http://www.icom.org/worldwar2.html
ICOM Recommendations
concerning the Return of Works of Art Belonging to Jewish Owners
Press Release 14 January 1999
During its last meeting, held in Paris in December 1998, the Executive
Council of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) discussed the
issue of works of art confiscated from Jewish owners during the Second
World War and kept in museums or public collections.
According to ICOM's Code of Professional Ethics, the Executive Council
wished to reiterate that In all activities, museum employees must act
with integrety and in accordance with the most stringent ethical
principles as well as the highest standards of objectivity
Concerning the confiscation of Jewish works of art, the Executive
Council of ICOM made the following recommendations to museum
professionals around the world:
To actively investigate and identify all acquisitions of a museum,
especially those acquired during or just after the Second World War,
that might be regarded as of dubious provenance (notably objects once
belonging to Jewish owners and stolen, looted or removed forcibly).
To make such relevant information accessible to facilitate the
research and identification of objects of doubtful provenance by
potential rightful owners or their heirs.
To actively address and participate in drafting and establishing
procedures, nationally and internationally, for disseminating
information on these objects and facilitating their rightful return.
To actively address the return of all objects of art that formerly
belonged to Jewish owners or any other owner, and that are now in the
possession of museums, to their rightful owners or their heirs,
according to national legislation and where the legitimate ownership
of these objects can clearly be established. Created in 1946, ICOM is
the international organisation of museums and professional museum
workers. Composed of 15 000 members from around the world, ICOM is
devoted to the promotion and development of museums and the museum
profession.
In 1986, ICOM adopted a Code of Professional Ethics that every museum
professional agrees to respect upon joining the Organisation. This
Code, now translated in more than 20 languages, lays down precise
rules governing the acquisition and de-accessioning of collections,
and personal responsibility towards the collections, the public and
the profession.
The Executive Council is ICOM's governing body. It is composed of 10
members elected triennially and chaired by Jacques Perot (France),
President of ICOM.
Information: Valérie Jullien
Email: jullien@icom.org
Nazi hunter urges probe into Nazi looting and slave labor
March 22, 1999
Web posted at: 10:43 AM EST (1543 GMT)
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal has called for a
full investigation into Nazi-era economic exploitation, looting and
slave labor in Austria.
"Everything must be investigated -- for historical reasons,"
Wiesenthal, 90, said in an interview Monday with the Austria Press
Agency. He was referring to belated attempts to indemnify survivors of
the Holocaust, most of whom are no longer alive.
The Austrian government has begun returning paintings and other art
objects to survivors of Jewish families, whose property was looted by
the Nazis and never given back. Some of the art treasures were
withheld by postwar governments, who cited laws ruling out the export
of such heritage.
Meanwhile, a government-appointed commission has begun assessing the
amount of damage caused by impounding and looting Jewish industrial
and private property in Austria, which was annexed by Nazi Germany in
1938. Critics have already complained that the envisioned three years
for the commission to work is way too long.
"The history of the suffering of Jews is also Austrian history,"
Wiesenthal told APA, expressing regret that investigations are taking
place so long after the end of World War II. "It's very late -- the
people who are to get something are dying every day."
Compensation should be directly given to those who personally suffered
under Nazi persecution, Wiesenthal said. But most have already died.
Wiesenthal himself survived Nazi terror in a dozen different
concentration camps. He was part of a work detail of slave laborers
used to repair the so-called eastern rail line. "We were 300 in a
group at the time -- today I'm the only survivor," he said.
In Vienna, 70,000 apartments of fled or slain Jews were looted by the
Nazis, and the rest of the furnishings were sold off at the state-run
auction house Dorotheum, he recalled.
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.
French Jews can't speak for other Holocaust victims-WJC
06:38 p.m Mar 22, 1999 Eastern
By Joan Gralla
NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - The fight over who represents
non-French Holocaust victims who were shipped to their deaths from a
transit camp north of Paris reignited on Monday when a prominent
U.S.-based Jewish group blasted a draft compensation plan worked out
by French banks.
Last week, the French government pressured the French Banking
Association to drop the planned accord after the Matteloi Commission,
a government panel probing the looting and restitution of Holocaust
assets, threatened to resign.
The details of the proposed agreement, which the banks reached after
consulting with the Representative Council of French Jewish
Institutions (Crif), an umbrella organisation of French Jewish groups,
were not released at that time.
A copy of the draft accord, dated March 10 and written in French, was
provided to Reuters on Monday, however, by a source close to the
international Jewish community.
Informed of the proposed pact's provisions, which included a plan to
pay any compensation owed to non-French victims who died without heirs
into a French Memorial Shoah fund, the World Jewish Congress reacted
harshly.
``What they were trying to do was absolutely astonishing. On behalf of
the entire world Jewish and non-Jewish communities, Crif was seeking
to provide a way out for the French banks,'' Elan Steinberg, WJC
executive director, said.
About 70,000 Jews -- only 20,000 of whom were French -- were held at a
Nazi transit camp in Drancy, several miles north of Paris, where they
were forced to turn their assets over to a branch of the French
government.
A total of 65,000 of those people were sent to their deaths at
concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
A New York City-based spokesman for the French banks declined to
comment on the draft proposal.
A source close to the banks' side of the talks said, though, that even
if compensation for non-French victims of the Holocaust was paid into
a French-controlled fund, that did not necessarily mean that Holocaust
related projects in other countries would not benefit from it.
Further, the accord already is out of date, he added.
``The bottom line from my point of view is that we're definitely
continuing to talk. That release is not current, and it's not
indicative of where the banks are at the moment,'' the source close to
the banks' side said, adding he did not know how the accord might be
changed.
The draft proposal was an effort by the banks to speed the
compensation process, which otherwise might not finish until the
Matteoli Commission completes its work later this year, the source
close to the French banks said.
The WJC insists that representatives of non-French Jewish victims also
should have a seat at the bargaining table. ``The memory of tens of
thousands of murdered Jews who were not from France was to be violated
by this secret agreement,'' Steinberg said.
One lever the WJC will use is opposing French banks' plans to merge
their U.S. operations until they resolve 55-year-old questions about
what became of bank accounts, artwork and other assets seized from
Holocaust victims in France.
New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi, whose threat last year to
boycott Swiss banks helped persuade them to reach a $1.25 billion
settlement with Holocaust victims, on April 15 will hold a meeting to
examine the French banks' handling of Holocaust claims.
``The WJC intends to tell the Hevesi committee that French banks are
noncooperative, are seeking to circumvent the representatives of the
Holocaust survivors, and frankly, have demonstrated a callous attitude
to the victims,'' Steinberg said.
The French Jewish groups say the WJC's help is not needed. ``The WJC
can express its view but it's not up to them to come to try to settle
problems in France,'' Jean Kahn, head of the Central Israelite
Consistory, which runs France's 262 synagogues, said on Sunday.
((U.S. Municipal Desk, 212-859-1650, nyc.munis.newsroom+reuters.com))
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
