Jewish Heirs Sue California Museums for Return of Nazi-Looted Art
Two lawsuits have been filed in California seeking the return of Nazi-looted art from the Norton Simon Museum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, following recent legislative changes that strengthen claims by Jewish families.
Jewish heirs and representatives have filed two separate lawsuits in California against the Norton Simon Museum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, demanding the return of artwork seized during World War II. These legal actions follow recent legislative changes in California and by the US Congress designed to strengthen claims to artwork forcibly taken from Jewish families.
The first lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles superior court by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and its board chair, Daniel Gryczman. The suit seeks the return of "Adam and Eve," two lifesize oil-on-panel masterpieces created by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1530. Marei von Saher, the sole heir of Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, signed over her rights to the paintings to the Jewish Federation. The Cranach works were originally seized from Goudstikker’s collection by Hermann Göring and later sold to the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, now known as the Norton Simon Museum, in the 1960s.
The second lawsuit is a federal case filed in Los Angeles by the daughters of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, a Holocaust survivor and California-based animator who was held in Auschwitz. They demand the return of watercolors their mother was forced to paint for Josef Mengele while imprisoned.
Both museums assert they hold legal title to the works and intend to keep them on display. Spokespersons for the institutions cited historical preservation and prior court rulings as justification. The Norton Simon Museum states that the Cranach paintings originally belonged to the Stroganoff family, were sold by the Soviet Union in 1931, purchased by Goudstikker, and eventually sold to the museum by a Stroganoff descendant. In 2018, a federal court unanimously determined that the Norton Simon Museum had proper title to the Cranach paintings, and the US Supreme Court declined to intervene in May 2019.
Pawel Sawicki, a spokesperson for the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum, argued that the watercolors depicting Roma victims must remain at the memorial site to document Mengele's experiments. Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime seized more than 600,000 works of art across Europe from Jewish families, collectors, and museums.
The Jewish Federation plans to use most net proceeds from any recovered art to help approximately 2,500 Holocaust survivors living in the Los Angeles area.