chairwoman Pryce. The gentleman's time has expired.
I ask unanimous consent that Ms. Kelly be permitted to
deliver an opening statement.
No objection.
So ordered.
The gentlelady is recognized.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Pryce, for
allowing me to come to the hearing. Your commitment to ensuring
that the victims of Nazi tyranny can reclaim the possessions
that were stolen from them so long ago is really to be
commended.
As all of our witnesses know, the Nazi leadership had a
unique relationship with the artistic world.
Their hatred of modernity and the work of Jewish artists
and writers did not stop them from illegally acquiring some of
the largest art collections in the world, not only for resale
but for personal display in such places as Hermann Goering's
Carin Hall and Hitler's planned Nazi Art Museum in Linsk.
Specific orders were issued to military and paramilitary
forces entering occupied territories to seize, survey, and
transfer collections of art and music to the Third Reich. This
pillage, unseen since the fall of the Roman Empire, stripped
tens of thousands of Jewish families of their possessions.
Many have not been recovered and are still in the hands of
private collectors and art museums worldwide.
This committee has an important responsibility to ensure
that not only do we return this art to its rightful owners and
their heirs but that we do more to stop the smuggling of art,
and especially the use of art as a means of moving value
between nations.
Thanks to the diligent work of Chairman Oxley and others on
the financial offenses against terrorists using our banking
system, we are stronger than we have ever been. Unfortunately,
terrorists and money launderers have responded and are
increasingly using the smuggling of cash, gold, and diamonds.
Of particular interest to this subcommittee will be the
fact that they are also using the movement of higher value
goods such as art to move terrorist money. Items of high value
and high density store a value that has a ready market
worldwide.
Numerous reports exist that money launderers are using the
art world as a safe way to do business. I would ask each of the
witnesses from the art and curatorial industries to discuss
what procedures they have in place to detect money laundering
in the sale and purchase of art.
Again, I compliment you on holding this important hearing,
and thank you for allowing me to sit in.
Chairwoman Pryce. The gentleman from New York, Mr. Israel,
is recognized.
Once again, members can put their entire statements in the
record, and please be brief.
Mr. Israel. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. That is exactly
what I intend to do, and to repay you for the courtesy of
allowing me to sit in on this hearing, although I am not a
member of the subcommittee--the reason I asked to participate
in the hearing is because this issue, for me, is personal.
Before my election to Congress, I founded and organized the
Institute on the Holocaust and the Law, which explored the role
of judges, lawmakers, lawyers, and law schools in advancing the
Holocaust.
Prevailing up to recent times was that the Holocaust was an
act of lawlessness.
It was not an act of lawlessness, it was an act of law, and
it was a collective act of law and decrees and decisions
organized, created, and codified in order to discriminate,
annihilate, and confiscate, and that involved not just
lawmakers but art dealers, museums, businesses, and insurance
companies.
Throughout my experience with the Institute on the
Holocaust and the Law, I often asked myself, what would I have
done then if I were in a position of power to help?
Well, there is nothing that I could do about what happened
then. This venue gives me an opportunity to do something now.
This is one of those lingering issues that still requires
justice and still requires an aggressive response by the U.S.
Congress and the Administration, and that is why I have asked
to participate in this hearing. Again, I want to thank the
chairwoman and our ranking member, Mr. Frank, for their
support.
I was pleased to join the letter requesting this hearing,
and I look forward to hearing the views of our panelists.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you. We welcome your participation.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz, do you have a statement?
All right.
Mr. Kennedy?
Okay.
Ms. Berkley?
Ms. Berkley. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I appreciate
the courtesy that you and Mr. Frank have extended me to allow
me to participate.
When we talk about this issue as being very personal and
emotional, I certainly believe we can all agree on that. I want
to share with you very briefly a story that is very personal to
me.
I have been in Congress now for 8 years.
During my first year, I received a visit from a woman whose
family lives in my Congressional district, and this is her
story.
She is a Czechoslovakian Jew.
In February of 1943, this woman, at the age of 20, was
shipped to Auschwitz, along with her mother and 3,600 other
Czechoslovakian Jews.
By the time the war was over, there were only 22
Czechoslovakian Jews left, and Deena Babbott and her mother
were 2 of the 22 that managed to survive.
The way she managed to survive is that Deena Babbott, at
the age of 20, was a very talented artist, and she had painted
a Disney character or a few of the characters on the barrack
walls of the children's barrack at Auschwitz.
Josef Mengele saw her art, and he asked her, told her,
ordered her to start drawing pictures of the gypsy inmates.
What he would do--the reason he could not take photos of them
is because he could not capture in the photos of those times
the skin tone of the gypsies, and he wanted Deena Babbott to do
this.
What he would do is point out gypsy inmates at Auschwitz
and have her draw them.
When she completed the drawing, he would have the gypsy
killed.
Now, Deena drew--there are seven of her drawings that
remain.
When she was liberated, obviously she and her mother left
Auschwitz rather quickly, like everybody else. She did not take
her art with her.
It was not hers at the time, although she had created it,
to take with her.
Many years later, in the 1970's, Deena Babbott was
contacted by the Polish Government.
They had discovered her art in a broom closet at Auschwitz,
and they asked her to come and authenticate the art. She was
under the impression that she was going to Poland to reclaim
her art.
She is absolutely convinced that the only thing that kept
her and her mother alive was the fact that Mengele thought she
was of some value. It is these pictures that saved her life.
The Polish Government has refused to give Deena Babbott her
artwork back.
Now, when I was part of the delegation that Mr. Israel and
I, I guess, were a part of that, that represented Congress at
the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we, in
fact, saw Mrs. Babbott's art, and what they told me--there are
seven pictures remaining, and I've got them here, if you're
interested. I would like to submit them for the record.
I think she is entitled to her art back.
Now, she has agreed to compromise with the Polish
Government and only take three of the seven, at her selection,
and we still cannot get them.
I have gotten a resolution from Congress saying that this
art is her artwork.
We have put something in the Authorization Act saying that
the Polish Government ought to return this art. I am at my
wit's end, and I think this woman is entitled to her art as
much as any family that lost their art and had it confiscated.
There is nothing more personal than something that was created
by her hand.
Chairwoman Pryce. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Berkley. I would appreciate any guidance you could give
me to make this happen for this woman before she passes away.
Thank you very much.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you.
Now, the reason we are here is to hear from you, and I
would like to introduce our panel at this time, and we will
start to my left, and that is the order in which you will
testify.
Mr. Stuart Eizenstat is a former commissioner for the
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the
United States, and we have already heard much about your good
work, sir.
Mr. Gideon Taylor is the executive vice president for the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Welcome.
Mr. Edward Able is the president and CEP of the American
Association of Museums.
Mr. Able, welcome.
Mr. Gilbert Edelson is the administrative vice president
and counsel at the Art Dealers Association of America.
Mr. Jim Cuno is the president and director of the Art
Institute of Chicago. He is here today on behalf of the
Association of Art Museum Directors.
Mr. Timothy Rub is the director of the Cleveland Art Museum
in the great State of Ohio.
Our final witness, Catherine Lillie, is the director the
Holocaust Claims Processing Office in the State of New York
Banking Department.
Mr. Frank. Madam Chairwoman, I have to leave, but I just
wanted to commend the majority and minority, and particularly
our staffs, who do all this work, for putting together really a
first-rate panel.
I am just impressed, as you read off the names, of how well
we have represented that spectrum. It is always a pleasure to
have Mr. Eizenstat, who has contributed so much, but to all of
you, I am grateful for your being here, and I think we have
really achieved what we would like to, which is a very balanced
and thoughtful panel, and while I have to leave, I want to
express my appreciation to all of them for joining us.
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you, Ranking Member Frank.
Without objection, all of your written testimonies will be
made a part of the record.
Each of you will be recognized for 5 minutes for a summary
of your testimony, and we will begin with Stuart Eizenstat.
STATEMENT OF STUART E. EIZENSTAT, FORMER COMMISSIONER,
PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON HOLOCAUST ASSETS IN THE
U.S., COVINGTON & BURLING
Mr. Eizenstat. I want to thank the leadership of the
committee for holding these hearings and the Claims Conference
for championing them.
The hearings will bring renewed attention to the
restitution of art looted by the Nazis during World War II,
which, after a burst of activity in the late 1990's, has lost
momentum and threatens to fall off the pages of history,
particularly abroad, where most nations lack the continued
commitment shown by the American Association of Museums.
At a time when almost all other Holocaust-related
restitution and compensation matters have been completed, or
are nearing completion, Holocaust-era art recovery remains a
major unresolved challenge.
