Reports and Publications

Monica Dugot submitted an essay for a book being edited by Professor Roger Alford at Pepperdine University School of Law. The book is tentatively titled Perspectives on Holocaust Reparations and will tentatively be published by NYU Press.

The Holocaust Claims Processing Office: 
New York State’s Approach to Resolving Holocaust-era Art Claims, 
An Essay by Monica S. Dugot

 “Ismar Littman was my grandfather. I never got to know him. Ismar Littmann committed suicide in 1934, when the world as he knew it was crashing down around him. Within five years of his death, his family home was abandoned, his children had fled Germany for different continents, his wife escaped to England, and his life’s treasure, his art collection, had disappeared: lost, looted, confiscated, stolen. … What a tragedy that his collection was dispersed, and that his reputation as a great collector was never recognized or acknowledged. I am therefore so grateful … to the museums that have already willingly come forward in Emden, Cologne and Berlin, to return pieces from our family collection and to connect Ismar Littmann’s name to the ownership. … We are only one family looking for our heritage; there are many others. And there’s still so much left to be done.”

And there’s still so much left to be done. These closing remarks by Jane Lerner, the daughter of Dr. Ismar Littmann’s eldest daughter Eva, at a ceremony in New York in February 2001 celebrating the return of Alexander Kanoldt’s Olevano, summarize the situation in which the art world finds itself. For all the hard work that has gone into researching Nazi-era art looting, and clarifying the provenance of many items and collections, there is much that remains to be done.

The event at which Jane Lerner spoke was both celebration and commemoration. Olevano was part of a large collection originally owned by Dr. Littmann, a prominent attorney, art collector and supporter of the arts, in pre-war Breslau, Silesia, Poland. With the Nazis’ rise to power, Dr. Littmann suffered considerable personal and professional persecution, culminating in his suicide in 1934. His family was forced to liquidate his art collection shortly thereafter. Part of his collection of almost 6,000 paintings and drawings was sold at auction while many other pieces of the collection were simply confiscated. Olevano, which hung in the National Gallery in Berlin since 1951, was recovered as part of a Holocaust-era settlement arranged by the New York State Banking Department’s Holocaust Claims Processing Office (“HCPO”).

The Littmann claim, filed in the spring of 1998, was one of the very first art claims filed with the HCPO. Still, many elements of this early claim are echoed in subsequent claims filed by owners and heirs seeking to recover their collections lost or looted during the Holocaust. These elements include survivors and heirs needing to confront traumatic events that took place some sixty years ago in an effort to recover their family’s collection, a sizable pre-war collection scattered across Europe, and a paper trail illustrating exhaustive efforts by survivors and heirs trying to locate and recover individual paintings that had been traded multiple times since the end of World War II. Since the Littmann heirs filed their claim, the HCPO has received more than one hundred and twenty claims from individuals in nine countries and eighteen United States seeking the location and return of a total of approximately 25,000 objects, ranging from relatively minor paintings, prints, sculptures or drawings to major works of art by well-known artists.

How does a state bank regulatory agency find itself tackling restitution issues? For the HCPO, it was a natural outgrowth of the office’s original mandate. Established in 1997 by Governor George E. Pataki, the HCPO was originally intended to provide assistance to Holocaust survivors, or their heirs seeking to recover assets deposited in Swiss banks and thought to have been in existence between 1933 and 1945. The office’s mission quickly expanded to meet the real needs of its constituents and by late 1997 the HCPO found itself working, free of charge, to assist claimants seeking the recovery of assets held in other European banks, proceeds from Holocaust-era insurance policies, as well as lost, looted or stolen art. This was done not merely to simplify the claims process for claimants, but to address banking and insurance claims in their entirety. After all, some bank claims referenced art stored in safe deposit boxes or put up as collateral; similarly insurance claims were filed relating to insured art objects or collections stolen during World War II. Thus, the HCPO found itself developing an expertise in art restitution issues.

