On December 3, 1998, 44 states participating in the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets endorsed the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,¹ laying out 11 non-binding principles to resolve issues relating to Nazi-confiscated art within an international context. The Principles encourage nations to identify and research Nazi-looted cultural property and ultimately to return what was looted and confiscated during the Nazi era.

These principles were subsequently commented on and clarified in the Vilnius Forum Declaration² on October 5, 2000 (endorsed by 38 states) the Terezin Declaration³ on June 30, 2009 (endorsed by 47 states), and the 2010 Terezin Guidelines and Best Practices.⁴

It has been estimated that over 100,000 of the 600,000 paintings, millions of books, manuscripts, religious items, and other cultural objects stolen during the Holocaust remain unaccounted for.⁵

On March 5, 2024, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (“WJRO”) and The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the “Claims Conference”) issued a new global report, “Holocaust-Era Looted Cultural Property: A Current Worldwide Overview”⁶ on Nazi-looted art and cultural property restitution (the “Report”). The Report covered the 47 nations that endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration, which incorporated the principles. According to the Report of those 47, seven have made major progress, three have made substantial progress, 13 have made some progress, and 24countries have made little or no progress.⁷

Ratings are based on whether or not a country: (i) has done historical research on the subject (whether through a historical commission or otherwise); (ii) does provenance research on its collections; (iii) has a claims process (whether through its restitution commission or otherwise); and (iv) has made a substantial amount of restitutions.⁸

Despite the progress, restituting work now held in private collections by individuals has been challenging. There remains much to do with regards to provenance research, transparency of records, and facilitation of claims of items that are today held privately. In addition, many governments, museums, dealers, galleries, and individuals resist restitution efforts.⁹ While claims processes are now in place in many countries, the resulting numbers of cases handled and resulting restitutions often remain low.¹⁰ Only five out of the 47 countries have established restitution commissions to facilitate claims, but the overwhelming majority of countries still do not have one.¹¹ International initiatives bring awareness to these issues.

Countries Making “Substantial” Progress Against Nazi-Confiscated Art

According to the Report, three countries have made “substantial progress”: Canada, Israel, and Switzerland. Substantial progress is classified as meeting 3 of the 4 requisite criteria.

Canada: The Canadian government has funded museums to develop materials to support provenance efforts.¹² Several Canadian public institutions are conducting provenance research. As of 2023, five works of Nazi-looted art have been restituted from public collections.¹³ With that being said, Canada lacks a policy for handling looted property and has no requirements by law to return an object if it is deemed Nazi loot.¹⁴

Israel: Pre-1948 art curators brought objects to Israel after the Holocaust.¹⁵ The U.S. military transferred thousands of additional Nazi-looted items. Research has been initiated by the National Library of Israel, the Israel Museum, and the Ein Harod (Mishkan) Museum of Art.¹⁶ Israel has published a report aimed at regulating Holocaust-era provenance research in Israel.¹⁷ Provenance research funding is to be provided by the Ministry of Culture.¹⁸ Various museums conduct provenance research, including the Museum of the Bible¹⁹ and The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which already received a restitution claim that was resolved.²⁰

Switzerland: Switzerland served as a hub for Nazi-looted art before and during the Second World War, given its role as an art dealing center and conduit for cultural assets during WWII.²¹ Following the adoption of the Washington Principles, on January 26, 1999, the Swiss government established the Contact Bureau for Looted Art, a center of expertise at the federal level to respond to the issues linked to Nazi-looted art.²² Switzerland released various research reports including: (i) in 2001, on looted cultural assets; (ii) in 2011, on the state of work on Nazi-looted art, in particular on the subject of provenance research; and (iii) in 2016, on the status of the work in the field of Nazi-looted art. Switzerland consistently engages in provenance research including on various inheritance and estate collections that land in its museums.  Switzerland continues its efforts with a newly established expert commission, which came into force on January 1, 2024 to deal with cases of both Nazi-looted art and colonial art, which may bring Switzerland into the “major progress” category.

Countries Making “Some” Progress Against Nazi-Confiscated Art

The Report found that 13 countries have made “some progress”: Argentina, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. Some progress is classified as meeting 2 of the 4 criteria.