There is a certain art restitution fatigue that has set in,
particularly in many foreign countries, and I hope these
hearings will change that process.
Our work on art restitution in the Clinton Administration
was part and parcel of our negotiations over the recovery of
bank accounts, property, insurance, and slave-enforced labor
compensation.
While the looting of artworks is as old as war, like the
Holocaust itself, the efficiency, brutality, and scale of the
Nazi art theft was unprecedented. As many as 600,000 paintings
were stolen, of which 100,000 are still missing some 60 years
later.
There was nothing casual about this massive plunder; it was
well organized.
Hitler viewed the amassing of art as a necessary project in
his creation of an Aryan master race, and the cultural
centerpiece of his Thousand Year Reich was to be a Fuhrermuseum
in Linz, Austria, where he was raised.
In my lengthy written statement, I have provided, as I was
asked by the committee, a history of how the issue of art
restitution, long forgotten for decades, suddenly thrust itself
on the world's agenda. Suffice it to say here they were doing
the work of four academics, a barred college seminar in 1995,
the adoption of principles of art restitution by the American
Association of Museum and Museum Directors, under the part of
Chairman Leach at the 1999 hearings, our work in the Clinton
Administration, leading to the adoption by 44 countries of the
Washington principles of art at the 1998 Washington conference
on Holocaust-era assets, which, in effect, internationalized
the AAM principles.
Congressman Leach was part of our team. He presided over
the art portion of that conference, and deserves our unwavering
thanks.
I also want to thank Ed O'Donnell and John Becker of the
State Department's Holocaust Era Assets Office for their
continuing interest.
These Washington principles, Madam Chairwoman, changed the
way in which the art world did business. They required museums,
governments, auction houses, and others to cooperate in tracing
looted art through stringent provenance research to put the
results in an accessible form, to be lenient in accepting
claims, and to adopt a system of conflict resolution to avoid
protracted litigation.
I'll spend the bulk of my testimony, as I did in my written
testimony, on developments abroad, but let me say the
following, in a paragraph or two, at home.
Under the leadership of the AAM and the AAMD, many American
museums and virtually all major American museums have
demonstrated a real commitment to implementing our Washington
principles, as well as their own. They have created, for
example, a Nazi era provenance information Internet portal, a
tremendously important, searchable central registry, so people
can go to one place that will then connect to over 150 museums.
There are now 18,000 objects from 151 participating museums
on that portal, but as the Claims Conference survey indicates,
there is still much work to be done, with half of the AAM
membership not yet participating and with a potential universe
of at least 140,000 covered objects.
I also want to applaud the work of the New York State
Holocaust Claims Processing Office, created by Governor Pataki,
which has led to the return of 12 pieces of art. I want to note
that litigation since the U.S. Supreme Court case of Maria
Aldman is another potential avenue.
In the United States, the focus should be on art dealers,
since it is in the commercial art market where most Holocaust-
era art is sold.
Art auction houses like Christy's and Sotheby's, which have
to publish their catalogs and they have public auctions, have
done a commendable job of implementing the Washington
principles, with dedicated full-time experts at Sotheby's and
Christy's on the restitution effort.
I am pleased to learn from Mr. Gil Edelson that the Art
Dealers Association of America has, contrary to my
understanding in my written statement, adopted principles and
best practices for the art dealers.
I would say to you, Gil, that this is a well-kept secret,
and I hope that it will be published. I have relied on some of
the best experts in the world who are unaware of this.
I think it is a tremendously important thing that you have
done, and I would only ask that you make more public use of it
and implement it thoroughly. So, I congratulate you on the fact
that you did, and I hope that they will be better published.
Let me make the following concrete suggestions for the
Congress in the U.S. area:
First, encourage all American museums that belong to the
AAM to complete and regularly update their databases and to
have all 140,000 covered objects on the central portal within 3
years.
Second, encourage American museums who litigate cases to do
so on the merits rather than on technical defenses like the
statute of limitations.
Third, encourage the Art Dealers Association to give the
widest publication and the broadest implementation to the
guidelines which, again, I am pleased, Gil, to learn this
morning that you have published in 1998, and importantly, to
pass bipartisan legislation to create a federally funded memory
foundation.
There is a bill pending to do this, to assist U.S. citizens
in pursuing Holocaust-era claims, including for art, as the New
York State office is doing.
And suggestions for abroad:
While American museums still have additional work to do,
their progress is light years ahead of other countries abroad,
who are signatories to the Washington principles.
There are bright spots, like Austria and the Netherlands,
but the vast majority have done no provenance research at all,
or only on a limited basis, and have large quantities of looted
art or cultural property in Europe that is unidentified.
Where countries have published databases abroad of
potential Holocaust looted art, it is in inaccessible
languages, lacks the detail necessary for each identification,
and is not based on any comprehensive provenance standards.
There is no international centralized database like the one
the U.S. museums have created.
Only four countries have national processes for resolving
claims, and most, including the U.K., Italy, Hungary, and
Poland, have absolutely no restitution laws, so that even if
art is identified, there is no realistic way to have it
returned, as well as strict time limits on claims.
I have detailed the status, Madam Chairwoman, and members
of the committee, of implementation of the Washington
principles on a country-by-country basis in my testimony.
Suffice it to say here that the real focus should be on a few
key countries which have the largest quantity of Holocaust
looted artworks: Russia, Germany, France, Hungary, Poland, the
Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
Russia, for example, has refused to follow through on their
commitments or to follow their own law, which is actually, on
its face, a positive law for restitution. German museums have
ignored repeated pleas from the German Government at the
federal, provincial, and municipal levels to do basic
provenance research. Where it has been done by a few museums,
it has been a great treasure trove of identifying art.
Some of my recommendations for what I would ask you to do
for the countries abroad:
One, convene an international conference in 2007 for the 44
countries who signed the Washington principles to encourage
foreign governments to implement the principles by doing
serious provenance research based on internationally accepted
standards to publish an accessible database, to work
cooperatively with claimants, and to avoid using technical
defenses to block claims.
Second, for the Executive Branch, at senior levels, to work
bilaterally with Russia, Germany, in particularly, but also
with France, Poland, Hungary, and Switzerland, to make progress
and open up their archives.
Third, to work to create an international Internet art
restitution portal managed by a neutral intergovernmental body
into which all nations, museums, art dealers, and auction
houses could place their provenance research. This would be the
single most effective step, Madam Chairwoman, for restitution
abroad.
And finally, to urge foreign governments to develop
transparent procedures to handle claims fairly, justly, and on
the merits, without technical defenses.
In conclusion, if the U.S. Government and this Congress
does not take the lead, as Chairman Leach did before, and as we
did in the Clinton Administration, then, indeed, art
restitution abroad will revert to the dormant status it had 50
years ago, and art fatigue will continue.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eizenstat can be found on
page 104 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. I really thank you for your testimony,
and we will read it in its entirety, and we will continue on
with Mr. Gideon.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF GIDEON TAYLOR, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,
CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS AGAINST GERMANY, INC.
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Chairwoman Pryce, and members of the
subcommittee.
Art is about family, it is about memory, and it is about
history.
It is about the history of paintings and drawings and
sculptures, but more importantly, it is about the history of
people.
For many, it is the last tangible connection with a past
that was destroyed and with a family that was lost.
The looting of art by the Nazis was a systematic,
widespread, unrelenting extension of their racial theories. The
Jews who were to be exterminated in body were also to be
plundered of all their assets.
During the past decade, this committee has established
itself as a leading force in the attempt to secure a measure of
justice for Holocaust victims and their heirs.
On their behalf, we applaud your continuous efforts.
Without information regarding looted artworks, survivors and
their heirs will not know where to look, and the last
opportunity we will have to right a historic injustice will be
gone.
The average age of Holocaust survivors is over age 80. The
generation of the survivors is slipping away, and with them
will go the personal recollections and memories that may help
connect a family with its past.
The report of the Presidential Advisory Commission, as well
as other experts, have described how, despite efforts to
prevent it, some looted art made its way to the United States
during and after the war.
The Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
initiated by Deputy Secretary Eizenstat and hosted by the State
Department, at which the Claims Conference participated,
established a set of international principles. The common
thread that runs through those international commitments is the
need, firstly, to identify looted art; secondly, to publicize
such items; and thirdly, to resolve the issue of its return in
an expeditious, just, and fair manner.
Guidelines were adopted by the American Association for
Museums.
We applaud the AAM and the AAMD for undertaking this major
effort.
In an important development, a special Web site was
established by the AAM to provide a searchable registry of
objects.
