Nederlandse Site
| Recommendation RC 1.59 |
| Date | : |
6 August 2007 |
| Case number |
: |
RC 1.59 |
| Recommendation concerning the application for the restitution of: |
||
| five artworks from the Dutch National Art Collection |
The procedure
In response to the request for a
recommendation, the Restitutions Committee instituted a fact-finding
investigation, during which the Committee requested additional information from
the applicant in a letter dated 19 March 2007. The applicant informed the
Committee via an undated letter, received on 2 May 2007, that he had no further
information to support his application.
The results of the investigation were recorded in a draft report dated 11 June
2007, which was then submitted to the applicant for comments. Given the fact
that the applicant has failed to respond to the draft report, the Committee
assumes that the applicant has no further information. The draft report was
also passed on to the Minister for OCW, who informed the Committee that no
additional information was available. The report was adopted on 6 August 2007.
For the facts of the case, the Committee refers to the report, which is
considered an integral part of this recommendation.
Two of the works currently being claimed by the applicant, NK 126 and NK 1489,
are also the subject of other applications for restitution that have been
submitted to the Restitutions Committee, namely RC 1.51 and RC 1.15
respectively.
General considerations
a) The Committee has drawn up its opinion with due regard for the relevant (lines of) policy issued by the Ekkart Committee and the government.
b) The Committee asked itself whether it is acceptable that an opinion to be issued is influenced by its potential consequences for decisions in subsequent cases. The Committee resolved that such influence cannot be accepted, save in cases where special circumstances apply, since allowing such influence would be impossible to justify to the applicant concerned.
c) The Committee then asked itself how to deal with the circumstance that certain facts can no longer be ascertained, that certain information has been lost or has not been recovered, or that evidence can no longer be otherwise compiled. On this issue, the Committee believes that if the problems that have arisen can be attributed at least in part to the lapse of time, the associated risk should be borne by the government, save in cases where exceptional circumstances apply.
d) The Committee believes that insights and circumstances which, according to generally accepted views, have evidently changed since the Second World War should be granted the status of new facts.
e) Involuntary loss of possession is also understood to mean sale without the art dealer’s consent by ‘Verwalters’ [Nazi-appointed caretakers who took over management of firms owned by Jews] or other custodians not appointed by the owner of items from the old trading stock under their custodianship, in so far as the original owner or his heirs did not receive all the profits of the transaction, or in so far as the owner did not expressly waive his rights after the war.
Special considerations:
- The
applicant requests the restitution of three artworks (NK 2008, NK 2199 and NK
126) in his capacity as heir to his grandfather Franciszek Letowski
(1880-1940), and the restitution of two paintings (NK 1589 and NK 1489) in his
capacity as heir to his father Czeslaw Letowski (1904 –1965). The applicant is
also acting on behalf of his sister, H. L.-A.
- The
following facts, provided by the applicant, are the basis for the application
for restitution.
In June 1935, the applicant’s father and grandfather (both Jewish) left Poland to start a business in Paris, France. After returning to visit family in Poland in July 1939, the threat of war made it impossible for them to return to Paris and they were forced to remain in Poland, leaving their belongings behind in the French capital. After World War II broke out, the family’s entire possessions, both in Poland and France, were looted by the occupying forces. Franciszek Letowski, the applicant’s grandfather, was transported to a camp in Poland and during an attempt to escape, was shot and killed. The applicant’s father, Czeslaw Letowski, was arrested by the Nazis in 1940 and sent to a labour camp. He survived the war and died in 1965. At the time of his arrest, the rest of the family were driven from their home in the Wadolki-Bucki (Lomza district, Poland) after which the house was plundered by the Nazis. A former neighbour of the Letowski family in Poland confirms the plundering of the Letowski’s home in a statement dated 17 August 2006 that was submitted by the applicant with his application for restitution: ‘The house was robbed of all the valuables, pieces of art and of anything that had some value’.
- According
to the applicant, the two claimed paintings, currently numbers NK 1589 and
NK 1489 in the Dutch National Art Collection, were amongst his father’s
possessions that were looted in Poland. ‘After five years of wandering
during the occupation and return to our home town we found our house totally
burnt down, and as I have mentioned above, robbed of those two paintings and
all other valuables’.
The artworks belonging to his grandfather that were looted in France include
three pieces, NK 126, NK 2008 and NK 2199. Franciszek Letowski,
the applicant’s grandfather, is said to have bought these works in France
before the war. When asked, the applicant told the Restitutions Committee that
he based his identification of these artworks as being those lost by his family
on oral descriptions given by his father shortly before his death in 1965. The
applicant has no more specific information at his disposal.
- The
Origins Unknown Agency’s fact-finding investigation has revealed that, during
the occupation of the Netherlands, the five artworks were all in Dutch hands at
one time or another. The Restitutions Committee has already undertaken an
investigation into one of the claimed paintings, a panel by J.W. Bilders (NK
1489), that showed the painting to have been in the possession of J.
Goudstikker N.V., an art dealership in Amsterdam, as early as May 1940, and
very possibly before.
- Given
that the manner and timing of the acquisition of the claimed works by their
respective Dutch owners is not entirely known, it cannot be ruled out, based on
the details of the investigation, that any one of the five works found its way
from Poland or Paris to the Netherlands after 1939 or 1940 respectively – the
time when the applicant claims his family lost their possessions. Nonetheless,
the Committee’s investigation, which included consulting Polish and French
historical sources and more detailed art historical studies, has failed to
uncover any further evidence to indicate that the provenance of the artworks
concerned is either Polish or French.
- Pursuant
to national policy in respect of the restitution of works of art, as contained
in the Ekkart Committee’s eighth recommendation of April 2001, restitution can
only be recommended if ‘the title thereto has been proved with a high degree
of probability and there are no indications of the contrary’.
- In
this respect, the Committee deems that since the only clue to the
identification of the works looted from the Letowski family are recollections
of an oral description given to the applicant by his father in 1965, the
Committee concludes that under the circumstances, this is insufficient grounds
for admitting the application for restitution. They have also taken into
consideration that indications to the contrary have been found in the case of
at least one of the claimed works.
Conclusion
The Restitutions Committee advises the Minister for Education, Culture and Science to reject Mr R. L. application for restitution of the five artworks in the Dutch National Art Collection, NK 126, NK 1489, NK 1589, NK 2008 and NK 2199.
Adopted at the meeting of 6 August 2007,
I.C. van
der Vlies (chair ad interim)
J.Th.M.
Bank
J.C.M.
Leijten
P.J.N. van
Os
E.J. van
Straaten
H.M.
Verrijn Stuart