Recovered memories. In Paris on June 26
Published on 13/04/2025 - Updated on 12/06/2025
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 Fitzwilliam Museum is working with the family's representatives to enable the return. 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.
■ The case of Saul Juer before the Art Restitution Advisory Board (Austria): In 2021, the provenance researcher at the Museum of Military History in Vienna discovered sales under duress by Saul Juer in the museum's inventories. Juer was forced to close his meat trade in 1938 due to persecution by the Nazis for being Jewish. He sold over 570 works of art to the Army Museum before he was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp in 1944. In 2022, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended that the Federal Minister of Defense return the artworks to Saul Juer's legal successor, his grandson Steve Glauber. Steve Glauber is a former journalist and lives in New York City. Find the commission's recommendation.
16:00 Coffee break
■ Based on cases of restitution completed by the Beratende Kommission (Germany) in recent years, the Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution, especially Jewish property and the European representative of the Jewish Claims Conference will discuss the challenges and importance of restitution of Nazi-spoliated property for families and heirs, as well as the responsibility of the German state.
■ 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.
In which languages? Simultaneous interpretation in English, French and German
Free entry, upon registration.