Seven years have now elapsed since the Washington
conference. In order to obtain an overview of what has been
achieved, in February 2006, the Claims Conference sent a survey
to 332 art museums throughout the United States. All responses
were made publicly available on a Web site.
In general, while some museums had made excellent progress,
others had lagged behind. We welcome the progress that has been
made, and look forward to the rapid completion of this task.
In many cases, looted art is in the hands of private
individuals, and often, the only time it is known to the
general public is when it changes hands.
We also, at last, learned today of guidelines for art
dealers on these issues, and would urge that they be made
publicly and widely available so the claimants will be aware of
their contents.
We also would request that procedures regarding how
provenance research is done, in what way and in what manner, be
adopted by the appropriate organizations of dealers and also be
made publicly and widely available.
When dealers learn that an object may have been looted, we
believe that there should be an obligation, rather than a
discretion, as included in the guidelines presented today, to
inform the appropriate authorities. This would be the most
effective step to ensure that looted items do not become part
of the U.S. art market.
In addition, although purchases often involve client
confidentiality issues, we believe that the restitution of
looted art raises sufficient moral questions that, for this
small group of transactions, records of previous and
prospective purchases and sales should be fully and completely
accessible to claimants.
In light of the unique concerns related to Holocaust-era
restitution issues, we believe that ways to deal with claims
need to be found outside of the courts, and perhaps through a
central panel system, especially given the age of the
claimants.
The Claims Conference is also creating a limited database
on looted items based on Nazi records. This will certainly not
obviate the need for provenance research from museums and art
dealers, but we believe that it can be a significant additional
component of the steps to be taken when provenance of artwork
is researched.
In conclusion, while there has been significant progress,
there is clearly more to do.
Since the Washington conference, a number of other
countries have been dealing with the Holocaust-era looted art,
as we have heard.
The progress in this area varies greatly from country to
country, but generally has been disappointing. We urge greater
efforts in this area.
The United States has in the past, and can in the future,
show leadership in this field.
In view of its distinguished role in reviewing these issues
in the past, we respectfully urge this committee to take the
following steps in the future:
First, to maintain its oversight of the progress in the
United States in carrying out the agreed national and
international principles; second, to strongly encourage the
private art community in the United States to implement these
principles with regard to provenance research and handling of
claims; and finally, to encourage the U.S. Government to make a
renewed effort regarding this issue in its discussions with
governments in Europe and around the world.
We also believe that an international conference on this
subject would be tremendously important.
We thank this committee for its efforts in the past, and
request your involvement in the future.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor can be found on page
149 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Pryce. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Able.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD H. ABLE, JR., PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN
ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS
Mr. Able. Chairwoman Pryce, Representative Maloney, and
members of the subcommittee, I'm Ed Able, president and CEO of
the American Association of Museums. The topic of today's
hearing is one that is complex and difficult to distill into a
5-minute presentation, but as you indicated, Madam Chairwoman,
my entire statement and many attached documents are at your
disposal.
First, I would like to be clear that we share with the
Claims Conference a strong passion for, and commitment to,
correcting the injustices to the victims of the Holocaust. The
museum community has taken thoughtful and aggressive steps
befitting the seriousness with which we take this issue.
Briefly, today, there are four key areas that I would like
to focus on in my oral testimony. At the end of the statement,
I will respond to two additional questions raised in your
invitation.
First, guidelines for museums.
After extensive consultation with the museum field, legal
experts, and the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust
Assets, AAM published its guidelines in the fall of 1999, and
amended them in the spring of 2001.
This document and the Association of Art Museum Directors
report in spring 1998 represent the standards for the museum
community.
Second, technical information and training.
It is very important to understand that, in 1999, there
were very few museum professionals trained in the highly
specialized and unusual research skills necessary to conduct
Nazi-era provenance research, and few people with the
experience and language skills required to investigate recently
opened archives and other information sources.
AAM commissioned three of the world's leading experts to
write a 300-page state-of-the-art how-to manual which
immediately became the ``bible'' for the field.
AAM also embarked on a multi-year training program designed
to spread technical information throughout the field.
We have conducted seminars at the National Archives,
convened an international research colloquium, presented
education sessions at all of our annual membership meetings,
and launched an online discussion forum for museum
professionals conducting provenance research.
Third, let us talk about research.
It is expensive.
For objects with no prior indication of Nazi looting, the
costs range anywhere from $40 to $60 per hour, and the time
needed to document just one object can vary enormously, from a
week to a year, and if initial research suggests an object has
a history that may include unlawful appropriation by the Nazis,
time and expense can double or triple.
One museum spent $20,000 plus travel and expenses over the
course of 2 years to have a researcher resolve the history of
just three paintings.
Fourth, sharing the results with the public.
Parallel with our training efforts and technical
information, AAM fulfilled the museum community's commitment to
create a central, searchable, online database for publicly
sharing collections information and provenance research.
In September 2003, AAM publicly launched the Nazi-era
provenance Internet portal, which has been broadly reported in
the media.
The portal now includes more than 150 participating museums
that have collectively registered more than 18,000 objects from
their collections that meet the definition of covered objects,
a comprehensive and objective definition recommended by the
claimants' advocates. That is, any object that may have changed
hands in continental Europe between 1932 and 1946 under any
circumstances.
Thus, finding an object on the portal simply means that it
may have been in continental Europe between 1932 and 1946, and
may have changed hands one or more times.
It is important to have a clear understanding of this
definition, which is easily misunderstood and can
unintentionally taint thousands of objects as, ``Nazi loot.''
To illustrate, I will offer an example.
A photographer working in Paris in 1934 takes a picture and
makes 20 prints.
He sells those prints to 20 customers, one of which is a
U.S. museum.
Even though the photo has an ironclad provenance and no
taint of looting, it is, and always will be, a ``covered
object.''
The willingness of museums to work with this broad
definition for covered objects is a testament to our commitment
to public transparency.
So, how many potentially looted objects are located in U.S.
museums?
Prior to the 1970's, the entire art trade was conducted on
a centuries-old tradition of handshake deals and little or no
paperwork, resulting in enormous provenance gaps. However,
after several years of intensive activity by the museum field,
I can state with confidence, not many.
After 8 years of museum research and more than 100,000
searches through the portal, there have been 22 public
settlements concerning Nazi-era looting claims for works of art
found in American museums, and six pending cases.
Our greatest concern for completing provenance research is
financial resources, particularly for small and medium-size
museums.
AAM encourages Congress to consider appropriating
additional funding to the Institute of Museum and Library
Services aimed specifically at provenance research.
Finally, with respect to the claims process, experience
with previously settled cases clearly demonstrates that direct
respectful engagement between museums and claimants leads to
the most rapid settlement of meritorious claims with the least
cost to all, and there is, in our view, no better system.
I thank you for your attention, and I am happy to respond
to any questions during the colloquy.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Able can be found on page 40
of the appendix.]
Mr. Leach. [presiding] Thank you, Mr. Able.
Mr. Edelson.
STATEMENT OF GILBERT S. EDELSON, ADMINISTRATIVE VICE PRESIDENT
AND COUNSEL, ART DEALERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
Mr. Edelson. I thank the committee for its invitation to
appear this morning, and I hope that my testimony will be
helpful to you.
I have submitted written testimony which I suggest be made
part of the record.
We deal today with a very serious problem, a serious and
difficult problem, the looting of art during the Nazi era, one
of the most horrible periods in the history of mankind. For
many years, we did not face this problem, but in the 1990's, as
a result of the efforts of some really outstanding people, one
of whom, Stuart Eizenstat, is seated here today, we began to
deal with the problem with the seriousness and intensity that
was previously lacking.
This committee held hearings in 1998 on the subject. The
hearings were chaired by Congressman Leach, who won the respect
of the art community for his deep and sympathetic knowledge.
I was one of the witnesses then.
Now, as I understand it, we are dealing with a follow-up to
those hearings.
The ADAA is a not-for-profit organization of dealers in
works of the fine arts--paintings, sculpture, and works on
paper.
It is selective in its membership; it has 165 members
across the country.
We are, and have been, concerned about the problem of art
looted during the Nazi period.
Shortly after the committee's hearings in 1998, the
association, after consulting with its members, issued its
guidelines regarding art looted during the Nazi era. They were,
we thought, publicized and made widely available, but not
everybody was interested, and it appears that memories are
short.
Having heard the testimony this morning, I think we will
re-issue the guidelines, and we will send copies to Christy's
and Sotheby's, the auction houses, who have become very
important dealers through their private transactions, and we
hope that the guidelines would cover the auction houses, as
well.
