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U.S. Museums Aid Quest For Looted WWII Era Art

Aired September 09, 2003 - 14:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, among the offenses of Hitler's regime, you can you understand they rightly overshadowed was the plundering of precious works of art from museums and private collections.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: For many years, investigators have tried to track down and return those hidden treasures, but as recently as '97, one expert estimated 100,000 pieces were still unaccounted for.

PHILLIPS: Enter the American Association of Museums, which has just unveiled a Web site that aims to point searchers in the right direction.

Ed Able is the president and CEO. He joins us now from Washington to sketch out the details.

Sir, it's a pleasure to have you.

ED ABLE JR., AMERICAN ASSN. OF MUSEUMS: My pleasure, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I guess -- we were talking about this. How many -- or -- are there a group of -- was there a group of people that came to you and said, Hey, you know, there's family art that never got returned. We're wondering where it is. I mean, is it the people from that era that have influenced to you do this?

ABLE: Well, I think after the fall of the former Soviet Union and the opening of a number of archives, American museums were made aware of the fact that much of the unjustly appropriated material during the Nazi era was never returned to the owners, much larger than we had ever imagined.

There was also the assumption that some of it may have gotten into America's museums. So over the last decade, in fact, we have become -- begun to deal with the subject in a very aggressive and proactive way, and especially with the opening of additional archival material both in this country as well as Eastern Europe, we were able to pursue that with much more vigor.

O'BRIEN: Now we're looking at some pictures, which, of course, are vintage World War II, which shows some of the, in some cases, priceless artworks that were captured during the fall of the Third Reich. How -- who are typically the people who are seeking lost art? Are they individuals? Are they museums? Or a little bit of both? ABLE: I think it's typically individuals, heirs of the Holocaust victims, who are seeking to get return of material that was never returned to the families. In fact, much of the material that was confiscated by the Allied forces after the war were returning to the countries of origin, and it was the country of origin that had the responsibility of returning a particular piece to its owners or heirs. That obviously did not happen with a large number of those pieces.

Some of the material, of course....

O'BRIEN: How would you -- how you know the country of origin if it was seized by the Nazis?

ABLE: Well, the Nazis kept unbelievable records. They were great recordkeepers. And much of that material was available at that point through these great inventories.

Hitler had plans to build a major museum in his home city and take the cream of the crop of this material and install it in this major museum. So there's a great deal of record keeping that went on.

PHILLIPS: So, Ed, we know Hitler was obsessed with a lot of things, was he obsessed with art?

ABLE: I wouldn't call it exactly an obsession. I think Hitler and the Nazis were indiscriminate in their looting. They looted anything of value, and I use that term advisedly. Because we have to understand that much of the material was confiscated in other ways, through forced sales, through confiscation of estates from those fleeing the Nazi regime. There were a number of ways in which material was, as we like to call it, unjustly appropriated.

O'BRIEN: Now let's talk about your Web site. You go to the one site, www.nepip.org.

ABLE: Right.

O'BRIEN: How does this simplify the effort of those people whose families or institutions, whatever the case may be, that have lost artwork in that era. How does this make it easier?

PHILLIPS: And how do you prove ownership too?

ABLE: Well, first of all, let me say that what we are putting -- what America's museums are putting on this Web site is material, all material, which could have been in Continental Europe and could have changed hands in Continental Europe between 1932 and 1946. Even at the museum has complete provenance, that is ownership information, and we are clear that the museum has clear title and legal title, we're still putting that material up. There are also pieces on there that may have gaps in the ownership record, and that material is on there also.

But what we're trying to do is collect it all so that a researcher, a searcher, a claimant doesn't have to know which museum may have a piece. They can go to this portal, enter specific information about the piece that they're looking for, and it will -- it will search the database, and then let the searcher know where a piece like that, even if it's just a description, exists or where the piece by certain artist exists. Which museums? Then we act as the switching post to get that claimant or that researcher to the specific museum that holds that piece and they can pursue one-on-one conversations.

The problem under the old system was that if you were a claimant and you were looking for a piece of art, if you didn't know which museum it might exist in, you didn't even know where to go,. So our effort is to make it simpler for those who are looking.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's pretty amazing too, the art that you're looking for. I mean, I know we have to go and we have to go button this up. But, like, the very first picture that we showed, those soldiers are looking at a Monet. So we're talking big names here, priceless pieces.

ABLE: Well, we are. But we feel that the material that has gotten into America's museums is minor. Over the last four years of searching, we only have 17 known cases in which objects have been found and another half dozen still in conversation. But we want to make sure that there is none of this material in America's museums.

PHILLIPS: Ed Able, thank you so much.

