Austria

• A Complex History: Mauerbach, Bloch-Bauer and More
• Heir to Klimt Benefits From its Sale
• Schiele's Portrait of Wally -- a Long Court Case

Germany:

• Articles and press releases relating to restitution
• Hans Sachs Poster Collection
• Return of Wilhelm Leibl Painting to Heirs of Dr. Alexander Lewin
• Westfeld Heirs Sue Germany in U.S. Court
• Kirchner’s Berlin Street Scene, a Case in Controversy

Hungary:

• The Collections of the Hatvany and Herzog Families
• Hungary's 1944 Law Persecuting its Jews

• Israel

The Netherlands:

• The Dutch Experience: The Assessment of Restitution Applications in the Netherlands

Poland:

• Restitution Obstacles and Complex War Experience
• Claim of Martha Nierenberg against Poland
• Dina Babbitt, painter whose art at Auschwitz saved her and her mother, dies without recovering her works

Russia:

• Complex History, Very Few Returns
• Chabad Seeks to Recover its Archives and Library

Slovakia:

• Courbet’s Femme nue couchée Returned

Spain:

• Claude Cassirer v. Kingdom of Spain, et al.

Sweden:

• Heirs of Otto Nathan Deutsch claim Nolde painting at Sweden’s Moderna Museet

United Kingdom:

• Unique Circumstances and Special Attitudes
• Curt Glaser's Heirs Seek Drawings at Courtauld
• Magen David Adom, heir to collection of Harry Fuld, Recovers Matisse in France, Receives Restitution in Berlin

United States:

• Heirs of Georg Grosz Seek Three Works in Museum of Modern Art
• Claim for Kokoschka in Boston is Time-Barred
• Mendelssohn Heirs Claim for Picassos from MOMA and the Guggenheim
• Marei von Saher vs. Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, et al.
• Museums Respond to Claims
• David Bakalar, Plaintiff, against Milos Vavra and Leon Fischer, Defendants
• The Estate of Dr. Max Stern

CASES AND RECOVERY EXPERIENCE

The Nazis looted about twenty percent of all Western art during the Second World War, and now ― more than sixty years later ― tens of thousands of items remain displaced, missing, or destroyed. Right after the war’s end, many of the looted works of art and items of cultural value were found and returned to nations that Germany had occupied, with stipulations that they should be returned to individual pre-war owners or members of their families. After the initial years of returns, instead of continuing the work of finding and returning collections and works of art to their rightful pre-war owners, some museums and governments chose to keep these materials (in storage, government offices, or on public display) and to effectively appropriate them as their own.

During the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, the 44 governments represented endorsed a set of principles, which called on nations and current possessors to research and identify art that had been confiscated by the Nazis and not yet returned to the rightful owners, to make these findings public, and to encourage pre-war owners and their heirs to make claims for these works. Despite the good will generated by the meeting ten years ago, many of the participating countries have been slow to set up programs and committees to comply with the Washington Principles. Today there is a wide array of behaviors and outcomes from restitution claims, ranging from decade-long legal proceedings to resolution through mediation or arbitration. A follow-up conference of nations took place in Prague in June of 2009 (see Events).

At left is a list of resolved and pending matters of interest in numerous different countries, all signatories to the Washington Principles. Each country has links to documents and press coverage of cases.