My Treasure

“humans with their brief lives, these beautiful objects could reach across the generations, each with a story to tell if only one could unlock its secrets.””

— Unknown

“It dawned on me that at least some of the art my family had lovingly collected might also serve as memorial candles.””

— Unknown

“Dozens of paintings could fit those general descriptions. Instead, claimants had to describe their stolen painting in detail, including if possible the canvas measurements”

— Unknown

“Thinking about Fritz and Louise’s orphaned collection, I began to wonder whether art could have a memory. Could Le Poirier, once so lovingly displayed in Louise’s warm living room, feel the pain of neglect as it withered in some warehouse?””

— Unknown

“Technically only involuntary sales were eligible for restitution under the new 1945 rules, and the Dutch authorities were insisting that Fritz Gutmann had willingly sold his artworks to the Nazis and had been paid for the sale”

— Unknown

“armies, as had the Allies’ own records of recovered looted art”

— Unknown

“when those documents still existed, claimants often could not access them because the captured Nazi records of looted artworks had been classified and sealed by the Allied””

— Unknown

“could a claimant provide documentation of ownership when, often, those documents had been dispersed, destroyed, or taken by the very people who stole the painting””

— Unknown

“Dutch Jews were being forcibly herded into the Amsterdam “ghetto,” and then into the Westerbork concentration camp. Ironically, the ghetto, or Jewish quarter, was where Jewish refugees had sought refuge from the Spanish Inquisition, at the end of the fifteenth century.””

— Unknown