SPEECH
Current State of Provenance Research in Belgium
By Daniel Dratwa
HOLOCAUST ERA ASSETS CONFERENCE
Prague
June 28 2009
During the last twelve years, as elsewhere in Western Europe, in Belgium, there has been a lot of research in State and Public collections unfortunately with only few positive results.
Although the Belgian Study Commission with the aid of the Jewish Museum researched mainly the cultural losses of individual Jewish owners and leading personalities, in a more general way the spoilt cultural property of religious communities and associations in Belgium was also studied and investigated indirectly.
Special attention was given to the provenance of religious objects and silver collections. The investigation in the Belgian cultural institutions showed that besides the discovery of some objects, that these silver objects were not registered or deposited in Belgian cultural institutions in mass. The findings were published in the final report of the Study Commission.
After more than ten years of intensive research we have a pretty well good idea of what was looted, who was looted and who did it.
During the war year’s one public incident marked indignation. During the Easter Weekend of 1941 a small anti-Semitic mob ransacked two synagogues, the private house of rabbi Rottenberg and Jewish shops in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp. This pogrom remained an isolated event in Belgian history (photo1). The Torah scrolls, sacred books and furniture were openly burnt in the streets and the buildings were set on fire (photo 2). National-socialist services were present and did not intervene. Jewish religious buildings were desecrated and spoilt by Nazi services and individual thieves (photo 3). In 1940, shortly after the occupation of Belgium, the Sicherheitsdienst had targeted and ransacked Jewish and Zionist organisations as the Alliance Israelite and the Federation of Belgium Zionist. After the liberation of Belgium all synagogues were returned by the Belgian authorities to the local Jewish communities and the Consistoire Central Israélite de Belgique(photo 4). Material damages were partially paid by the Ministry of Reconstruction. The synagogues were re-consecrated (photo 5). The religious and cultural associations were partially materially compensated by West Germany (the Brüg Legislation) for the suffered material damages and cultural losses (photo 5).
In 2001 and 2002 Belgian ‘Trophy’ archives, after successful Belgian-Russian negotiations, were returned by the Russian Federation. The archives, mostly military documents from the Belgian Ministry of National Defence contained 14 dossiers from Jewish organisations (as the Alliance Israelite-Committee Antwerp and the editorial board of Hatikva, Federation of Belgium Zionist). A subtotal of 14 dossiers and 74 dossiers of leading Jewish personalities as Jacques Errera, Herbert Speyer, Henri Salomon Fast, Charles Cohen and Léon Kochnitski. These were returned to the rightful organisations and owners. The same happened also in France and in The Netherlands for example.The reason of the small amount of documents, less then 1% of the total of the Belgian ‘Trophy’ archives was that primarily the main objective of the Nazi services as the ERR in Belgium was the confiscation of library-material. Most of the books and libraries is until know not recovered.
In the immediate post-war period about 4500 books were found and given back to the private owners. The Jewish Museum of Belgium discovered in the nineties 450 Yiddish books in an attic which had been confiscated by ‘Anti Jewish National Agency’ during the war years (photo 6).
If we estimate to half a million the number of books looted during the period under review, we must say that we are still looking for them. For those of you interested I published a few months ago an article with the bookmarks of the Jewish pre-war libraries. It was written with a crying lack of archives on those institutions which were looted with the books.
Josef Herman the famous English Jewish painter came to Brussels in March 1939 to attend the Academy of Fine Arts; he lived in Brussels till May 10 1940 before fleeing in France and settling in Scotland. He left to the care of her landlord all his paintings and drawings. They have till today never reappeared. The same happened with the paintings made by Carol Deutch who was arrested in September 1943 and died in Auschwitz in 1944.
Those examples show that 65 years after the facts, for people not very well known at the time as well as for objects or books, that was not photographed or printed in auction catalogue, it seems almost impossible to find a trace in this world even if we have some clues that indicate some countries in Eastern Europe or an institution in New York (JTSA) that holds our archives.
At the opposite, the Jewish Museum hold in his collection a Torah scrolls (photo 7) that was given in 1945 to the Brussels orthodox community by the New-York section of the American Joint Distribution Committee. It was given to us because it was pasul which means of no proper use for the religious service. It goes without saying that today after research that was made nobody is alive and no document exist to tell from which community in New-York or elsewhere this Torah belongs.
But as long as it will take we will never abandon our research and I beg you to do the same. That is why, in 2006 as president of the Association of European Jewish Museum, with the help of our committee, in Venice, I was pleased to introduce and to receive a full endorsement of the resolution on looted art who bind AEJM members to undertake research and give annually a report to the General Assembly.
The National Commission of Belgium Jewish Assets has created since 2000 two data bases that are linked. The first one is the Mala Zimetbaum Data Base (MZDB) that gives the name of all the Jews that lived in Belgium during the time of the war. The second one is called Jewish cultural Assets-Belgium (JCA-B) that gives all the cultural assets that we search and also data concerning the objects that was find. It contains 4196 files concerning 225 collections. This system can be done by each country at a very low cost which seems important in those times of financial crisis.
With the help of the Foundation of Belgian Judaism we hope to launch next year a survey, nationally and internationally, in semi public institution like the religious ones who might hold objects and documents that were given during or after the war to be rescued.
Let us hope that the publicity around this gathering will permit opportunity for a greater access to some institutions in my country and abroad that will help us to solve those cases and others.
As a conclusion, in Europe, it is our duty as public institution preserving the patrimony for the generations to come to take care of the objects and documents which were made or brought in our country until claimants have stepped forward.
Till then, following the International Council Of Museums code of Ethics, it is our commitment to preserve them with care, to document them and to exhibit them with there full story for the benefit of dissemination of knowledge among the society.
THANK YOU