An extensive new report presents a historical analysis and partial listing of more than a thousand artefacts and cultural property looted from Jews and other minority groups by German allies, the Croatian fascists known as the Ustasha, during the Holocaust and after World War II. These properties were later nationalized by the communist government of Yugoslavia and distributed to various institutions in Croatia.
The report was completed in 2020 based on the archives of KOMZA, the Committee for the Collection and Protection of Cultural Properties and Antiquities, which were made available to the public in 2019 by the Ministry of Culture of Croatia. The report, now published in cooperation with the Croatian government and the World Jewish Organization for the Restitution of Property "R") was originally supposed to be published about two years ago, but its publication was postponed due to the corona epidemic and the earthquake that struck Zagreb that year. Despite the publication, the details of the process for filing claims on the subject have not yet been determined.
Carl Robert inspects one spring in the Gris camp 1941, photo: Pavel Fantel The song ends Terezin ghetto 1942-1944
Among the art collections mentioned in the report is that of Robert Deutsch McCluskey, a prominent Jewish businessman from Zagreb. In 1941, part of his collection was confiscated, dispersed during the war and immediately afterwards distributed to several government and private museums. McCluskey and his wife were deported and murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 Their daughter Vanya survived and tried to return the family collections in 1958 and 1967 - but was unsuccessful.
Beth Bird Poker, the heiress of the collection, who now lives in Florida, saw the portrait of her stepmother Vania in the modern gallery in Zagreb.
"I saw her lovely portrait through a screen of tears," she said.
"It breaks my heart to think of her suffering and that of others. This report is about preserving the history of the artefacts and what happened.
He needs to set a precedent for doing justice to the Holocaust survivors and their families."
Most of the Jewish community in Croatia was wiped out
The Jewish community in Croatia was almost wiped out during the Holocaust when approximately 80 percent of the Jews of the region were murdered.
The property of the Jews was looted, and often destroyed.
After World War II, most Jewish communities were not re-established.
Jewish cemeteries and other signs of their cultural heritage were also vandalized or destroyed.
Of the more than 25,000 Jews who lived before World War II in the territory that is today Croatia, only about 6,000 survived the Holocaust.
Today, about 2,000 Jews live in Croatia.
Esther Luria Portrait of a young woman Stutthof camp 1944, photo: Yad Vashem collection
"Holocaust survivors and their families and members of the Croatian Jewish community, who wish to file claims in the future, will be able to base themselves on this report, which is published a few weeks before the Terezin International Conference on Holocaust-era assets," said Gideon Taylor, chairman of the operations department at ILR, and Mark Weizman, the chief operating officer of the organization.
"We are glad that the Croatian Ministry of Culture did the right thing by publishing this report together with us, after many years of discussions.
Although almost 78 years have passed since the Holocaust, it is of particular importance that Croatia now acts on the matter.
This is because next year the country is supposed to receive the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), in which 35 countries are members."
Croatia will cooperate for the return of Jewish property
"Croatia welcomes the publication of this report and is aware of the need to do justice to Holocaust survivors and their heirs," said Nina Obulin Korzinc, Croatia's Minister of Culture and Communications. "Through the decision in 2019 to open to the public and digitize the KOMZA collections, we want to enable Free for researchers.
We believe that at this stage a thorough research should first be carried out, which would make it possible to attribute stolen property to its rightful owner in an unequivocal manner.
The legislative framework must also be improved."
"We welcome the publication of the report and hope that it can lead to further steps that will advance the solution of the long-standing problems of restitution of Jewish property vis-à-vis Croatia," said Dr. Oganan Kraus, president of the Jewish community of Zagreb and president of the coordinating committee of the Jewish communities in Croatia.
The report was prepared and produced by Dr. Naida-Michel Brendel, Chair of the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Zagreb. Funding for the report was provided by the Conference for Jewish Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference).
With the publication of the report, ILR called on Croatia "to open all the remaining records relating to cultural property looted in the Holocaust, to continue expanding the investigations on the subject, and to publish details about works of art that were not returned, in order to locate their owners before the war or their heirs."
The organization also calls for "establishing a national mechanism that will make it possible to submit lawsuits for the restitution of looted works of art and to discuss with representatives of Jews living in Croatia and Croatian Jews living abroad, the fate of works 'without heirs', for which no one has claimed ownership."
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