CASES AND RECOVERY EXPERIENCE

Claim of Martha Nierenberg against Poland

In the aftermath of World War II the Allied forces tried to restitute art works to their rightful owners or to the countries where these items were located prior to the war with an understanding that if any artwork was sent to a wrong recipient, it would be returned for future investigation. The ability to sort through and return the displaced cultural property amassed as a result of the systematic Nazi looting required and depended on international cooperation. One of the paintings looted during the war was Gustave Courbet’s remarkable landscape, entitled "Landscape Around Ornans".

Before the war, this painting belonged to Baron Mór Lipót Herzog, a wealthy Jewish collector from Hungary; in 1943 it was confiscated as Jewish property. When the Allies discovered the painting after the war, they accidentally sent it to Poland; in 1946, the painting became a part of the Foreign Art Collection at the National Museum in Warsaw. The Polish authorities were aware that this painting was not from any of the Polish collections, as Poland never owned a single Courbet painting before the War. Later the government of Hungary and its national museum of Fine Arts published a book of Hungarian losses during the War, which listed this painting as belonging to the Herzog collection, and indicated that it could be found in the museum in Warsaw. Still, Poland did not try to return this cultural property. In 2001, Martha Nierenberg, heir of Baron Herzog, located the painting and made a request for its return. After several years of negotiation the Polish museum agreed to the return; however, the Ministry of Culture turned down Mrs. Nierenberg’s request for an export permission necessary to remove such cultural property from Poland. Arguing that the Mrs. Nierenberg had not proved her title to this painting, the Minister ultimately voided the return. The case is ongoing and the claimant is in the process of submitting additional indisputable proof of their good title.

Poland approved and agreed to the Washington Principles. Poland has sought and has benefited from other nations’ efforts to return displaced art objects, including for example the 2005 return of a fifteenth century painting the National Museum of Cracow. Unfortunately, Poland has been generally uncooperative and unwilling to abide by the Principles and perform its duty to return displaced art to Holocaust victims and their heirs. The Nierenberg case is a good example of the Polish government’s policy of obstructionism and denial of any obligation to return Holocaust loot.