ABLE: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired September 9, 2003 - 14:43   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, among the offenses of Hitler's regime, you can you understand they rightly overshadowed was the plundering of precious works of art from museums and private collections.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: For many years, investigators have tried to track down and return those hidden treasures, but as recently as '97, one expert estimated 100,000 pieces were still unaccounted for.

PHILLIPS: Enter the American Association of Museums, which has just unveiled a Web site that aims to point searchers in the right direction.

Ed Able is the president and CEO. He joins us now from Washington to sketch out the details.

Sir, it's a pleasure to have you.

ED ABLE JR., AMERICAN ASSN. OF MUSEUMS: My pleasure, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: I guess -- we were talking about this. How many -- or -- are there a group of -- was there a group of people that came to you and said, Hey, you know, there's family art that never got returned. We're wondering where it is. I mean, is it the people from that era that have influenced to you do this?

ABLE: Well, I think after the fall of the former Soviet Union and the opening of a number of archives, American museums were made aware of the fact that much of the unjustly appropriated material during the Nazi era was never returned to the owners, much larger than we had ever imagined.

There was also the assumption that some of it may have gotten into America's museums. So over the last decade, in fact, we have become -- begun to deal with the subject in a very aggressive and proactive way, and especially with the opening of additional archival material both in this country as well as Eastern Europe, we were able to pursue that with much more vigor.

O'BRIEN: Now we're looking at some pictures, which, of course, are vintage World War II, which shows some of the, in some cases, priceless artworks that were captured during the fall of the Third Reich. How -- who are typically the people who are seeking lost art? Are they individuals? Are they museums? Or a little bit of both? ABLE: I think it's typically individuals, heirs of the Holocaust victims, who are seeking to get return of material that was never returned to the families. In fact, much of the material that was confiscated by the Allied forces after the war were returning to the countries of origin, and it was the country of origin that had the responsibility of returning a particular piece to its owners or heirs. That obviously did not happen with a large number of those pieces.

Some of the material, of course....

O'BRIEN: How would you -- how you know the country of origin if it was seized by the Nazis?

ABLE: Well, the Nazis kept unbelievable records. They were great recordkeepers. And much of that material was available at that point through these great inventories.

Hitler had plans to build a major museum in his home city and take the cream of the crop of this material and install it in this major museum. So there's a great deal of record keeping that went on.

PHILLIPS: So, Ed, we know Hitler was obsessed with a lot of things, was he obsessed with art?

ABLE: I wouldn't call it exactly an obsession. I think Hitler and the Nazis were indiscriminate in their looting. They looted anything of value, and I use that term advisedly. Because we have to understand that much of the material was confiscated in other ways, through forced sales, through confiscation of estates from those fleeing the Nazi regime. There were a number of ways in which material was, as we like to call it, unjustly appropriated.

O'BRIEN: Now let's talk about your Web site. You go to the one site, www.nepip.org.

ABLE: Right.

O'BRIEN: How does this simplify the effort of those people whose families or institutions, whatever the case may be, that have lost artwork in that era. How does this make it easier?

PHILLIPS: And how do you prove ownership too?

ABLE: Well, first of all, let me say that what we are putting -- what America's museums are putting on this Web site is material, all material, which could have been in Continental Europe and could have changed hands in Continental Europe between 1932 and 1946. Even at the museum has complete provenance, that is ownership information, and we are clear that the museum has clear title and legal title, we're still putting that material up. There are also pieces on there that may have gaps in the ownership record, and that material is on there also.

But what we're trying to do is collect it all so that a researcher, a searcher, a claimant doesn't have to know which museum may have a piece. They can go to this portal, enter specific information about the piece that they're looking for, and it will -- it will search the database, and then let the searcher know where a piece like that, even if it's just a description, exists or where the piece by certain artist exists. Which museums? Then we act as the switching post to get that claimant or that researcher to the specific museum that holds that piece and they can pursue one-on-one conversations.

The problem under the old system was that if you were a claimant and you were looking for a piece of art, if you didn't know which museum it might exist in, you didn't even know where to go,. So our effort is to make it simpler for those who are looking.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's pretty amazing too, the art that you're looking for. I mean, I know we have to go and we have to go button this up. But, like, the very first picture that we showed, those soldiers are looking at a Monet. So we're talking big names here, priceless pieces.

ABLE: Well, we are. But we feel that the material that has gotten into America's museums is minor. Over the last four years of searching, we only have 17 known cases in which objects have been found and another half dozen still in conversation. But we want to make sure that there is none of this material in America's museums.

PHILLIPS: Ed Able, thank you so much.

ABLE: My pleasure.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com