Fifteen works, including paintings by Gustav Klimt and Marc Chagall, will be able to be returned to the heirs of Jewish families looted by the Nazis: Parliament unanimously authorized this return on Tuesday, February 15, via a bill which aims to be “
historic
”.
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After the National Assembly unanimously on January 25, the Senate dominated by the right validated this text by a show of hands, to the applause of these heirs or their representatives present in the gallery.
“
It's a first step
” because “
looted works of art and books are still kept in public collections.
Objects which should not, which should never have been there
, ”repeated the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, while research on the provenance of the collections has accelerated.
It welcomes a "
historic
" law by which, for the first time in seventy years, "
a government undertakes a process allowing the restitution of works from public collections looted during the Second World War or acquired in troubled conditions during the Occupation, due to anti-Semitic persecutions
”.
The "
end of a too long process
"
A bill was needed to derogate from the principle of inalienability of public collections.
Senators from all sides welcomed restitutions going “
in the direction of appeasement
” and the “
end of a too long process
”.
Senator Esther Benbassa (unregistered), historian specializing in the Jewish people, noted the importance of this vote "
at a time when some are trying to rehabilitate the Vichy regime in the public debate
", in reference to Eric Zemmour, candidate of the far right at the Élysée.
According to the rapporteur Béatrice Gosselin (LR), the spoliations were "
one of the aspects of the policy of annihilation of the Jews of Europe led by the Nazi regime
" and "
without being the instigator, the Vichy regime also actively collaborated in these crimes
”.
Among the 15 works is
Roses under the Trees
by Gustav Klimt, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, the only work by the Austrian painter belonging to the French national collections.
It was acquired in 1980 by the State from a merchant.
Extensive research has established that it belonged to the Austrian Éléonore Stiasny who sold it during a forced sale in Vienna in 1938, during the Anschluss, before being deported and murdered.
A step
Eleven drawings and a waxwork preserved at the Louvre Museum, the Orsay Museum and the Museum of the Château de Compiègne, as well as a painting by Utrillo preserved at the Utrillo-Valadon Museum (
Carrefour in Sannois
), are also part of the planned restitutions .
A painting by Chagall, entitled
The Father
, kept at the Center Pompidou and entered the national collections in 1988, has been added.
It was recognized as the property of David Cender, a Polish-Jewish musician and luthier, who immigrated to France in 1958. For 13 of the 15 works, the beneficiaries were identified by the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation (CIVS), created in 1999. France has long been accused of lagging behind several European neighbors in terms of reparations.
A research and restitution mission for cultural property looted between 1933 and 1945 was created within the Ministry of Culture two years ago.
100,000 works of art were seized in France during the 1939-1945 war, according to the Ministry of Culture.
60,000 goods were found in Germany at the Liberation and returned to France.
Among them, 45,000 were quickly returned to their owners.
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About 2,200 were selected and entrusted to the custody of the national museums (“
MNR
” works that can be returned by simple administrative decision) and the rest (about 13,000 objects) were sold by the administration of the Estates in the early 1950s. many looted works have thus returned to the art market.
A “
framework law
” could facilitate restitutions in the years to come.
According to Ms. Bachelot, “
we will get there
”.
Senator Nathalie Goulet (Centrist Union), "
daughter and granddaughter of deportees
", brandished in the hemicycle the "
spoliation sheet
" dating back to 1942 from her great-aunt who ran a hat store.
She called for "
not to reduce spoliation to those who had works of art
” and asked for “
recognition
”.