Transferred to Reich Ownership. Documenting, identifying and restituting Nazi-looted cultural property.

The Documentation Centre for Property Transfers of the Cultural Assets of WWII Victims is organizing the 8th international conference on the expropriation of property during the Second World War, which takes place on 17–18 September 2024. The programme of the international event will focus on the issues of provenance research, the fate of looted books and libraries, the restitution of looted cultural property, as well as the possibilities of cooperation in the field of identification, documentation and restitution of cultural property looted to the victims of the Second World War.

The event will take place at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, 17-18 September 2024.

Languages of the conference are Czech and English (simultaneous interpretation will be provided).

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Programme

September 17, 2024

9:15–10:00 Registration

10:00–10:40 Conference opening

10:40–11:00 Coffee Break

Session 1
International perspectives and development
(11:00–12:30)

11:00–11:20 Wesley Fisher (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, World Jewish Restitution Organization), Best Practices for the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi- Confiscated Art and the Way Forward.

11:20–11:40 Agnes Peresztegi (Peresztegi Law Office),
Restitution Law and Practice, Recent Developments.

11:40–12:00 Deidre Berger (Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project), Linking, Matching, and Searching Documents on Nazi-Era Cultural Plunder: The Central Data Repository of the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project.

12:00–12:30 Discussion

12:30–13:30 Lunch Break

Session 2
Restitution and government (13:30–15:00)

13:30–13:50 Jan Holovský (Odbor muzeí a galerií, Ministerstvo kultury ČR), The Ministry of Culture and the mitigation of property-related injustices caused by the Holocaust.

13:50–14:10 David Zivie (Mission for Research and Restitution of Spoliated Cultural Property (1933–1945), Ministry of Culture, France), Research, restitution and compensation policy in France. Recent developments.

14:10–14:30 Toon van Mierlo (Dutch Restitutions Committee),
Restitution of Nazi looted art under Dutch law.

14:30–15:00 Discussion

17:00–19:00 Reception
Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague

September 18, 2024

9:00–9:30 Registration

Session 3
Provenance research in theory and practice
(9:30–11:00)

9:30–9:45 Ondřej Vlk (Ministerstvo obrany ČR), “They will remain here!” The historical context of the spoliation of objects d’art in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

9:45–10:00 Johana Prouzová (CDMP), Provenance research at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague: the case of the catalogue “Collection of the Jew Josef Pollák”.

10:00–10:15 Antonia Bartoli (Yale University Art Gallery),
Findings and Lessons from the Schaefer Collection at Yale: A Provenance Research Case Study.

10:15–10:30 Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere), Robert Kauder: From a person‘s identification to an object‘s restitution.

10:30–11:00 Discussion

11:00–11:30 Coffee break

Session 4
The fates of looted books and libraries
(11:30–13:00)

11:30–11:45 Michal Bušek (Židovské muzeum v Praze),
History has not yet been fully written – the Library of Lost Books project: reconstructing the book collection of the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums Berlin.

11:45–12:00 Olivia Kaiser, Gabriela Brudzyńska-Němec
(Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats – und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB) ), Sealing the fate of books – documenting and identifying looted holdings at the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB).

12:00–12:15 Balázs Tamási (Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies), Collecting, Digitisation and Provenance research at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary – University of Jewish Studies (the former Budapest Rabbinical Seminary).

12:15–12:30 Daniel Soukup, Kamila Cmolová (Centrum judaistických studií Kurta a Ursuly Schubertových, Filozofická fakulta, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci), Traces of memory: Marginalia in books confiscated from Jews during the Holocaust.

12:30–13:00 Discussion

13:00–14:00 Lunch break

Session 5
Restitution — examples, challenges and limits
(14:00–15:30)

14:00–14:15 Zuzana Löbling (Univerzita Karlova, Právnická fakulta; Národní galerie v Praze), Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art in the Czech Republic.

14:15–14:30 Lucie Němečková (CDMP), Richard Morawetz: art collector.

14:30–14:45 Jens Hoppe (Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Office for Germany), Fair and just solutions? Experiences from 10 years as a representative
of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany on the Advisory Board “Cultural Property Confiscations in the 20th Century” at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar.

14:45–15:00 Agata Modzolewska, Bartłomiej Sierzputowski
(Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland), The Restitution and its Contribution to the Cultural Heritage – the Case of Poland.

15:00–15:30 Discussion

15:30–16:00 Conclusion

For more information about the programme and registration please visit: https://www.lootedart.cz/en/conference24/