Art restitution backlash

An ongoing issue, treated once again in today's Observer:

Erika Jakubovits, head of an association in Vienna helping Jewish families with restitution claims, said: 'All the old stereotypes are surfacing again ... There is much talk about "rich Jews" supposedly plundering German and Austrian museums in search of money ... a lot of families are not at all rich. They just want to have back what belonged to them.'

A recent development is a decision by a Berlin court to give a music publishing house - holding original scores by Bach among others - protected status as national heritage. Peters publishers was owned by a Jewish family before being expropriated by the Nazis in 1939, but the ruling denies the family's heirs any right to make a restitution claim. Julius Schoeps, of the Moses Mendelssohn research centre in Potsdam and a prominent member of Berlin's Jewish community, recalled a decision by German judges in the 1930s denying Jews property because they were not German Aryans. He is afraid the same logic may be applied again.

Posted by David on December 10, 2006 10:22 AM