Over the last six years, the HCPO has been effective in resolving a number of art disputes, ranging from a painting in a North Carolina museum to paintings discovered in European collections and auction houses, providing evidence that just resolution of Holocaust-era art claims is possible, although it takes time, perseverance and particularly diverse skills. The HCPO has been an especially valuable advocate for claimants whose paintings have been found in public institutions, for claimants whose looted painting ended up in a financial institution, for claimants seeking to recover sizable collections, for claimants seeking to recover paintings not necessarily of high monetary value, for claimants with well-documented claims, as well as for claimants with limited resources.

The HCPO’s successes in investigating and locating these items is largely the result of a dedicated team of professionals with a broad range of skills, who can research and communicate in many different languages, drawing on their knowledge of European history, as well as their legal, historical, economic and linguist backgrounds. The team investigates and secures documentation so as to strengthen and bolster claims. The multi-faceted aspect of the office is the key to successful restitution: it is not uncommon for an art claim to include three or four languages, if not more, depending on where the family lived before the war, the exact circumstances of the painting’s confiscation, and the place the painting might have been subsequently sold. In addition, the research necessary to secure restitution is not limited to one area such as art historical research -- the circumstances of the seizure make these cases as much a part of social, business and economic history as art history. Knowing how they were seized, how they might have been resold, and how they might have entered any of thousands of public and private collections around the world provides critical clues to tracking a work of art. Finally, the knowledge of art history is also critical given that it is important to know which Picasso or Corinth is being sought, how many existed, and how one differs from the other.

Locating and restituting a painting is not a simple task. Holocaust-era provenance research is time consuming. Often this is due to the paucity of published and accessible provenance information. The Nazis looted across the board and many of the paintings they seized and looted were not limited to the much-reported museum-quality seizures for Hitler’s “Führer Museum”. On the contrary, they also took ordinary middle class collections, too – second-tier paintings, tapestries, decorative arts, and antiquities. For many of these items, the art-historical literature is not particularly deep, making restitution work difficult and labor-intensive. Furthermore, the information needed to resolve a case is usually in more than one place. Pre-war collections such as the Littmann collection have not survived intact – they have been dispersed and consequently items can and do surface anywhere – presenting considerable logistical challenges. Successful location of items sought by Holocaust survivors and return of these to this aging population is only possible through coordinated research and restitution efforts.

Given that each art claim involves a specific and identifiable object, art claims have been resolved on a case-by-case basis. Because looted art has been carved out of every Holocaust asset settlement to date and art claims have not been funneled into a large process or commission, many of these claims, once filed with the HCPO, are directly within the control of the HCPO, from the beginning of the process to its resolution. This is important in that it differs substantially from the more “wholesale approach” on the bank and insurance front where Holocaust-era asset litigation resulted in the establishment of settlement funds, claims processes, and tribunals set up to resolve claims. As a result, in the area of Swiss bank and insurance claims, the HCPO is dependent on outside entities such as the Claims Resolution Tribunal and The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims. Thus, despite a significant amount of success, the HCPO has run into frustrating delays and roadblocks in the resolution of a number of these claims.

In contrast, because the HCPO handles art claims independent of any over-arching process or commission, it is able to be creative in coming up with fair and swift solutions. This is not to suggest that it resolves art claims in isolation. Most often, complex and tedious provenance research needs to be done in cooperation with any entity that seems likely to have pertinent information. It is a fact that most claimants do not come to the HCPO bearing detailed documentation or provenance information; indeed sometimes the evidence of ownership is a dim childhood recollection of having seen a painting in a parent’s dining room or study.

That being said, one voice or source is rarely enough to prove a claim: experience has shown that proper research and ultimately fair resolution of Holocaust-era art claims requires collecting the most detailed and accurate information possible, including working with museums, archivists, corroborating information with research in libraries, archives and other sources and all other participants in the sale and transfer of artwork. Wherever possible, the HCPO has endeavored to cooperate with all such groups and individuals, so as to maximize efforts and increase efficiency.

