Israel Museum, At Last, Posts Possible Nazi Loot Online

Egon Schiele, "Krumau - Crescent of Houses (The Small City V)," 1915
© The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

From the "better late than never" files: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, announced that it has finally launched an online catalogue of art and Judaica in its possession that may have been looted during World War II.

The new posting is titled World War II Provenance Research Online. But, in fact, it lacks any provenance information for the works, other than the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, which was created after World War II to distribute to Jewish institutions worldwide art and artifacts discovered after the war that either had no record of prior ownership history or came from institutions that did not survive the war. The approximately 1,200 objects, including works by major artists, were deposited by JRSO at the Israel Museum in 1965, when the museum was founded. One of the highlights is a Schiele citiscape, above, "thought to be worth more than $20 million," as reported a few months ago by Matti Friedman of the Associated Press.

Avraham Roet, a Holocaust survivor who heads a new restitution group, the Company for Locating and Retrieving Assets of People Who Were Killed in the Holocaust, a few months ago called for the museum to hand over the JRSO works to his group. Last year, Israel's parliament passed a law requiring anyone in Israel holding property that had belonged to Holocaust victims to turn it over to the new company, which was given the legal mandate to seek rightful owners and, and if none were found, to sell the property and distribute the money to needy survivors.

The Israel Museum had opposed efforts to change its role as custodian of the JRSO works, with which it had been entrusted by the nation. It has stated:

A small number of works of art historical importance are regularly on view in the Museum's galleries, including works which have been exhibited and published worldwide, always identified prominently as works received from JRSO. Many works are of lesser art historical importance, and many arrived in poor condition....

From time to time, individuals have come forward to make claims, beginning as early as 1950, and the Museum has released works in response to these claims. The most recent such claim was honored at the end of 2006.

Roet has now professed satisfaction with the posting of an online catalogue. The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that he "praised the museum on Sunday for fully acceding to the request to list the information, after initially balking at the move." Roet called this "a major moral accomplishment for the state of Israel."

On the catalogue's home page, the Israel Museum states:

We hope that this site will assist in the Museum's continuing efforts to restore objects from these holdings to their legal owners.