Dutch gov't advised to put Nazi-looted art on exhibit under Jewish community control
The nearly 4,000 Nazi-looted artworks in the Dutch government collection must be visibly exhibited and placed under the management of the Jewish community. That is the advice of a commission led by former Minister Lodewijk Asscher to the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, NOS reports. These items have been stored in depots since the Second World War.
It concerns the “orphaned” looted art in the NK collection, which consists of thousands of paintings, furniture, carpets, and tableware that were looted, forcibly sold, or confiscated from people in the Netherlands by the Nazi regime. After the war, a large portion was retrieved and placed in the national collection. The ownership of many pieces has never been established, hence the term “orphaned.”
The Cultural Heritage Agency is as certain as it can be that most of these objects belonged to Jewish people who can no longer be traced, often because entire families were murdered during the war. Until now, the pieces were primarily stored in the depots of the Cultural Heritage Agency in Amersfoort and the Rijksmuseum’s depot, called the Collection Center.
According to the Asscher Commission, it is time for these objects to be made visible. “We believe it is important that these pieces no longer remain suspended in a sort of no-man’s-land,” Asscher said. “They are objects that can tell people today something: about the rule of law and equal treatment.”
Asscher visited the depots. “It is a heavily secured, almost clinical environment. And then you suddenly see a set of cutlery that someone used for dinner on a Friday evening, which was probably a wedding gift, or a tapestry that once hung above a sofa.”
And that is what makes this collection so poignant, he said. “People can become deeply attached to objects, especially when someone is no longer alive. And through history, all those items have now ended up together in a depot. We think: it is a shame not to do anything with them.”
Some of the more famous artworks are already on display in museums, but they lack context. “You don’t see that the object was once stolen from someone during the war,” Asscher said. The information on the works only states that they belong to the NK collection, and many people don't know what it means. “That is why we say: add that information. Let people pause for a moment to consider that this belonged to someone who was murdered.”
The committee advised establishing an independent foundation to manage the collection and exhibit it. The Ministry should allocate €400,000 annually for the foundation to organize exhibitions, educational projects, or collaborations with artists. “Let someone different each year, an artist or theater maker, connect the collections to current events. That way it stays alive,” Asscher suggested. “You could let people eat with that cutlery while they hear the story. That might be uncomfortable, but that is what makes it meaningful.”
It was already formally decided that the objects in the NK collection would go to the Jewish community. The Central Jewish Council (CJO) asked the Asscher Commission for advice on what to do with the objects. The pieces must not be sold. “Perhaps someone will come forward someday saying: ' This belonged to my family. Then you must be able to return it,” CJO chairman Chanan Hertzberger said.
He is pleased with the idea of giving the collection an educational role. “We want to show people what happened during the war. What happens when you exclude people. Ultimately, things remain - plates, cutlery, ordinary household items - while the people are gone.’
