Nazi plunder: French museums to return looted artwork to Jewish heirs
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Eighty years ago, on January 27, 1945, the extermination and concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Soviets. Of the 69,000 Jews deported from France, only 5 percent survived. During World War II, the Nazis looted 100,000 items of cultural property belonging to Jewish families. After the Liberation, some 60,000 stolen works of art were repatriated to France, and 45,000 were handed back to their owners, or to family members who had survived the Holocaust. But 2,200 are still in French museums, as curators continue to search for their rightful owners. FRANCE 24's Claire Paccalin and Stéphanie Trouillard report.
As Europe commemorates the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, FRANCE 24 looks at the artwork that was stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families in France during World War II. Some of the works later found their way back to their original owners, while others were entrusted to national museums.
In France's northern city of Lille, the museum of fine arts will soon receive a grant from the commission responsible for resolving claims of those who lost artwork during the Third Reich.
Experts will then trace what happened to the works of art stolen from Jewish families by Nazi Party members.
Meanwhile at the Louvre Museum, which houses some 1,600 works of art believed to have been stolen by the Nazis, curators have been working on finding the legal heirs for several years.