The guidelines are recommendations. They set a standard for
professional behavior, but they are really based on common
sense. I have attached a copy of the guidelines to my written
testimony so that you will have them in full. In summary, they
deal with two situations; what a dealer should do with respect
to consignments and sales, and what a dealer should do with
respect to claims of ownership that may be asserted in
connection with objects they have for sale or may have sold.
The guidelines say that, when the Nazi-era provenance is
incomplete, the dealer should do the necessary research. The
problem here, of course, is that the necessary research is time
consuming and could be very expensive.
If there is sufficient evidence of looting, the dealer
should not acquire the work or offer it for sale, and should
notify the seller.
Depending on the facts, additional steps may be necessary,
such as notifying others of the dealer's findings.
All claims of ownership should be handled promptly and with
seriousness and respect.
If the work is presently being offered for sale, it should
be withdrawn until the claim is resolved. If the dealer has
sold the work in the past, the dealer should make available
such records as will serve to clarify issues of ownership.
Finally, when reasonable and practical, dealers should seek
equitable methods other than litigation to resolve claims. This
makes good sense.
Litigation, I can tell you from my personal experience, is
time consuming and can be very costly. There are alternative
methods of dispute resolutions, such as mediation, which I
strongly recommend. I have mediated several disputes in this
area, and the results have been more than satisfactory.
I believe that dealers have been careful in what they offer
for sale.
I know at least one litigation involving an ADAA member,
now retired, who sold a work many years ago that was now
claimed to have been looted.
Although the dealer was advised that he had a number of
solid defenses, he settled the matter promptly and
satisfactorily.
I can also testify that I have personal knowledge of a
number of situations where dealers declined to sell works, not
because they knew that the works were looted but because they
were not certain that the works were not looted, because there
were unanswered questions about the works.
No responsible dealer wants to sell a looted work. First,
it is not the right thing to do; and second, it is not good
business. You do not want to sell a possible problem to someone
who is spending a great deal of money, especially in an
industry where people love to talk.
As I have said, many problems of provenance will never be
solved. We may never know for sure.
For the reasons I have set forth in my written testimony,
many works have gaps in their chains of title. Provenance
research, as I have said, is difficult, and all too frequently,
it is unrewarding, but it is the only tool we have.
Finally, there are no records to quantify the number of
looted works that have been sold in this country over the
years.
There are not even any Census Bureau figures on how much
art is sold every year.
The Census Bureau does not gather information in this
field, although it does in other industries.
Whatever we may guess, the problem exists. ADAA's position
is simple and straightforward: Looted art should be returned to
its rightful owners, and dealers should cooperate, to the
extent possible, in these efforts.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Edelson can be found on page
94 of the appendix.]
Mr. Leach. Thank you very much, Mr. Edelson.
Before turning to Mr. Cuno, let me place on the record that
I am personally very indebted to Mr. Cuno for his museum's
generosity in lending America's Gustav Klimt--that is, the
Grant Wood's American Gothic--to a museum here in Washington.
Your museum has led the country in the area that we are
discussing today in terms of the provenance research on
Holocaust-era work. It has also led the country in generosity,
and I am very appreciative to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Mr. Cuno.
STATEMENT OF JAMES CUNO, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR, ART INSTITUTE
OF CHICAGO, ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ART MUSEUM
DIRECTORS
Mr. Cuno. Thank you, Congressman.
My name is Jim Cuno, and I am president and director of the
Art Institute of Chicago. I testify today on behalf of the
Association of Art Museum Directors, where I served as
president of the board in 2000 and 2001, and on behalf of the
Art Institute, where I have been president and director since
2004.
I thank the committee for holding these hearings. It is
important that Congress and the American people have periodic
updates on the work U.S. art museums are doing to research the
provenance records of works of art in our collection,
especially those which may have been looted during World War II
and not restituted to their rightful owners.
It is my understanding that today's hearing is the second
such hearing since the committee's initial hearing under then-
Chairman Congressman Leach 8 years ago. In addition, AAMD
testified before the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era
Assets in 1998.
I am a child of a 30-year career U.S. Air Force officer. My
father served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam
War. He was taken prisoner during the Korean War, and for the
greater part of a year, we did not know if he was alive or
dead.
I am aware of the physical and psychological trauma of
warfare, and like everyone, I deplore the circumstances during
World War II that resulted in the unjust deaths of millions of
people and the illegal taking of their personal property.
All of us want to resolve any and all legitimate claims
against U.S. art museums regarding the possible existence
within our collections of works of art looted during World War
II and not restituted to their rightful owners. To that end, we
have been diligently researching our collections since and even
before this committee first met on the subject in 1998.
AAMD, which has approximately 170 members and was founded
in 1916, has been a consistent champion of the highest
standards for art museums, standards that enable art museums to
bring important works of art to the public we serve.
Since 1973, AAMD has included in its professional practices
in art museums the admonition that museums must not acquire
works that have been stolen or removed in violation of a treaty
or convention to which the United States is a party.
In 1998, AAMD published its much-praised report of the AAMD
task force on spoliation of art during the Nazi World War II
era, which gives specific guidance regarding provenance
research and how to handle claims. I was pleased to have served
on the committee that drafted those guidelines.
As early as 1999, 100 percent of the AAMD members who had
collections that could include Nazi stolen art reported that
they had begun in-depth research required by the AAMD report.
That research is now available on each museum's Web site,
which, in turn, is linked to the AAM portal.
Of all of the art museums in the United States,
approximately half have no permanent collection or have
collections of only contemporary art. By definition, these
hundreds of art museums cannot have Nazi-era looted art in
their possession.
Thirty percent of the AAMD's 170 member museums fall into
this category.
The 120 AAMD member museums that may have Nazi-era looted
art in their collections have collections comprising 18 million
works of art, many thousands of which were acquired before
World War II.
Unlike eastern and western Europe, the United States was
never a repository for any of the 200,000 works of art
recovered after the war. Any Nazi-era looted art that may be in
U.S. art museums is there as a result of second-, third-, or
even fourth-generation good-faith transactions.
I mention this only to remind us of the scale of the
potential problem in this country.
The likelihood of there being problems in U.S. art museums
is relatively low.
Nevertheless, the amount of research to be undertaken on
the tens of thousands of works of art that, by definition, may
have Nazi-era provenance problems is significant, requiring
large allocations of staff time and money, allocations U.S. art
museums have made, and will make, until the job is finished.
Of the tens of thousands of potential problems in U.S. art
museums' collections, only 22 claims have resulted in
settlements of the restitution of works of arts from U.S. art
museums since 1998, some of these at the initiative of the
museums themselves, others in response to claims on works of
arts by their rightful owners, and I refer to Appendix A in my
written testimony.
In the most recent case of restituted art, the Kimbell Art
Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, returned its only painting by the
celebrated and important English landscape painter, Joseph
Mallord William Turner to the heirs of a legitimate owner.
The Kimbell, which purchased the painting in 1966, was
contacted by one of the heirs in September 2005, after the
heirs' decade-long search to restore to his family works of art
that had been part of a forced sale. After reviewing the
documentation of the heirs and conducting its own research, the
Kimbell Art Museum determined that the painting had been part
of a forced sale and that the heirs did represent the
legitimate owner.
On May 17, 2006, the Kimbell agreed to restore the painting
to the heirs, who have since taken physical possession of it.
In another case in 2002, the Detroit Institute of Art had a
painting shipped from a dealer in London for further study
pending acquisition.
In researching the work, the museum suspected that it may
have been looted during the Nazi era and not restituted to its
rightful owner.
The museum contacted the London dealer. After 18 months of
intensive examination of archives in several countries, it was
determined that the work had, indeed, been looted by the Nazis.
Incurring substantial legal fees for a painting it did not
own, the museum continued its efforts to locate the heirs of
the original owner. It eventually found the owner, who then
sold the painting to the museum for full market value.
Let me now testify quickly on behalf of the Art Institute
of Chicago, if only as further illustration of how U.S. art
museums are addressing this important issue.
Our permanent collection includes some 250,000 works of art
in 10 curatorial departments.
Our efforts focused especially on Holocaust-era provenance
questions began with a survey of our collection in 1997, even
before the AAM issued its guidelines and before the AAMD report
and the Washington conference principles of 1998.
Our 1997 survey sought to determine the number of
paintings, sculptures, and drawings in our collection that were
created before 1946 and acquired by the museum after 1932.
Our survey thus exceeded the expectations established in
the AAM and AAMD guidelines, which suggested that the initial
focus of research should be European paintings and Judaica.
At present, based on our current database search
capabilities, we estimate that our collection includes 7,481
works of art made before 1946 and acquired by the museum after
1932.
