Berlin - Major Conference on Jewish Cultural Treasures in Europe after the Holocaust

A major conference on Jewish Cultural Treasures in Europe after the Holocaust will take place at the Jewish Museum in Berlin on Jan. 24-25. The conference comes at the conclusion of the exhibition "Looting and Restitution. Jewish Owned Cultural Artifacts from 1933 to the Present," which has been running at the museum since September.

The conference topics look fascinating and important, and I wish I could go, but logistics (and finances) will probably not permit me...

More information about the exhibition and the conference can be found at the Jewish museum web site.

Meanwhile, here is the program:

Saturday, 24. January 2009

PANEL I: CONFRONTING LOOTING AND DESTRUCTION: NEW STRATEGIES
10.00 Introduction
Inka Bertz, Jewish Museum Berlin

10.30 Reconstructing Jewish Cultural Landscapes - The »Tentative Lists«
Project 1944-1948
Elisabeth Gallas, Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at
Leipzig University

11.15 Hashavat Avedah: JCR, Inc. and the Rescue of Heirless Jewish Cultural
Property After WW II
Dana Herman, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives,
Cincinnati

PANEL II: GERMANY AND AUSTRIA
13.30 To Whom Do the Jewish Cultural Treasures Belong after 1945? Conflict
of Interests in the City of Frankfurt am Main
Katharina Rauschenberger, Jewish Museum Frankfurt am Main

14.15 The Situation in Berlin 1945-1953
N.N.

15.00 Displaced on Three Continents. The Fate of the Material Heritage of
the Jewish Community in Vienna
Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Jewish Museum Wien

PANEL III: EAST CENTRAL EUROPE I
16.15 What Happened in Prague?
Michaela Sidenberg, Jewish Museum in Prague

17.00 Dealing with the Jewish Cultural Assets in Post-War Poland
Nawojka Cieslinska-Lobkowicz, Art Historian and Provenance Researcher,
Warsaw/Munich

17.45 The Jewish Historical Institute as a Repository for Jewish Cultural
Treasures in Poland
N. N.

Sunday, 25. January 2009

PANEL IV: WESTERN EUROPE
10.00 A Matter of Conscience? Legal and Moral Aspects of Dutch Restitution
Policy
Julie Marthe Cohen, Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam

10.45 The Fate of Jewish-Owned Cultural Treasures in Paris and in France
Laurence Sigal, Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme, Paris

11.30 Looted Jewish Art and Cultural Properties in Italy. The Difficult
Restitution and Compensation after 1945
Paola Bertilotti, Sciences-Po, Paris / Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et
Sciences Humaines, Lyon

PANEL V: EAST CENTRAL EUROPE II
13.45 Lviv 1944 - Now. Jewish Cultural Objects and Property. Some Cases and
Tendencies
Tarik Cyril Amar, Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, Lviv

14.30 Restitution Issues in Post-War Romania
Hildrun Glass, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

15.15 »Disappeared?« The Fate of Jewish-Owned Cultural Artifacts in Hungary
after 1945
Eszter Gantner, ELTE University of Budapest - Center for Central European
German Jewish Culture

16.00 Final discussion: Open Questions, Ongoing Controversies