Jurnalo, Germany
Feb 16 2007

Dispute over Jewish art looted by Nazis turns sour

Friday 16 February 2007 17:08

What started out as a gesture by the Dutch state aimed at righting a
60-year-old wrong and restoring a valuable art collection to the
descendents of its Jewish owner has degenerated into an unseemly
court wrangle over legal fees.Culture Secretary Medy van der Laan
decided in February last year to hand over 202 paintings, many of
them from the "golden" 17th Century of Dutch art, to a descendent of
Jacques Goudstikker, an art dealer who died fleeing the Nazis in
1940.

That descendant, Marei von Saher, was hauled before a court in The
Hague by one of the lawyers who had advised her in her quest to have
the paintings returned.

Roelof van Holthe tot Echten rejected the 1.3 million euros (17
million dollars) offered him and demanded 12 million euros instead.

This was precisely the kind of dispute that the Dutch authorities had
sought to avoid at all costs.

Van der Laan made her decision on moral and political grounds,
complying with the recommendation of a Restitution Commission set up
in 2002 specifically to look into art looted by the Nazis.

Dutch legal experts expressed the opinion that the legal case for
returning the paintings to Von Saher, the widow of Goudstikker’s son
Edo, was at best flimsy.

This was overshadowed by the deep sense that the wrongs done to the
substantial Jewish community during the years of the Nazi occupation
had to be set right, where possible.

Earlier settlements had been made with Goudstikker’s widow Desi,
dating back to 1952 and last revisited in 1999.

But the value of the collection, which includes a couple of
Rembrandts and a particularly notable work by Salomon Ruysdael, has
soared since the years of post-war austerity.

Directors of the art galleries, which held the works in trust and
displayed them to the public, were far from unanimously in favour of
Van der Laan’s decision.

Alexander van Grevenstein of the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht,
which had to surrender more than 30 works, spoke at the time of a
"serious haemorrhage of Dutch cultural heritage. "

Ahead of Friday’s court ruling compelling Von Saher to pay Van Holthe
tot Echten 8 million euros, one commentator said this was not so much
restitution as lucrative business for "an industry of lawyers,
advisers and art dealers. "

Writing in the NRC Handelsblad, Maarten Huygen queried both the
legality and legitimacy of decisions taken so long after the events
in question.

There were many other victims of war and genocide – Armenians,
Palestinians, descendents of slaves – he noted. Were they to be
compensated too?

"The legal merry-go-round in The Hague merely demonstrates the
senselessness of it all," Huygen said. dpa rpm bve sc

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From: Baghdasarian