Three Munich Museums Restitute 9 Nazi-Looted Artworks to the Heirs of Jewish Collectors

The Jewish art collectors Julius and Semaya Franziska Davidsohn
became victims of one of a major Nazi art theft by the Gestapo on a
fateful day in Munich in the fall of 1938. The childless couple
were arrested and taken concentration camp, and their possessions
were seized. The Davidsohns’ heirs gathered today, August 5, in the
southern German city to receive nine works of art stolen more than
80 years ago. The paintings, casts, and engravings had been held by
three of Munich’s state museums until new research revealed the
artworks’ dark history.

Extensive research shed light on the tainted provenances of the
works, which were stolen from the Davidsohn’s apartment in Munich
and taken to one of the National Socialists’ collecting points in
Munich’s Königsplatz. Five paintings dating from the 16th to early
20th centuries, three 19th-century color engravings, and an
intricate wooden panel with ivory reliefs stayed there until the
end of the war. In 1955, each work found their way into the
Bavarian State Painting Collections, the Bavarian National Museum,
and the State Graphics Collection.

The research team tracked down the Davidsohns’ heirs to London,
Zimbabwe and Tel Aviv. In recent years, provenance research has
increased in the southern German state’s painting collections.
Bernhard Maaz, the director of the Bavarian State Painting
Collection, who represented the three museums at the ceremonial
handover, described the research process as “long and
difficult,” but pointed out that its outcome showed how provenance
research methods and tools have become “mature.”

After the raid, the Davidsohns were deported to Theresienstadt
concentration camp. Julius Davidsohn was murdered in August 1942
and Semaya died in April 1943. “Because of the Holocaust, no
children were found, and so it raised the question of who was
entitled to inherit the works,” the Bavarian arts minister Bernd
Sibler told Bayern
2-radioWelt. He said there were “difficult legal
disputes” in the process. He acknowledged that the
restitution of artworks looted during World War II that were in
public collections has only been taken up more seriously in the
past two decades.

“Provenance research is more than just a duty of our museums. It
is our ethical duty, to deal with the provenance of museum
inventories thoroughly, profoundly, and conscientiously, and to
make it transparent,” Sibler said in a statement. “Past events
cannot be undone, but we can send a visible sign for our deep and
serious interest to process the inhuman crimes of National
Socialism.” The Nazis built up their power base in Munich, which
they called the capital of the movement.

“It is very illuminating for the community of heirs to find out
about the fate of the former Davidsohn family, and to be able to
commemorate them,” said a spokeswoman for the heirs.

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