Still, as with the resolution of bank and insurance claims, and in addition to research, it is vital to pay close attention to what the individual claimants have to say. They hold the most critical pieces of the puzzle. Often, the resolution of Holocaust-era claims turns on the quality and degree of a claimant’s documentation and information. It is important to note, however, that less documentation does not necessarily result in a less compelling case, just one that may be – and often is -- more difficult to adjudicate.

As the HCPO endeavors to resolve claims, one of the ground rules has been that all means of restitution outside the court system are explored. The HCPO team has come to rely heavily on urging disparate parties to cooperate. Where cooperation amongst parties exists, claims can be presented clearly, objectively and convincingly – while the current generation of claimants is still alive – to secure closure on an issue that has remained unresolved for far too long.

Experience with lawsuits filed in the United States has shown that litigation is not the most productive avenue for reaching fair and appropriate solutions with regard to artwork looted during the Holocaust. First, it is very costly. Attorney’s fees can easily exceed the monetary value of the works involved. Second, the legal process can be an emotionally wrenching and public affair – especially given the length of time that cases can be tied up. Moreover, litigation results in resolutions that are unpredictable, often cash driven and anything but amicable. 

To date the HCPO has avoided litigation by promoting a climate of cooperation. The HCPO has been aided on this front by new protocols, laws and policies concerning art restitution matters in Europe, the existence of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, the American Association of Museums (“AAM”) and the Association of Art Museum Directors ethical guidelines regarding Nazi-era spoliation of art and the Holocaust Victims Redress Act[1] which calls on all governments to take action to ensure that artworks confiscated by the Nazis be returned to their rightful owners. The guidelines exert strong moral pressure and reflect a spirit of fairness. They also encourage institutions to provide provenance information and importantly, clarify that institutions may elect to waive certain available defenses in order to achieve equitable and appropriate resolutions of claims.

Because of its success in providing a centralized or “one stop shopping” venue for Holocaust survivors, their heirs and the heirs of Holocaust victims over the years, the HCPO has become a recognized authority and leader on matters relating to Holocaust-era losses, compensation and restitution. The office has been able to leverage this unique position, as well as its position as an office within the New York State Banking Department, to exert pressure on restitution and other entities, through dialogue and discussion, thereby making these entities more responsive to claimants.

Claims where the HCPO has been particularly successful in achieving fair resolution without undue legal expenses being incurred include instances where the painting being sought has been found in a public or government funded museum, in the United States and abroad. Paintings that are located in public institutions provide the HCPO, a state agency, with a unique opportunity to engage in both inter-governmental and intra-governmental dialogue. For example, both Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Madonna and Child in a Landscape in the North Carolina Museum of Art and Lesser Ury’s The Seamstress in the New Gallery in Linz were located in public collections. The Seamstress, which had been owned by a German businessman and sold under duress in 1941, was located in an Austrian municipal collection and was returned to the grandson of the original owner. In the second case Madonna and Child in a Landscape, owned by an Austrian industrialist and seized by the Nazis, turned up in a public collection in North Carolina.

Both families had been trying to locate the collections and seek the return of individual paintings since the end of World War II. Before filing claims with the HCPO, these restitution attempts only led to enormous amounts of documentation and paper. However, when compiled correctly and read in context by the HCPO, they made very compelling cases. In both cases the HCPO found that approaching the two museums directly, sharing all information available, fostering a reasoned dialogue amongst the parties, and swiftly suggesting that resolution be sought “outside of the box” as it were, was enormously successful. The preponderance of the evidence, and the HCPO approach led the museums to acknowledge the rightful ownership of the claimants without undue expense or delay.

