News:

The Philadelphia Museum of Art will return a ceremonial shield to the Czech Republic that had been looted by Nazi authorities during the occupation of the Bohemian castle Konopiště.

Museum Director Timothy Rub told Czech diplomat Antonín Hradilek that new documentation had offered proof the shield was taken from Konopiště, the Swiss Jewish publication tachles reported. The Nazis had intended to include the shield, crafted during the Italian Renaissance, within Hitler’s planned “Führer Museum”.

The Czech government had asked the museum to acknowledge Czech ownership of the shield based on a Declaration passed in December 1998 by 44 nations at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets.