Recovered memories. In Paris on June 26
Published on 13/04/2025 - Updated on 29/05/2025
As part of the French presidency of the European network of restitution commissions, the CIVS is organizing the Recovered Memories conference in Paris on Thursday, June 26, 2025. Open to the public upon registration, this meeting will be devoted to dialogue between the families of the dispossessed, cultural institutions and restitution commissions.
United in the same network for five years, the commissions created in Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are implementing policies for the restitution of cultural property looted between 1933 and 1945 under the National Socialist regime.
On 26 June, cases of restitution will be presented, in the presence of the commissions that recommended them, the heirs of the victims of spoliation, and the provenance researchers involved. The afternoon will be led by Léa Veinstein, a philosopher, film-maker and author specialising in the transmission of the memory of the Shoah.
PROGRAM
13:00 Door opening
14:00 Welcome speech
■ The Robert Bing case before the Spoliation Advisory Panel (United Kingdom): Courbet painting looted in Paris during the Occupation, returned to family after 70 years in a Cambridge museum. La Ronde Enfantine by Gustave Courbet was seized by the Nazis from the flat of Robert Bing in Paris in 1941. After being stolen, the painting was placed in Paris at the Jeu de Paume, for the benefit of Hermann Goering. It resurfaced in 1951, when a London art dealer bought it. The same year, it donated it to the Fitzwilliam Museum. The painting has remained in the museum ever since, but following the Panel's recommendation, the painting was restituted to the heirs of Robert Bing. Find the commission's recommendation.
■ The case of Abraham Nijstad before the Restutiecommissie (Netherlands): an art dealer forced to sell his collection to save his family from anti-Semitic persecution. Two grandchildren of the Jewish art dealer Abraham Nijstad will share the history of their grandfather and his art dealership during the Nazi regime. The choices their grandfather was forced to make to save the lives of his direct family had a strong and remaining impact on their (grand)parents and the rest of the family. The Restutiecommissie advised to return three paintings from the Netherlands Art Property (NK) Collection to the heirs of Abraham Nijstad. Find the commission's recommendation.
15:45 Break
■ The Saul Juer case before the Kommission für Provenienzforschung (Austria): Steve Glauber finds the collection of his grandfather, an Austrian Jew murdered at Auschwitz. Steve Glauber is a former journalist who lives in New York City. Steve’s grandfather, Saul Juer, was forced to close his meat business due to Nazi persecution in 1938. Subsequently, to provide for his family, he sold over 570 works of art to the former Army Museum until he was arrested in 1942. The Kunstrückgabebeirat recommended to the Federal Minister of Defence that 564 presently traceable pieces be transferred to Saul Juer's legal successor, Steve Glauber. Find the commission's recommendation.
■ The case of Henry Torrès before the Commission for the Restitution of Property and the Compensation of Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation (France) : more than two hundred books scattered across Germany have finally found their owners. Henry Torrès, born in 1891, was a French politician lawyer and journalist, forced to flee to the United States to escape antisemitic persecution. During his exile, his entire collection of books was confiscated by the nazis and never given back. Many of these works have now been identified in more than five libraries in Germany. The time has come to return them to Henry Torrès heirs. Find the commission's recommendation.
17:50 Closing speech
Where ? Auditorium Marceau Long, Services du Premier ministre, 20 avenue de Ségur, 75007 Paris
When ? Thursday, June 26, 2025, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Free entry, upon registration.