Our curatorial staff has analyzed whether, in addition to
being made before 1946 and acquired by the museum after 1932,
the work of art underwent a change of ownership between 1932
and 1946, and was or might reasonably have been thought to have
been in continental Europe between those dates.
This is the definition of a covered object, as you know
very well.
Although our research is constantly ongoing, our curatorial
staff has determined that 2,832 of the 7,481 works of art fall
within this definition.
All of the objects of the provenance research project pages
of our Web site are accessible through the AAM's Nazi-era
provenance Internet portal.
Nearly 2,000 of the 2,832 works of art in our collection
that meet the terms of our inquiry will be posted in full on
our Web site, together with all of their provenance information
in which we are confident, this September, in a much improved
searchable database, and I refer again to my written testimony
which has pages from the Web site, so you can see exactly how
that is.
In addition to providing information about our collection,
our Web site contains information on provenance bibliography to
help guide people in their own research in their own
collections or other museums in their research.
Provenance research is an integral part of the work of the
Art Institute of Chicago's staff and all curatorial
departments.
Such research is performed on a daily basis. In addition to
ongoing research efforts in the departments, we maintain an
inter-departmental provenance committee comprising curators,
researchers, library staff, and other staff with relevant
skills and knowledge that meets to share information and focus
efforts specifically on Nazi-era provenance research.
Funding for provenance research comes from our operating
budget, department funds, gifts from individual donors, and
grants for projects that include provenance research as a
fundamental, but not sole, piece of the project. All together,
since 1998, we have spent well over half-a-million dollars
researching our provenance records, not to mention the annual
operating funds we use for the salaries of permanent
professional staff, including conservatives, curators,
registrars, photographers, Web masters, and lawyers, who spend
a part of each year on this project.
We have hired long-term researchers and project
researchers.
We have sent them to Europe to consult archives, and we
have purchased copies of archival materials.
The Art Institute strives to resolve claims of ownership in
an equitable, appropriate, and mutually agreeable manner. We
are pleased that, in those cases that have arisen to date, the
Art Institute has resolved the claims amicably. There have been
only two, and I refer again to my written testimony, to the
particulars of those instances.
Like many museums and art museums in the United States, our
institute has received a letter from the Claims Conference
inviting us to participate in the survey.
The letter was dated February 27, 2006, and instructed us
to answer 24 detailed questions and to return the survey by
April 14th, 7 weeks later. We responded with a detailed five-
page letter answering, we believe, the survey's questions in
full.
In conclusion, let me say that the U.S. art museums will
continue to respond to claims made against works in their
collection, as they have done in the past.
We will continue to work diligently to provide as much
provenance information on our Web sites as soon as it becomes
available.
By continuing to link our Web sites to the AAM portal,
potential claimants may go to one source for information, but
again, I stress that, after more than 8 years of intensive
investigation, we have been able to verify very few claims.
I do not expect that to change dramatically, for the
reasons that I have mentioned. There are few Holocaust looted
works of art in American museums, but even one such work is one
too many.
U.S. art museums will continue to do everything we can to
restore that work to its rightful owner.
Thank you again for holding this important hearing, and
thank you for allowing me to submit this testimony and my
written testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cuno can be found on page 61
of the appendix.]
Mr. Leach. Thank you, Mr. Cuno.
Mr. Rub.
STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY M. RUB, DIRECTOR, CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART
Mr. Rub. Thank you, and good morning.
I am Timothy Rub, the director of the Cleveland Museum of
Art, and I speak to you today on behalf of the Association of
Art Museum Directors and the trustees of the Cleveland Museum
of Art. I would like to express our thanks for this opportunity
you've given me to share with you the significant efforts that
American museums have undertaken since the subcommittee first
held hearings on this important subject in February 1998, but
before I do, I should pause and encourage this group, following
on the Congressman's suggestion, to see the Grant Wood
exhibition nearby, and to see the greatest Grant Wood
collections in Ohio, Daughters of the Revolution, in the
collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum. It is a wonderful
picture.
Over the past 8 years, a considerable amount of progress
has been made by the many museums whose collections might have
included works that were illegally appropriated during the
Holocaust.
Even though provenance research is time consuming and
costly, the several institutions I have had the privilege to
lead during this period, the Cleveland Museum of Art today, and
before this, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Hood Museum of
Art at Dartmouth College, as well as the members of the AAMD,
all have made a firm commitment to undertake this work and to
make the results of their research available to the public.
In doing so, we have complied with the guidelines
articulated in the AAMD's June 1998 report on the spoliation of
art during the Nazi World War II era.
Notably, in terms of the work that has been done thus far,
we have focused our initial efforts on our collections of
European paintings.
American museums embraced this responsibility and acted
upon it quickly and with great resolve, in my opinion. For
example, the AAMD surveyed its members in 1999, and determined
that 100 percent of those whose collections included art that
might have been looted during the Holocaust period had, in
fact, completed or were in the process of undertaking
provenance research. Furthermore, in that survey, 100 percent
of AAMD members indicated that access to their provenance
records was open.
While we consider provenance research to be critically
important, and have made a broad commitment to undertake this
work, it is vital for you, the members of the subcommittee, to
understand how complicated and labor intensive such research
can be.
It requires a detailed review of primary and secondary
documents, often scattered in many different places throughout
the world, and in many instances where such documents do not
exist or cannot be found, substantial inferential analysis. In
many cases, we have not been able to fill all the gaps, and
must recognize that we may never be able to do so.
Others can help, and for this reason, the posting of
provenance records on our Web sites and on the portal
maintained by the AAM is an essential tool.
It is also important for the members of the subcommittee to
understand that a gap in the provenance of a work of art during
the Holocaust period does not mean that this work was seized
illegally by the Nazis or was the subject of a forced sale and
not restituted.
Rather, a gap in provenance indicates that we have been
unable to find documentation or other evidence that allows us
to determine the ownership of a particular work of art during a
certain period of time. In other words, this means, quite
literally, the absence of information on an object, not the
presence of information that gives rise to or may constitute a
justification for a claim that it was illegally taken and not
restituted.
Given the extensive research that has been done by American
museums, without, it should not go unremarked, any appreciable
public funding, the number of claims received by American
museums, as my colleagues have mentioned, has been very small.
To date, only 22 works have been restituted by American museums
because they were looted by the Nazis and not returned to their
rightful owners after the war.
For those who claim that hundreds or even thousands of
spoliated works remain in the collections of American museums,
the work done during the last decade, as a statistical point,
simply indicates otherwise.
In this regard, I would not suggest that the extensive
efforts that have been undertaken to research the provenance of
Holocaust-era works has been inappropriate or that they should
be curtailed, but our experience indicates the magnitude of
this problem does not match the sometimes often strongly
emotional appeal made on occasion by those who seek to recover
art that is believed to have been lost and not restituted.
Furthermore--and I think this is the important point--it
confirms that the course taken by American museums, who hold
their collections in trust for the benefit of the public, is
fair and designed to achieve the best possible outcomes for
both our institutions and those who may have valid claims on
works of art that were confiscated or illegally taken from them
or their families during the Holocaust.
Finally, some critics have questioned the wisdom of
continuing the Federal immunity that is granted or accorded to
works of art that are in the United States on loan to American
museums, and whether such a protection should apply when there
might be a Holocaust issue.
Please note the emphasis I have placed on the possibility
of a Holocaust-related issue, such as a gap, as opposed to an
outstanding claim that may be valid but is, as yet, unresolved.
If this issue comes before the subcommittee in the future,
I urge you to continue to support the Federal immunity program.
The immunity program is a time-honored and valuable
instrument that enables American museums to present to the
public great works of art from around the world. Absent such
protection, many foreign-owned works might not be made
available to American museums because of the fear that such
works will become encumbered with litigation in the United
States courts, and here I should add that we have all agreed--
we, the American museum community--that we must carefully
evaluate all loan requests to make sure that we are not
requesting illegally confiscated or Holocaust-era art, and this
is a part of the immunity process, as well.
When museums apply for immunity for loans, they are
required to address Holocaust issues as part of the application
process. I should also add in this regard that the very fact of
exhibiting a painting with a gap in its provenance can, in
fact, help the process of restitution, because the public
presentation of this work in the United States can bring to the
attention of a claimant its existence or make available
information that an individual would need in order to make a
claim.
Let me conclude by stating once again that the 8 years
since the subcommittee's first hearings on this subject have
witnessed significant progress in the development of a broader
knowledge of provenance information that has now been made
available to potential claimants and the public at large.