The HCPO has been able to successfully use its leverage to resolve, amongst other claims, a number of art claims for the heirs of Dr. Littmann. In the matter of Kanoldt’s Olevano, the HCPO urged The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany[2] (“Claims Conference”) to withdraw its claim to the painting so that the National Gallery in Berlin could return Olevano to its rightful owners. The Claims Conference had filed a universal claim for the Littmann collection in 1998, which succeeded in preserving the legal rights of the Littmann heirs. Olevano, together with roughly one thousand works from the Littmann collection, had been sold at the Berlin auction house Max Perl on February 26 and 27, 1935. Also in this same sale was Lovis Corinth’s Portrait of Charlotte Corinth, another painting from the Littmann collection the HCPO was able to recover from the Hamburgische Landesbank, a financial institution in Germany. After being sold at Max Perl, Portrait of Charlotte Corinth arrived at the National Gallery in Berlin from where a Berlin art dealer acquired it in 1940. In subsequent years, the painting changed hands on at least three occasions, ultimately arriving at the Hamburgische Landesbank, which held the painting as collateral for a loan. When the borrower defaulted, the bank put the painting up for sale. As an office within the state banking regulatory agency, the HCPO was able to work closely with the Hamburgische Landesbank, to clarify the painting’s provenance and the circumstances of the 1935 sale, and to promptly secure the return of the painting to the Littmann family.

Indeed, the Littmann claim serves to illustrate why and how the HCPO has been effective in resolving looted art claims and what is critical for the successful resolution of Holocaust-era art claims. The claim demonstrates that the willingness to coordinate and cooperate with various groups is as essential as is the need to remain focused and to doggedly pursue each and every claim, regardless of the monetary value of the art in question. Because the HCPO charges no fee to file and pursue claims nor is its service contingent upon a percentage of claimants’ restitution awards, the HCPO can pursue a claim regardless of the value of the object – there is no ulterior motive or internal conflict of interest. The value the HCPO brings to the table is that the office does not only depend on recovery of the object for successful resolution of a claim; successful resolution can be formal acknowledgement to the claimant by the current holder that a painting was wrongfully taken from them or their family. Success can also simply be achieving closure for a claimant, by showing the claimant that the painting believed to have belonged to a grandparent and consequently looted, could not have been the one being sought given that it had been in continuous ownership by another family for over a hundred years.

Not driven by the need to make a profit, the HCPO can seek solutions that are fair and in the best interest of the claimant. Other for-profit organizations, lawyers and even certain not-for-profit groups do not necessarily have the luxury of pursuing a claim for a painting where the expenses exceed the actual value of the painting. The HCPO has therefore been able to take on a number of art claims that would have nowhere else to go. These claims are by no means less important and deserve attention.

For example, the HCPO was effective in recovering four objects seized or looted from the Littmann collection precisely because of its ability to focus on all objects in the collection, not only those of very high value, thus pursuing the claim in its entirety. Like so many others, Ismar Littmann’s collection is comprised of works that range from being very valuable to those whose value is largely sentimental. To illustrate, last summer, again assisted by the HCPO, the heirs of Ismar Littmann recovered Lucien Adrion’s La Procession, which had been put up for auction at Villa Grisebach by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Germany. Although the painting has enormous emotional significance to the heirs, it is not monetarily valuable. La Procession now hangs in Ruth Haller’s home in Israel.

Of Ismar Littmann’s four children, only his youngest daughter, Ruth Haller, remains alive. Now in her eighties, assisted by her husband Chaim, she continues to search for her father’s vast collection in an effort to piece together her lost family history and legacy and to ensure that his significant collection consisting largely of German Expressionist works, finally receives the recognition it deserves.

As to how to resolve these cases fairly, guidelines and principles actually exist but the key lies in the quality of documentation. If a case is well documented, it is often difficult to do better than the HCPO. This has been the HCPO’s experience in a number of cases, which include Madonna and Child in a Landscape, The Seamstress, and Olevano. Claims are often difficult to resolve because what is most often lacking is specific provenance information and archival documentation such as Nazi seizure documents, shipping records and wartime correspondence. The reality is that few Holocaust-era looted art cases are as well documented as the claim for Madonna and Child in a Landscape or The Seamstress and even after much research has been done, gaps in provenance still remain.

