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https://apnews.com/article/nazi-looted-art-returned-23cdc4651c6a63ec260c4f1144f83597>
"NEW ORLEANS (AP) — On the eve of World War II, Nazis in Austria seized a
pastel by renowned impressionist artist Claude Monet, selling it off and
sparking a family’s decadeslong search that culminated Wednesday in New
Orleans.
At an FBI field office, agents lifted a blue veil covering the Monet pastel and
presented Adalbert Parlagi’s granddaughters with the artwork over 80 years
after it was taken from their family. Helen Lowe said she felt that her
grandfather would be watching and that he would be “so, so proud of this
moment.”
Monet’s 1865 “Bord de Mer” depicts rocks along the shoreline of the Normandy
coast, where Allied forces stormed the beaches of Nazi-occupied France during
“D-Day” in 1944, marking a turning point in the war. The Monet pastel is one of
20,000 items recovered by the FBI Art Crime Team out of an estimated 600,000
artworks and millions of books and religious objects stolen by the Nazis.
“The theft was not random or incidental, but an integral part of the Nazis’
plan to eliminate all vestiges of Jewish life in Germany and Europe, root and
branch,” U.S. State Department Holocaust adviser Stuart E. Eizenstat said in a
March speech.
After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Adalbert Parlagi, a successful
businessman and art-lover, and his wife, Hilda, left behind almost everything
they owned and fled Vienna, using British license plates to drive across the
border, their granddaughters said. Though the Parlagis hadn’t identified as
Jewish for years and baptized their children as Protestants, they were still
considered Jewish under Nazi laws, according to Austrian government records.
Other relatives were killed in concentration camps.
The Parlagis attempted to ship their valuable carpets, porcelain and artworks
out of Vienna to London, but found out later that their property had been
seized and auctioned off by the Gestapo to support the Third Reich.
Multiple international declarations decried trading in Nazi-looted art,
beginning with Allied forces in London in 1943. The 1998 Washington principles,
signed by more than three dozen countries, reiterated the call and advocated
for the return of stolen art.
Yet Adalbert Parlagi’s efforts were stonewalled by the Vienna auctioneer who
had bought and sold the Monet pastel and another artwork owned by Parlagi. The
records were lost after the fighting in Vienna, the auctioneer told Adalbert in
a letter shortly after World War II, according to an English translation of a
document prepared by an Austrian government body reviewing the Parlagi family’s
art restitution claims.
“I also cannot remember two such pictures either,” the auctioneer said.
Many survivors of World War II and their descendants ultimately give up trying
to recover their lost artwork because of the difficulties they face, said Anne
Webber, co-founder of the London-based nonprofit Commission for Looted Art in
Europe, which has recovered more than 3,500 looted artworks.
“You have to just constantly, constantly, constantly look,” Webber said."
Via Frederick Wilson II.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
