"'Treuhänderische' Übernahme und Verwahrung - international und interdisziplinär betrachtet"

Published on 10 May 2017

Between 2 and 4 May 2017, another conference on the issue of looted art took place at the Viennese library.

A department of the University Library in Vienna has been dealing with this issue since 2004, with an independent library holding books from libraries looted by the Nazis between 1938 and 1945. According to the organizers, the idea of organizing this meeting has been considered for a long time.

The initial lecture, “Artworks Looted during the Holocaust: The Unfinished Story”. The Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated Art: Seeking Just and Fair Solutions”, was presented by James Bindenagel.

The conference itself was divided into regional sections: Austria, Germany, Prague, Vienna, Munich. Tomáš Foltýn and Marcela Strouhalová from the National Library of the Czech Republic talked about the issues raised during the implementation of the project Books Discovered Once Again, in particular concerning the first probes into the provenance of the books stored in the Reserve Fonds of the National Library and their original owners. For the Prague section, Michal Bušek from the Prague Jewish Museum and Michal Nosel and Johana Prozová from the Documentation Centre for Property Transfers of the Cultural Assets of WW II Victims gave their presentations. The first two speakers were concerned with Jewish libraries, the latter two with Josef Pollak’s art collection.

A number of questions were raised in the discussion about the issues of the restitution of works of art and the disclosure of information to potential applicants. An anthology from the conference with the working title Treuhänderische Übernahme und Verwahrung – international und interdisziplinär betrachtet is planned for 2018.