Sunday, April 11, 2010

Lawsuit: Another Swiss Art Dealer Stole A Van Gogh From Persecuted Jews

Van Gogh - View of Saintes-Maries with Church and Ramparts - Arles - June, 1888 currently at Oskar Reinhart Collection - Winterthur, Switzerland

The Swiss have built yet another monument to a thieving art dealer, this time a creep named Oskar Reinhart.

You can read some of the terrible things that Swiss art dealers did to poor Jews fleeing for their lives in the Bergier Report, downloadable here.  The best and most detailed part of the report on looted art is available for purchase in the German language only.

The Swiss were warned by the Allies in 1943 not to traffic in goods belonging to Nazi persecutees.  The Swiss government issued formal warnings to art dealers in 1947 that transactions in property belonging to persecutees would not enjoy an innocent purchaser defense. The declaration, signed by 17 nations on January 5, 1943, was formally entitled "Declaration on Forced Transfers of Property in Enemy-Controlled Territory," but is known as the "Inter-Allied Declaration Against Acts of Dispossession."  More here

Lawsuit - Van Gogh Stolen By Swiss Art Dealer

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