While this work is not yet complete, research regarding
most of the works of art that may be at issue has certainly
been undertaken, and America, as many of my colleagues have
said, can be very proud of the leadership role that its art
museums have played in this effort.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rub can be found on page 145
of the appendix.]
Mr. Leach. Thank you, Mr. Rub.
Ms. Lillie.
STATEMENT OF CATHERINE A. LILLIE, DIRECTOR, HOLOCAUST CLAIMS
PROCESSING OFFICE, NEW YORK STATE BANKING DEPARTMENT
Ms. Lillie. Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Maloney, and
members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to
testify before you today on Holocaust-era asset restitution.
The New York State Banking Department has 10 years of
hands-on experience working with, and advocating on behalf of,
claimants seeking the return of assets lost, looted, or stolen
during the Holocaust.
The Banking Department's involvement in these issues goes
back to 1996, when the world finally began to pay attention to
the fate of assets deposited in Swiss financial institutions.
Governor Pataki, at the urging of then-Superintendent Neil
Levin, encouraged the Banking Department to use its influence,
expertise, and international reach to rationally resolve these
emotionally charged and politically complex estates.
The department has been actively committed ever since,
first with our investigation into the war-time activities of
the Swiss banks' New York agencies and then by establishing the
Holocaust Claims Processing Office as a separate and unique
division.
Our involvement was extended further still with the
establishment of the International Commission on Holocaust
Insurance Claims, also a legacy of the late Neil Levin, and
ultimately, the department took on the task of assisting
claimants in their quest for works of art lost, looted, or
stolen during the Holocaust.
The HCPO has a long tradition of quality and substance. It
remains the only government agency in the world to offer
Holocaust survivors or the heirs of Holocaust victims and
survivors assistance with a vast array of multinational claims
processes.
To date, the HCPO has received approximately 5,000 claims
from 48 States and 37 countries, and has secured the return of
more than $55 million to claimants, as well as 13 works of art.
The knowledge and assistance of the HCPO staff have
alleviated burdens and costs often incurred by claimants who
attempt to navigate the diversity of international claims
processes by themselves.
Our successes are a direct result of the importance
attached to, and attention paid by, the HCPO to individualized
analysis.
Many of the claimants we work with have lost everything and
everyone, resulting in the need for archival and genealogical
research to confirm family relationships and to uncover details
regarding the fate of many original owners. All of our services
are provided free of charge.
The HCPO has, over the past decade, worked directly and
intimately with almost all restitution and compensation
processes in existence today.
As a result, we have close working relationships with
archival and historical commissions, financial institutions,
trade associations, and our colleagues in federal, state, and
local governments in Europe.
At the same time, many claims processes have sought the
HCPO's advice.
Put another way, almost all paths to restitution and/or
compensation for Holocaust-era assets have converged at the
HCPO at one point or another.
Throughout, the HCPO has had a single purpose: to resolve
claims as promptly as possible, and in a sensitive manner,
given the singularity of the events that preceded them.
The passage of time, the ravages of war, the lack of
documentation that you heard about, and the mortality of
claimants make this a complex task.
The HCPO owes its success to a dedicated team of
multilingual and multi-talented professionals. Possessing a
broad and long traditional legal, historical, economic, and
linguistic skill set, coupled with the ability to communicate
with, and conduct research in, a vast number of European
government and private offices, the HCPO staff research,
investigate, and secure documentation, building upon the
foundation provided by claimants.
Let there be no mistake about it. Even claims with
documentation are a time-consuming task, and the paucity of
published records often complicates matters further. For
significant works of art, the odds of there being academic
publications which serve as vital tools in our research efforts
are high, but the Nazis did not limit their spoliation to
museum-quality pieces. Ordinary middle-class collections,
second-tier painters, decorative arts, tapestries, and
antiquities, as well as Judaica, were looted. In some of these
areas, the art historical literature is anything but deep.
To complicate matters further, information, much like the
objects themselves, have often ended up scattered all across
the globe.
Claimants seeking the return of such low monetary value but
high emotional and spiritual value items face daunting hurdles,
given the lack of historical significance, not to mention the
enormous logistical and legal challenges. The HCPO, earlier
this year, successfully completed the return of a Torah cover
from the Jewish Museum in Vienna. The obvious inestimable
emotional value is without question, but without the HCPO,
where would claimants have gone for help, given its limited
monetary value?
Overall, art claimants, as you have heard, are piecemeal
work, which unlike financial assets such as bank accounts or
insurance policies, do not lend themselves to wholesale
centralized settlements.
Instead, given the individualized nature of these cases,
they must be painstakingly resolved painting by painting,
object by object, and Torah cover by Torah cover.
The publication of provenance information is critically
important to our endeavors, as is the ease of access to such
information.
As we work piece together each claims complex mosaic,
accessibility is paramount.
The AAM's Web portal is an excellent illustration of what
is possible.
While far from perfect, it is a major step in the right
direction, currently allowing 151 museums to make their
provenance research available via a single point of entry, with
more museums joining all the time, as evidenced by the Claims
Conference's recent report.
There remains, of course, a significant difference between
the work done by museums and public collections and such
information as is available for private collections in the art
market as a whole.
The issue becomes trickier once claimants locate items in
private collections or, indeed, in the market.
Sale rooms have learned much in the past decade, and
certainly, the large auction houses have dedicated staff who
have worked well with the HCPO and our claimants to determine
whether items submitted to auctions have a problematic
provenance.
Smaller sale rooms both in the United States and Europe
still need encouragement and education.
Not all are as willing to pull lots from sales when
questions arise. Few of them are sensitive to the labor-
intensive, and therefore time-consuming, research these cases
require. As a result, the HCPO still finds more resistance to
clarifying title in these contexts than we would like to see.
So, continued education of active market participants
remains a critical piece in all this if buyers and sellers are
to understand and ultimately accept that transactions conducted
in seemingly good faith many years ago may nonetheless be
questionable.
In closing, I would like to share the following thought.
We have a unique challenge in a complex market, but we also
have the potential to help so many. If we are to achieve our
mission, we must encourage open, transparent cooperation both
internally and in the larger universe of Holocaust-era
restitution and compensation programs. Cross-functional and
interagency dialogue between such claims processes encourages
new perspectives, expands and enhances coalitions, fosters
partnerships, and ensures a more comprehensive approach.
By finding creative solutions and mechanisms, agencies can
work together to streamline the prolonged claims processes for
claimants, many of whom are in their 80's and 90's, and for
whom time is a disappearing luxury.
Finally, let me return briefly to the Torah cover I
mentioned earlier.
Marpe Lanefesch, the name of the congregation that was in
effect the Torah cover's birthplace, translates to ``the
healing of the soul.''
How better to summarize what I think our collective intent
is: the attempt by a few people committed to doing what is
right, rather than what is easy, to repair, to the extent
possible, a lasting rend in the fabric of life.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lillie can be found on page
125 of the appendix.]
Mr. Leach. Thank you very much, Ms. Lillie, and thank you
all for extraordinary testimony.
I want to begin briefly with Mr. Eizenstat. Stuart, your
testimony was extraordinary and comprehensive. As principally a
lawyer, I think you symbolize the best ``lawyer'' approach in
terms of not only the law, but in the legal way of thinking.
One of the interesting legal issues that exists, as you note
the problems in Europe, is the difference between the
Napoleonic codes and the common law on the issue of theft. That
is, in common law countries like ours and Great Britain, if a
thief sells an item to a party and the party sells that item to
a third party, if the original owner has a claim, that owner
can make a claim directly to the current owner, whereas under
the Napoleonic codes, if there was a good faith process at any
point, the original owner only has a claim against the thief.
This means that, theoretically, if you have a piece of art with
dubious provenance, you would rather sell it in Europe than in
the United States. Thus, it is very difficult to return stolen
art in Napoleonic code countries unless there is will. What you
have suggested is that several countries have exhibited will
and others have not. Could you comment on this?
Mr. Eizenstat. Mr. Chairman, this is really an excellent
point, and you are quite correct about the difference in the
legal structures. We tried to overcome that with the Washington
principles, but as you will remember, in the late hours of
negotiation, only partially, because in order to get over 40
countries to ascribe to the principles, which were based on the
AAMD principles, with some modifications, we needed to put in
language that assured countries that they could apply their
only law. It is the only way we could get that done.
But the principles are there, and they are meant, and some
of them say very clearly, to facilitate claims resolution, to
have non-litigable ways to do so, and a number of countries--
for example, Austria has passed a specific law recognizing that
the Napoleonic issue--that Holocaust looted art should be
treated differently, and they passed a law which has permitted
hundreds and hundreds of pieces to be returned.
