Nazi plunder: French museums to return looted artwork to Jewish heirs • FRANCE 24 English

Eighty years ago, on January 27, 1945, the extermination and concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Soviets. Of the 69,000 Jews deported from France, only 5 percent survived. During World War II, the Nazis looted 100,000 items of cultural property belonging to Jewish families. After the Liberation, some 60,000 stolen works of art were repatriated to France, and 45,000 were handed back to their owners, or to family members who had survived the Holocaust. But 2,200 are still in French museums, as curators continue to search for their rightful owners. FRANCE 24’s Claire Paccalin and Stéphanie Trouillard report.  

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25 comments

  1. This is very moving that the descendants of this family donated the paintings and the history behind them. A very personal family history, and difficult to process, but they show the courage to share. I am thankful to them….this history is just as valuable as the art pieces. So many similar stories across our globe, of cultures stolen and peoples stripped of their rights and their lives. An important truth to acknowledge and learn from, let us learn to respect each other and live with peace.

  6. America has never repaid the countries it looted…Iraq, Afghanistan, lately Gaza…there were 2500 companies in Iraq and Afghanistan looting mainly BLACKWATER

  7. The world has to return all the stolen art and other artifacts to their rightful owners. The world needs to wakeup and do what is right. God bless all the victims of the Holocaust and WW2 keep on paying the luv forward ❤️🦋

  14. think of all artifacts which would need to be returned which would leave most museums palaces castles galleries empty; plus the fact that museums etc need to educate locals

  15. Also Native American arts return to original ancestors, stealing is so low. Definitely return all arts to Jewish heirs or ancestors.

  16. Please not again. In the British museums are Egyptian artifacts by the tons, accompanied with their newest editions from Syria. In the US, action houses selling religious artworks which said their owners were jiiz. Something is wrong with the pictures and not just which claimed by as owners by otherwise wealthy Jooz individuals but as they say they all were ordinary and poor jeez. The real victims were not them but all other kinds of Europe. As I think about it,in the future they will have a hard time to come up with the victim cards. The Internet blown away their cover in Palestine.

  21. Its very hard to find the Providence of s paintingin some cases .To start with
    Then there is the issue of proof of ownership. When your running for your life you dont think to take ownership papers with you !?!?

  22. Thanks for this! I have been researching my family’s involvement with the LO – my dad was Jan Niebuur (Nieboer) and his uncle was involved as well as his aunts. One of them was an official secretary. They had a wine business next to a printer who was making liberation leaflets in secret. Rita, Tasmania

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