Argentina: Argentina may be a key jurisdiction harboring Nazi-looted art. As Nazi Germany crumbled, many Nazis fled to allied countries such as Argentina to avoid facing trials.  It is further known that Juan Peron’s regime was a haven for Nazi war criminals. According to the Report, Argentina has conducted both historical and provenance research, earning it a “some progress” rating. Created in 1997, The Argentina Commission of Inquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina concluded that no looted works are or were held by the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, but the Commission did not check any other state-run museums. According to an Argentinian researcher, most cultural patrimonial instructions conduct provenance research, albeit not openly and systematically, likely due to a lack of resources.²³

Poland: As a result of WWII, a significant portion of Poland’s cultural heritage was plundered by the occupying Nazi powers. In 1942, estimated losses of it’s museum resources alone amounted to 50% of the pre-war level.²⁴ Post-war estimates put the number of looted or destroyed works of art at over 516,000 looted or destroyed, valued at tens of billions of dollars at the time.²⁵

Poland interprets the Washington Conference Principles to reclaim national property looted, lost, or displaced during WWII.²⁶ This jurisdiction remains without a law to address the restitution of private property seized by the Nazis.²⁷ Under current laws, it is nearly impossible for former property owners to secure redress for looted personal property, which remains classified as the property of the State as “Polish war losses.”²⁸

As part of its efforts to locate and retrieve the missing items of art, the Culture Ministry’s Department for Cultural Heritage Abroad and Wartime Losses is responsible for the recovery of Nazi-looted artwork, libraries, and cultural heritage items taken from inside the post-WWII borders of Poland.²⁹ The Department maintains a catalogue of some 100,000 such objects and an online “Database of Objects Lost as a Result of World War II” containing more than 63,000 items.³⁰ The catalogue does not note whether the objects were destroyed, survived, or were looted from Polish Jews.³¹ Basic provenance information is available, with more detailed data available to officials working for the Department. Approximately 44 percent of the assets listed in the catalogue have a public provenance, and about 20 percent come from pre-war private collections (including the holdings of private museums and associations), while about 30 percent refer to pre-war religious communities, and about 4 percent have an unverified provenance.³²

Much of the Judaica that ended up in what is now Polish territory was turned over by the Polish government to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. The Jewish Historical Institute, a public institution, was founded on the grounds of the Jewish Historical Commission, an organization established in August 1944 to document the Nazi crimes against the Jews and to save as much Jewish legacy in Poland as possible.³³

Serbia: Serbia has laws and mechanisms in place that have addressed the restitution for compensation for wrongfully seized or nationalized private property, communal/religious property, and heirless property.³⁴ However, the 2016 Holocaust Heirless Property Law is specifically limited to items that were taken in Serbia and excludes looted art that was brought into the country. This has raised concerns by restitution experts given that various Serbian institutions are known to hold looted cultural property (including the Geca Kon collection, the Ante Topic Mimara collection, and the Šlomović collection). There is no detailed historical research on the expropriation of cultural property in Serbia, although there is archival research based on Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) records.³⁵ The ERR was the “Special Task Force” headed by Adolf Hitler’s leading ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, was one of the main Nazi agencies engaged in looting cultural valuables in Nazi-occupied countries during the Second World War.³⁶

Sweden: Sweden, to some extent, conducted art business with the Third Reich. By 1944, looted cultural property was sold in Sweden’s auction houses and exhibited in Stockholm in 1945.³⁷ Sweden has no legislation to address heirless property belonging to victims of the Holocaust, and any such property is transferred to the State Inheritance Fund, which liquidates the estate and grants funding to civil society organizations, including at least one Holocaust education project.³⁸ On March 3, 1999, Sweden published The Final Report on Sweden and Jewish Assets, which was subsequently updated on April 2, 2015, and is online accessible.³⁹ According to the report, “dealings in looted art in Sweden during WWII were relatively modest, viewed in an international perspective.”  In June 2019, the government made efforts to assess Swedish compliance with the objectives of the Terezin Declaration, however due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic this did not take place.⁴⁰ In 2021, the Institute for Holocaust Research in Sweden was founded, and in June 2022, the Swedish Holocaust Museum was inaugurated.⁴¹

Conclusion

The Washington Conference Principles, along with subsequent declarations and guidelines, provide a framework for nations to undertake to assist in resolving issues relating to Nazi-confiscated art.  While some participating states have made efforts to implement these principles, various challenges persist particularly with respect to addressing items held in private collections and navigating resistance from various state actors. The Report sheds light on the progress made by the endorsing countries, with only a few countries making “substantial progress” and many others making only “some progress,”

1. Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, Dec. 3, 1998, https://www.state.gov/washington-conference-principles-on-nazi-confiscated-art/. ↩
2. Vilnius Forum Declaration, Oct. 5, 2000, https://dfs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2019/02/vilnius-forum-declaration.pdf.↩
3. Terezin Declaration, June 30, 2009, https://www.state.gov/prague-holocaust-era-assets-conference-terezin-declaration/.↩
4. 2010 Terezin Guidelines and Best Practices, June 9, 2010, https://www.state.gov/2010-terezin-guidelines-and-best-practices/.↩
5. Wesley A Fisher & Ruth J. Weinberger, Holocaust-Era Looted Cultural Property: A Current Worldwide Overview, WORLD JEWISH RESTITUTION ORGANIZATION, THE CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS AGAINST GERMANY, 5 (Mar. 5, 2024), [hereinafter The Report] https://art.claimscon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11-March-2024-Holocaust-Era-Looted-Cultural-Property-A-Current-Worldwide-Overview.pdf.↩
6. Id.↩
7. “Holocaust-Era Looted Cultural Property: A Current Worldwide Overview, WORLD JEWISH RESTITUTION ORGANIZATION (Mar. 5, 2024), https://wjro.org.il/best-practices-global-art-report/.↩
8. The Report, supra note 5, at 6.↩
9. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken Video Remarks at the 25th Anniversary of the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and Best Practices Event (Mar. 5, 2024), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, https://www.state.gov/secretary-of-state-antony-j-blinken-video-remarks-at-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-washington-principles-on-nazi-confiscated-art-and-best-practices-event/.↩
10. Holocaust-Era Looted Cultural Property: A Current Worldwide Overview, Key Findings From the Report (Mar. 5, 2024), https://art.claimscon.org/advocacy/holocaust-era-looted-cultural-property-a-current-worldwide-overview/.↩
11. Id.↩
12. The Report, supra note 5, at 34.↩
13. Id.↩
14. Id.↩
15. Id. at 59↩
16. Id.↩
17. A Summary of the Report and Recommendations of the Intergovernmental team for regulating Holocaust-era Provenance Research in Israel, Ministry of Justice (April, 2023), https://govextra.gov.il/justice/cultural_assets_exploration_en/home/. ↩
18. The Report, supra note 5, at 59.↩
19. “The History of Artifacts”, Museum of the Bible, https://www.museumofthebible.org/provenance.↩
20. Jessica Steinberg, Tel Aviv museum restituting artwork as items of huge Berlin collection found, The Times of Israel (Apr. 8 , 2021), The Times of Israel, https://www.timesofisrael.com/tel-aviv-museum-restituting-artwork-as-items-of-huge-berlin-collection-found/. ↩
21. The Report, supra note 5, at 102. See also, Nazi-looted art: Zurich museum and foundation agree to more transparency (Dec. 12, 2021), SWISSINFO.CH, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/nazi-looted-art-zurich-museum-and-foundation-agree-to-more-transparency/47185948#:~:text=Switzerland%20served%20as%20a%20hub,Nazis%20or%20sold%20under%20duress. ↩
22. Contact Bureau on Looted Art, https://www.bak.admin.ch/bak/en/home/cultural-heritage/looted-art-from-the-nazi-period/contact-bureau-on-looted-art.html.↩
23. The Report, supra note 5, at 19.↩
24. Siedem wniosków restytucyjnych do Federacji Rosyjskiej. Polskie muzea wywieszają puste ramy [Seven restitution applications to the Russian Federation. Polish museums hang empty frames], MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE (September 14, 2022), https://www.gov.pl/web/kultura/siedem-wnioskow-restytucyjnych-do-federacji-rosyjskiej-polskie-muzea-wywieszaja-puste-ramy. ↩
25. Id.↩
26. The Report, supra note 5, at 80.↩
27. Id.↩
28. Id.↩
29. Id. at 81.↩
30. Id.↩
31. Id.↩
32. Id. citing Ewa Manikowska. “The Washington Principles à rebours: Explaining Poland’s current restitution policy.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURAL PROPERTY. 30.1 (2023): p. 53. ↩
33. The Report, supra note 5, at 83.↩
34. Id. at 91.↩
35. Id.↩
36. Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, ERR PROJECT, https://errproject.org/.↩
37. The Report, supra note 5, at 100. See also, Neill Lochery, Cashing Out. The Flight of Nazi Treasure, 1945-1948, (PublicAffairs) (2023). ↩
38. The Report, at 100↩
39. Id.↩
40. Id.↩
41. Id. at 101.↩