The Netherlands has done the same.
Russia, theoretically, has done the same, but it has not
applied it.
So, what we need to do is to get countries to apply special
restitution laws for this area, so that you do not have the
kind of complication that you have just indicated. One of the
advantages of trying to get an international conference
together and to at least encourage, Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Maloney,
the publication of lists as the portal has done in the United
States, is at least we will know what the universe is.
Once we know what the universe is, then even with the
Napoleonic problem, we can facilitate settlements, we can
facilitate monetary recoveries, which are not precluded by the
Napoleonic code.
We can facilitate arbitrated or mediated solutions, but we
can't do any of those if we do not have the basic raw data, and
because so few countries have published, even in Germany,
anything like what the AMD museums have done, we do not have
the basis to apply settlements that could be done outside of
the strictures of the Napoleonic code.
Mr. Leach. Let me just ask one follow-on question.
It appears that Russia, in many regards, is the great
laggard, not so much in law but in the classic instance have
not wanting to publish what it has, and one has a sense that
part of it relates to this issue.
Most of it may relate to issues itself in museums. Powerful
people walk away with great art. Do you have a sense of this
problem?
Mr. Eizenstat. Yes.
Let me explain, if I may, as best I can, the Russian
situation.
Of course there is a broader picture in Russia of the rule
of law which we have seen trampled on in recent years in a
whole range of areas.
They were the only delegation in the 1998 Washington
conference that participated separately in the closing news
conference. The Russian legislation was once vetoed, but
ultimately legislation was signed that separated two types of
art.
One was what they call trophy art, which was art that the
Red Army took, after the war or in the closing days of the war,
from German museums and public institutions as what they viewed
as compensation for their massive loss of life and property
from the German invasion.
The law that President Putin signed makes it clear they
will never return that, but they also made it clear in that
legislation that art which was taken by the Red Army from the
Germans, which, in turn, was taken from Jews or Jewish
institutions or for racial reasons should be returned--and they
committed themselves to publish the provenance of their major
museums, and they have a claims process.
There has been a very small amount of publication of their
provenance by a very few museums, not the major ones, the
Hermitage and others, and there is basically no claims process.
This is a very key matter where a good bilateral
discussion, let alone an international conference, could bring
the Russians, as they did in 1998, to come up to international
standards.
I think there is no question but that the Russians have the
greatest treasure trove of looted art, and if we assure them
that no one is trying to get their--that we are focusing on art
taken from Holocaust victims and we put enough political muscle
behind it at senior enough level, perhaps we can make progress.
Mr. Leach. Thank you.
Ms. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
I thank all of you for your testimony.
I would like to ask Mr. Edelson--you mentioned that we
should focus a little bit on the dealers.
How can dealers best be encouraged to make their records
available to bona fide researchers, claimants, and claimant
representatives?
Mr. Edelson. So far as I know, ma'am, dealers do make their
records available.
I can tell you now that I was speaking to one dealer the
other day who said that he had opened his records to the
Metropolitan Museum, for example, who was doing some research
in provenance, and I have not, myself, had a complaint from
anyone that a dealer has not cooperated.
Now, it does not mean, necessarily, that all dealers are
cooperating.
I hope they are, and we urge them to do so.
Mrs. Maloney. I would like to ask Ms. Lillie the same
question.
Have you, in your work with your office, reached out to art
dealers and gotten their cooperation, or do you think they
should be part of the central registry?
Ms. Lillie. We have had, I think, examples of just about
every form of cooperation you can imagine, which ranges from
very productive to almost none at all, and that is true not
just in the United States but across Europe, as well. Your
question, whether we would like to see a more centralized venue
for this, is one that resonates very deeply with me.
The portal, where we worked extensively with Mr. Able and
his organization in terms of technical assistance, the sort of
information that ought to be put up that would be helpful to
claimants and researchers but also finding common denominators
between and amongst museums and the information they have has
been very, very helpful. There is a single point of entry. It
is a starting point. Even if we do not find specific paintings,
we often find information held within museum records that will
lead us to other sources of information.
If we could work with Mr. Edelson on finding some sort of
central venue for dealers, as well, that would be superb. One
of the difficulties, of course, is, as he mentioned, would
owners be willing to share that information? From my vantage
point, the more transparency we have in the market, the better
and more efficienct marketplace it would surely be.
Mrs. Maloney. Mr. Cuno and Mr. Rub, thank you for your
leadership and the work of your museums.
What can we do to accelerate the speed of provenance
research and publication of such research while the present
generation of Holocaust survivors is still with us? Obviously,
the sense of urgency is, simply put, not our friend, and when
you lose the last living memories of these items, then where
will we go, and I just want to ask the question--the reports
that came out--they said many of the museums had cooperated,
but others had not, and they mentioned some very prominent
museums that had not cooperated.
What is the enforcement or the incentive for museums to
cooperate?
They cited some, such as your own, that have done
remarkable work, but they cited others who did not fill out the
survey, would not respond, said they did not have the time or
finances to respond.
Mr. Cuno. I am afraid my answer to the first question will
not necessarily be satisfactory, because the answer has got to
be assistance with funding, and funding not necessarily to
individual museums in their research but to the creation of
centralized databases such as we have begun to undertake but
could use additional resources to perpetuate or to deepen.
To step back just one second to the question about the
dealers, I do not know the extent to which this is possible,
but it would be greatly advantageous to the work of museums and
museum researchers, not just on the question of Holocaust-era
provenance research but generally in provenance research, if
there were a way, when dealers go out of business, for example,
that those records would not necessarily disappear.
It has been one of the obstacles that we face in our
research, not just in this country but among European art
dealers, is when they do go out of business, there is no
perpetuation, necessarily, of the records that they had, and
so, we lose track of those records, and the loss is sometimes
insurmountable.
To your question about what it is that museums can do, and
also to your question about why it is that some museums have
not responded to the survey, I do think it is a matter of time
and money, and we have competing calls on our time and money,
as you can well understand, as every institution, and that is
with regard to the education that we do in our cities, where we
are ultimately and increasingly responsible for the arts
education and some of the civic education of our citizens.
So, we could use some assistance in that regard, perhaps on
an individual basis but certainly in a collective basis, to
provide the resources that we need to advance our research, and
to work cooperatively with our colleagues outside of museums.
To the question about why some museums did not return the
survey, I cannot speak for them.
Mrs. Maloney. Do you feel like there is a difference
between a large museum and a small museum?
Mr. Cuno. A very big difference.
My quick count of the list of museums that did not
respond--out of the 108 listed that did not respond, only 26 of
them belong to the AAMD, and to belong to the AAMD, you have to
have a budget of at least $2 million for 2 years.
It is the minority of museums that have the significant
resources to apply toward research.
Of the museums on the list of 108 that did not respond,
many have budgets less than $2 million, and many of those
museums, 19 of them, to my count, are small community college
or small college museums.
So, it is very difficult for those museums to marshall the
resources, financial and human resources to respond to the
complicated questions asked in the survey. The assistance would
have to be material, I am afraid.
Mr. Able. Jim, may I add something to that?
Mrs. Maloney, if you look at the chart, it does not mean
that all these museums are not cooperating in the work. It
means they did not respond to the survey.
There is a chart in the report of 25 major museums, and it
is pointed out that five did not respond. Well, they did not
respond to the survey, and that is regrettable, but four of
them are registered and have registered, collectively, 621
objects on the portal.
So, I think that there needs to be some clarification of
some of the statements in the report as to the accuracy, that
they can be somewhat misleading.
Mr. Rub. Let me add that I--I should say I think it is
unfortunate that some of our colleagues or fellow institutions
did not respond to the survey. However, I do not think that
lack of response should be taken for--taken in any way to mean
that they are not, as Ed mentioned a moment ago, participating
actively in this kind of work, particularly if they have
collections that include covered objects.
It should also be pointed out that it is not entirely clear
to me, at least, whether or not many of these institutions on
the list that did not respond actually have covered objects in
their collections.
We have a number of members of the AAMD, and there are many
more institutions that are not, that either collect
contemporary art, and so do not work in this field and never
have collected in this field, or collect American art or some
other types of objects that would not fall under the heading of
covered object, as well.
I would also like to come back to points that my colleague,
Jim Cuno, made a moment ago, and that is the enormity of the
task that is facing many of these institutions in terms of how
to fund this work on an ongoing basis.
I have been, as I mentioned in my testimony, at three
institutions during the past 8 years that have decided to
undertake this work, and in each case, it was a formidable
challenge to find the time and the human resources to do this
on an ongoing basis.
