For a week at the World Center for Peace, Freedoms and Human Rights in Verdun (Meuse), "visitors have been fascinated", enthuses the director of the establishment, Philippe Hansch in mid-August. “It's an event that we don't see elsewhere. This painting has a power of attraction. "
This painting is a 19th century work representing a bucolic scene painted by Nicolas Rousseau, a pupil of the Barbizon school, which was hung in the entrance of this former episcopal palace. Access is free and the canvas is distinguished by the message placed next to it: "If you recognize the landscape or have any information on this painting, we thank you for indicating it to the reception".
A call launched to try to trace the course of the painting and go back to its rightful owner. With this question: to whom did it belong in the spring of 1944? Because it is on this date that the canvas left France, in the direction of Berlin. At the time, Alfred Forner, non-commissioned officer of the Luftwaffe, took it with him on leave, on the order of his superiors. He must drop it off at a specific address, but when he arrives, this place is in ruins. The soldier finally keeps it in his apartment in the German capital. Alfred Forner was killed in action in the summer of 1944.
75 years in the tobacco fumes of a Berlin salon
The painting itself remains in his living room in the Spandau district. Almost neglected, without special care, absorbing the tobacco vapors of the compulsive smoker that is Peter Forner, only son of Alfred Forner. Until January 2019, when he contacts the French embassy in Germany, wishing that the work return to its place of origin.
Hospitalized a few years earlier, “he said to himself that he had several things to take care of in his life. The issue of the painting was a priority, he wanted to relieve his conscience, ”says Julien Acquatella, head of the CIVS in Germany, the Commission for Compensation for Victims of Spoliations occurring after the anti-Semitic legislation in force during the Occupation.
“Peter Forner, a former employee of Tegel airport, built by the French army, had quite a strong European conviction. He issued several conditions. He wanted the painting to be exhibited in France to raise public awareness and to find its owner. "
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The official presentation of the painting took place in the summer of 2019 at the Embassy. "He kept saying that it was not his and that it was natural to give it back," recalls Julien Acquatella. Peter Forner died in May at the age of 80. The CIVS, which collaborated with the Mission for the Restitution of Looted Cultural Property from 1933 to 1944 - a department of the Ministry of Culture -, just had time to inform it that the work would be exhibited in Verdun.
"A true symbol" of peace
The World Peace Center, with its 60,000 annual visitors, was chosen for its Franco-German programming, to the great satisfaction of its director. “As a place of peace, we necessarily speak of war. Embodying war is simple. There are thousands of objects. But embodying peace is much more complicated. We quickly go around it. Now we have a real symbol. "Philippe Hansch continues:" Verdun is Mitterrand and Kohl, hand in hand, in 1984. Franco-German friendship is also about many civic actions. This is the most significant. Peter Forner worried that his family would be cast a disapproving look, but quite the opposite. "
In Berlin, the CIVS branch continues to collect clues to try to identify the owner. "A painstaking job", recognizes Julien Acquatella. “We know that Alfred Forner was stationed in Normandy and in Pas-de-Calais. Unfortunately, he will no longer be able to keep Peter Forner informed, with whom he has regularly spoken. “I was sad to hear of his passing, but I think he left released. "It now remains to find the owner or the beneficiaries of this Nicolas Rousseau, stolen in 1944 ...