THE BATTLE OF HOLOCAUST RESTITUTION: BRUSSELS MUSEUM RETURNS NAZI LOOTED ART

On February 10, 2022, the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts (Royal Museums of Fine Arts) (“Museum”) returned a masterpiece painting to a German-Jewish family roughly 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis.[i] 

The painting, Flowers, is a 1913 still life of pink flowers in a blue vase by German artist Lovis Corinth.  The Museum received possession of Flowers in 1951 after post-war investigators failed to track its provenance.[ii]  Its provenance was finally discovered after the Museum launched a website and database dedicated to looted artworks of unknown origin, and Flowers is the first restituted piece of the 27 the Museum had listed with uncertain ownership history with the purpose of restitution.[iii]

German-Jewish couple Gustav & Emma Mayer had originally owned Flowers, along with roughly 30 other valuable paintings.[iv]  The couple lived in Frankfurt and escaped to Brussels in 1938 and continued to Britain in August 1939.  However, the couple was unable to take their art collection to Britain, so they left the pieces in storage.[v]  Both Gustav and Emma were elderly and died prior to the War’s end. By 1943, the Mayers' collection in Brussels was looted by Nazis.  Following the War, Flowers was entrusted to the Museum after restitution investigations failed to establish its provenance.[vi]  Upon the discovery of Flowers, the Museum freely returned the piece to the Mayer family.

While the story of the Mayers’ and their fate is all too common in the world of Holocaust restitution, Flowers’ consensual restitution marks a potential shift in Museums’ responsibility to return stolen works. 

In the years preceding and during World War II, the Nazi party fixated on attaining art of the Aryan and Germanic peoples by any means necessary.[vii] Adolf Hitler was consumed with looting art during his reign of terror, and he used his power to rob public and private collections throughout Germany and the occupied countries of prized art.[viii] Altogether, roughly 20% of the art in Europe at the time, 650,000 works of art, was looted by the Nazis, creating a legal restitution nightmare following the end of the War.[ix]

At the end of the War, national governments affected by or involved in the mass looting did a fairly perfunctory job at restitution efforts.[x]  Many decades later, a second era of restitution claims began with the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets (the "Washington Conference") of 1998 and the HEAR Act of 2016, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.[xi]

With the advent of these concerted efforts, victims and their families sought restitution for the art, particularly from public and private museums.[xii] However, “there is often significant opposition to restituting art from museum collections,” and museums have fought to retain this looted art.[xiii] Museums often claim that these priceless works of art are better served as property of the public or available for public interest to reflect on the cultural history of the collective.[xiv] Of the roughly 18 cases brought against museums in the U.S. federal courts system since 2006, Holocaust victims and/or their families lost roughly 80%, won 10%, and settled 5%.[xv]

Now, looking at the issue at hand, the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts voluntarily established a database seeking the provenance of pieces lost to the victims, their families, their rightful owners.  Six years after the database’s launch, lawyers for the Mayer family approached the museum regarding Flowers.[xvi]

Thomas Dermine, Belgium’s secretary of state for museums marked this historic moment, showing that museums can aid in, and indeed benefit from, participating in restitution efforts as opposed to challenging Holocaust victims in the courts system. “This restitution, the first by the Museums of Fine Arts, is a very strong signal: even decades later, justice can triumph.”[xvii]

Since this announcement, the Museum has received international acclaim and attention.  While this is a small, yet powerful, victory for the victims, the Mayer family and victims worldwide continue searching and fighting for the return of these works- hundreds of thousands yet to return home.

[i] Philip Blenkinsop, Belgium museum returns painting to Jewish family after 71 years, Reuters (Feb. 10, 2022),

, https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/belgium-museum-returns-painting-jewish-family-after-71-years-2022-02-10/

[ii] Shira Li Bartov, Painting Looted by Nazis Returned to Jewish Family After 80 Years, Newsweek (Feb. 15, 2022), https://www.newsweek.com/painting-looted-nazis-returned-jewish-family-after-80-years-1679513

[iii] Id.

[iv] Jennifer Rankin, ‘Justice can triumph’: painting looted by Nazis returned to owners after 80 years (Feb. 10, 2022), https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/feb/10/justice-can-triumph-painting-looted-by-nazis-returned-to-owners-after-80-years?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&s=09#Echobox=1644521854

[v] After 71 years, Belgian museum gives back Nazi-looted painting to Jewish family, The Times of Israel (Feb. 11, 2022), https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-71-years-belgian-museum-gives-back-nazi-looted-painting-to-jewish-family/

[vi] Bartov, supra note 2.

[vii] Michael Bazyler, Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America’s Courts. NYU Press, 2005, 202

[viii] The Rape of Europa (Menemsha Films 2006).

[ix] Greg Bradsher, Documenting Nazi Plunder of European Art, Nat’l Archives and Records Administration, Aug. 15, 2016, www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/records-and-research/documenting-nazi-plunder-of-european-art.html.; Stephanie J. Beach, Nazi-Confiscated Art: Eliminating Legal Barriers to Returning Stolen Treasures, 53 Loy. L. A. L. Rev. 853, 853 (2020).

[x] Regula Ludi, The Vectors of Postwar Victim Reparations: Relief, Redress and Memory Politics. 41 Journal of Contemporary History, 421–50 (2006)

[xi] Beach, supra note IX.

[xii] Jennifer Anglim Kreder, The New Battleground of Museum Ethics and Holocaust-Era Claims: Technicalities Trumping Justice or Responsible Stewardship for the Public Trust, 88 Or. L. Rev. 37, 40-42 (2009).

[xiii] Id. at 42.

[xiv] Id. at 45.

[xv] 5% are pending as of February 22, 2022. Jennifer Anglim Kreder, Federal Holocaust-Era Art Cases Filed by Survivors & Heirs Since Austria Returned Klimts to Ms. Altmann in 2006 (November 23, 2021). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1636295

[xvi] Bartov, supra note 2.

[xvii] Rankin, supra note 4.