State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu announced today in a press release that Dick Oostinga will become vice-chair of the Restitutions Committee with immediate effect and will supervise it temporarily.

The Restitutions Committee was established in 2001 and advises the State Secretary about applications for the restitution of items of cultural value that were looted or lost involuntarily in some other way during the Nazi regime.

Last week the chair, Jacob Kohnstamm, and the vice chair, Els Swaab, submitted their resignations to the State Secretary in connection with an internal matter. In the press release the State Secretary expresses her great appreciation for the contributions made by both of them as members of the Restitutions Committee.

Lawyer and former notary Dick Oostinga has been a member of the Restitutions Committee since 2018. His appointment as vice-chair will enable the independent Restitutions Committee to continue its important work, to which the State Secretary attaches great importance, without interruption. The State Secretary is responsible for appointing committee members and she will initiate the process of selecting a new chair and a new committee member in the near future.

The Restitutions Committee will do everything it can to continue to discharge its tasks in full. The Committee would like to stress that the policy, as amended in 2021, will continue to serve unchanged as the Restitutions Committee’s guiding principle.