Although these cases are more complicated, the HCPO has been able to facilitate amicable agreements between claimants and the institution in question even where gaps in the provenance still remained. In the matter of Emil Nolde’s Bauernhof in the Kunsthalle in Emden in Germany, the claimants approached the HCPO in July of 1999, asking for help to research and document the theft of Bauernhof. The painting was owned by Heinrich and Elizabeth Bamberger of Frankfurt am Main in Germany prior to WWII. In 1938, Mrs. Bamberger, by then a widow, was forced to register all of her property with the Nazi authorities. She fled Germany in 1940, leaving her property behind with the cantor of her synagogue. During the war, the painting ended up in the hands of Wilhelm Schumann, an art dealer and member of the Nazi party. The painting subsequently changed hands several times over the years, eventually ending up in 1984 in the Kunsthalle in Emden as a bequest from the Henri Nannen Foundation.

Although the HCPO researched the claim extensively and was able to unearth most of the relevant archival and provenance documentation, a small gap in the painting’s history remained. Nonetheless, an amicable settlement was achieved, leaving Bauernhof in the Kunsthalle exhibited with its proper provenance and referencing the former pre-war ownership of the claimant’s family. The settlement was reached rather swiftly, no legal expenses were incurred, and all parties were pleased in the end.

The HCPO is able to assist claimants who have limited resources, but without easy access to certain data, the HCPO has been at times limited in the research it can do and the assistance it can provide. Lack of accessible provenance and archival information has been an obstacle in resolving some art claims. A focus on providing greater, cost-neutral access to much-needed documentation is needed.

At present, an individual who has the resources to hire a private researcher has an advantage over the one who does not. The individual who does not have the resources often has to rely on the research the other party – who is usually the current holder of the art -- has completed. As one can imagine, research in such cases can be a bit one-sided. While it is unrealistic to expect that all relevant information be publicly available anytime soon, important steps towards accomplishing this goal continue to be made. Recently, the AAM launched a search tool to expedite searches for information about objects in United States collections[3], and more and more public and private databases are now available online. These new developments are both important and eminently helpful as the HCPO continues to assist claimants in locating their objects.

Art restitution is a painful exercise for everyone involved and requires creative thinking by all parties and a willingness to craft solutions that at first glance may appear highly unusual. At the same time it is critical to remember that there is nothing “usual” about the events that have led us to this task. Museums and private and public collections find themselves at times faced with doing something that is not part and parcel of the normal course of business, namely “de-accessioning” treasured items. The art market as a whole finds itself suffering from the effects of uncertainty. And claimants find themselves having to confront and relive traumatic events that took place more than a half century ago. Moreover, while the successful return of a family treasure is a joyous and momentous occasion worth celebrating, it is also a bittersweet moment reinforcing the painful loss. Perhaps this was best expressed by the heirs of Philipp von Gomperz when, after being told that the North Carolina Museum of Art had decided to return the Cranach, they responded: “If only Father had lived long enough to see this!”

Ultimately, the thievery of Nazi Germany pales in comparison to the genocide perpetrated upon its millions of innocent victims. But theft, unlike murder, is a wrong that we can and therefore must put right. Failure to act in the full knowledge of the facts only compounds the original crime. It is this principle that led to New York State Governor George E. Pataki’s creation of the HCPO in 1997, and which continues to guide the office today.

The HCPO is still the only governmental office or agency in the United States solely devoted to assisting Holocaust survivors and the heirs of Holocaust survivors and victims as they seek restitution and compensation for their art objects, and other Holocaust-era losses. The HCPO has been a steadfast advocate for Holocaust survivors, their heirs, and the heirs of those who perished, assisting individuals of all backgrounds achieve some measure of justice in the resolution of their claims.

The HCPO’s experience shows that the restitution process can be less complicated and painful if conducted by means of an honest, reasoned, respectful dialogue, and in a spirit of cooperation that sets out to avoid the rancor so often part and parcel of litigation. It’s steadfast commitment to these ground rules stems from the belief that survivors and heirs should not be traumatized anew through their recovery efforts. Moreover, the HCPO’s philosophy is based on the recognition that it is in all our interests to arrive at fair and just resolution of these claims so that we may achieve closure for claimants, the current holders, and future generations alike.