In each case, we did, but we had to carve the funds to do
that out of existing work, and it is a complicated issue to
deal with during a time of diminishing resources for support of
museums in general.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you.
Mr. Taylor. Our only request with the survey was that we
felt it was important that museums, even if they have no
covered objects, would simply answer that, and many did. Many
who had no covered objects or where it was not applicable very
kindly wrote back, and all of those answers are publicly
available on the Web site for people to see.
So, we would just respectfully urge museums, even if their
answer is that it does not apply to them, or only to a certain
extent, to do so, and maybe my colleagues will assist, so that
there is a public record of museums reporting what they have
done. The survey does include, also, some larger museums, some
of whom are AAM accredited that did not respond.
We welcome responses so that the public can check and look
and see what museums are doing, and we just urge them to report
that for the benefit of the public.
Mr. Leach. Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to all of you, and I appreciate the opportunity to
listen to your testimony today.
I have questions far beyond the 5-minute time allotment
that I have.
So, Mr. Taylor, specifically, I would request that, if you
can, come and make an appointment with me so that we can spend
some expanded time talking about issues that go beyond just the
topic that we are covering here today.
I would surely appreciate it.
Mr. Eizenstat, when you have an opportunity to do that, if
you would be willing to do so, as well, I would surely
appreciate it.
I represent a district in south Florida that is home to one
of the largest, if not the largest, survivor population in the
country, and it is a rapidly aging population, one in which
even child survivors are now well into their 70's, and some
older than that, and there are not many more years left,
obviously, that we are going to be able to do anything for them
to either improve the quality of life or achieve restitution
for them in material ways.
I am wondering, particularly at the Claims Conference, Mr.
Taylor, to what degree you've already recovered art, and to
what degree--well, let me back up for a second.
I know that you already hold title to a large inventory of
property in Germany, and there was not a great deal of
understanding as to what that is, what is in your--what is in
the Claims Conference's possession, the value of it, and I know
a lot of that is land parcels and buildings, but what I am
wondering is if any of those holdings are outstanding claims
that include art and cultural property.
Additionally, how much in compensation has the Claims
Conference received to date from the German authorities for
artwork and cultural objects, and if you could elaborate on
that, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Taylor. Firstly, when we recover buildings and
properties, we sell those properties and then allocate those
funds primarily for social programs for Holocaust survivors,
and for programs of Holocaust education. That is regarding our
allocations program, and it is a long and complicated issue. I
would be very happy to meet with you and look forward to that
opportunity.
Regarding art, we have tried to pursue art claims in the
former East Germany, where the Claims Conference has a special
status.
We have had limited success. I think it is probably less
than about half-a-dozen so far, but there are about 80 claims
pending.
Of the handful that we have received, those have been
recovered and turned over to heirs, and we have worked with the
heirs of those to return those.
We filed about 80 claims which cover some hundreds of
objects, maybe up to about 1,000 objects, but it is about 80
claims.
There is a list of them posted on our Web site, where there
is a full listing of the individual claims. When we meet, I can
certainly point out where that is. Most claimants have come
forward, and we are assisting and working with them on those
art claims in the former East Germany, but there are, I should
say, also a number of claimants in Germany who have filed
claims directly. We have given some indirect assistance, but
those are filed directly, particularly for the former West
Germany, where the deadlines have expired, but efforts still
continue to recover items of looted art.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. I can appreciate your testimony
about the creation of the databases that you currently hold
about stolen artwork, because obviously, access to that
information is important.
Does the Claims Conference publish a similar database of
real estate property in Germany, listing things like property
parcels, Jewish families who originally owned them? What kind
of identification have you been able to surmise, and what about
looted property?
Is there no property that you hold title to? How quickly do
you sell it? I am just not really knowledgeable about that
process.
Mr. Taylor. There were certain items that we had recovered,
and there was a period for dealing with this issue, and there
was a publication of a database which related to these items,
and there was a period for dealing with this issue. So, yes,
there was a publication.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. Is that still available?
Mr. Taylor. It is not.
The period for claiming for those particular items has
expired, but it was available, and there were claims, and there
was a claims period after publication.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. What happened to the property that
was not claimed?
Mr. Taylor. The Claims Conference uses those funds
recovered from items that are not claimed largely for programs
of home care, social assistance, and other programs,
particularly for programs for needy Holocaust survivors,
including some in your district. In over 60 countries around
the world, we operate programs providing assistance to
Holocaust survivors: food packages; home care; shelter; social
care; and various forms of assistance.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. How many voting members of the
Claims Conference board are survivor groups?
Mr. Taylor. There are three organizations of survivor
groups but there are many Holocaust survivors on the board of
the Claims Conference, a very significant number of Holocaust
survivors.
I do not have the specific number.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. Three groups out of how many?
Mr. Taylor. Twenty-four groups, but the other groups are
Jewish organizations, many of whom have Holocaust survivors and
are represented on the Claims Conference by Holocaust
survivors.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I have a number of
other questions, and I do not want to take up the committee's
time, because they are not quite as relevant to the topics at
hand, but I would like them answered, and if I could ask
unanimous consent to submit those questions for the record, I
ask that the panelists answer them in written form.
Mr. Leach. Without objection, they will be submitted for
the record and transmitted.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz. Thank you, very much.
Mr. Leach. Thank you for your contribution.
Let me thank you all.
It is apparent that the United States leads in this effort.
Yet, it may be the case that there is some art fatigue.
More can be done. Each of you represented here have contributed
impressively to the effort, and so, the committee is very
appreciative of your efforts.
I might just suggest, because I do not know how significant
this is, but to Mr. Cuno, who heads what, in effect, is an
accrediting body, as I understand it--you head an accrediting
body of museums?
Mr. Cuno. Yes. No, I do not head the--I headed for one time
the AAMD. Accrediting of museums is done through AAM.
Mr. Leach. Oh, I am sorry, through AAM.
Mr. Able, I do not know how significant in the
accreditation the attention to the Holocaust art issue is, but
I would hope that you would put it front and center. Is that a
credible request, or is it a request that has already been--
Mr. Able. Accreditation deals with that issue, Congressman,
but in a wider view and way.
Accredited museums are required to demonstrate that they
are taking every step to ensure that any item in their
collection is legally held. If they had an item that was
illegally appropriated by the Nazis, that would be covered in
that area.
So, it actually captures a much wider--and it is very
carefully looked at by the accrediting visiting evaluators, in
their self-study of the institution itself, and then carefully
reviewed by the accreditation commission when the accreditation
review is done on its regular basis.
Mr. Leach. I appreciate that very much.
I think the only footnote would be that there is theft and
then there is Holocaust theft, and so, to raise this to
particular significance, I think, would be good social policy.
Mr. Able. Actually, that was done much earlier, back in the
late 1990s, when we passed our guidelines.
It has been extensively discussed at the commission
meetings and with all the site evaluators.
Mr. Leach. Well, I appreciate you being well ahead of the
committee.
Mr. Eizenstat.
Mr. Eizenstat. I just wanted to make a concluding remark.
I first want to thank you for your continuing interest, and
Mrs. Maloney for her continuing interest, the chairwoman for
having the hearing, but you know, we all have a limited amount
of time and resources. The question is where you devote to it,
and for sure, American museums can be encouraged to do more,
but they have made a huge step forward with this portal.
We ought to get as many to contribute as possible, but they
really have done a tremendous job.
The real focus, Mr. Chairman, Mrs. Maloney, really needs to
be abroad.
That is where the real problem is. That is where most of
the art is that is potentially looted. That is not going to
happen unless Congress focuses attention on it and encourages
senior people in the Administration to make this an issue they
care about. The art issue has not gotten a huge amount of
attention, to say the least, from the Administration.
It has sort of fallen off the radar screen. There are a lot
of other issues, anti-Semitism and so forth, they have done a
very good job with, but now with the art that we are concerned
with.
The bulk of it, is going to be in a few countries abroad,
and I would just urge the committee to be creative in focusing
attention there and focusing the attention of the Executive
Branch on pursuing that. In particular, again, an international
conference is a way of elevating it. It is an action-forcing
device. If countries knew they had to come and report on their
progress, you would see a lot more action coming.
Mr. Leach. I appreciate that very much. I agree. I would
just add to that, because of the steps that you in this panel
have taken, the United States is in a much better position to
lead. That is, if the American museums had not been as
attentive, I do not think we could stand on a very solid basis,
and so, your efforts have made our country's position, I think,
far more credible than would otherwise be the case.
With that, let me thank you all very much, and I am
personally very impressed with each of your statements and with
your commitment. The committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:58 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
July 27, 2006
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