On a claim by the family of F. B. E. (Fritz) and Louise Gutmann of Heemstede, Holland, for five decorative objects and one painting.
On 26 July 2010, the Dutch Restitutions Committee issued its recommendation with regard to a claim by the family of F. B. E. (Fritz) and Louise Gutmann of Heemstede, Holland, for five decorative objects and one painting.  The Committee recommended that the five objects be returned, but turned down the claim for the painting.  To read the recommendation, click here.  To read the associated press release, click here. 

Rulings from the Dutch Restitution Committee 2001-10:  The full list of owners whose heirs have, since 2001, made claims to the Committee (and whose names have been published - many have not), together with the recommendation made by the Committee, is available here.

Pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is Grosz v. The Museum of Modern Art, a challenge to the January dismissal-as-time-barred of a lawsuit brought in 2009 by heirs who claim that three George Grosz paintings in MoMA's collection are illegally obtained Nazi loot. An amicus brief authored by Professor Ed Gaffney of Valparaiso University School of Law and Jennifer Anglim Kreder of Northern University of Kentucky School of Law was filed with the court on 22 June. To read the brief, click here.

The British Foreign Secretary announced on Wednesday 9 June 2010 the appointment of Sir Andrew Burns to the new post of United Kingdom Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues.

Sir Andrew, a former UK Ambassador, will be responsible for creating a strategic approach to the UK government’s efforts on a number of post-Holocaust issues.  The Envoy’s remit includes art and real estate restitution, the implementation of the Terezin Declaration, ensuring the accessibility and preservation of the International Tracing Service archive at Bad Arolsen, and Holocaust education, remembrance and research.  The Envoy will be responsible for developing and implementing UK government policy in these fields, assisted and guided by expert stakeholders, and will report to the UK’s Foreign Secretary. 

In creating the post, the UK government was guided by and worked closely with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) and the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR). 

To read the Government press release, click here.  To read the joint CLAE and AJR press release, click here. 

To read the Foreign Secretary's Written Ministerial Statement to Parliament, click here.
   

The US Helsinki Commission (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) held a hearing on Tuesday 25 May 2010 in Washington DC on Holocaust Era Assets after the Prague Conference. The main testimony was given by Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat.  To view a video of the hearing and read the texts of the statements, including those by Baroness Ruth Deech, Agnes Daroczi and Janos Barsony, and Esther Toporek Finder, click here.  
 

To read the detailed press release issued by the Freie Universität on 20 April 2010 click here.

Douglas Davidson, a US career diplomat, has been appointed to replace Ambassador Christian Kennedy as US Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues.  Ambasador Kennedy has served for just under four years since 1 August 2006.   Ambassador Davidson took up his post on 5 April 2010.  To read the Biographical Statement issued by the US State Department, click here.  Ambassador Kennedy is remaining temporarily to complete his work on the International Tracing Service (of which governing body the US currently holds the Presidency) and on the property restitution guidelines arising from the Terezin Declaration.

To read the paper, which addresses the articles by Norman Rosenthal and Jonathan Jones debated on this site in January 2009 under the title 'Should Nazi-looted art be returned?', click here.  

The papers on looted cultural property issues by experts at the Prague Conference have been published online.  To see the list of authors and subjects, and read the papers on subjects ranging from issues in restitution to archival records, click here.

In the House of Lords Second Reading of the UK's Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Bill, 10 July 2009, Baroness Deech, spoke eloquently of why Nazi looted art should be restituted:

"Art is an ethical issue. Displaying looted art, once it is known to be such, is not just an invasion of privacy and a demonstration that wrongdoers may indeed profit from their crimes; it is also putting on show something that the owners never meant to be seen in such circumstances. It has ceased to be an object of beauty and one that museums can be proud of or use for educational and aesthetic aims. The spectator cannot look at it without seeing the pain and betrayal that led it to be situated there in a national museum. It taints the spectators who knowingly take advantage of the presence of the picture there and it speaks to them of loss and war, not creativity and insight. It is a well known principle in physics that the act of observation changes the object observed and there is something of that principle in our viewing of looted art."