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Recommendation regarding Mogrobi IV

Mogrobi IV

Report number: RC 1.206

Advice type: NK Collection

Advice date: 18 November 2024

Period of loss of ownership: 1940-1945

Original owner: Art gallery

Location of loss of ownership: In the Netherlands

NK260 – a seventeenth-century Dutch two-door oak cabinet (photo: RCE)

  • Eikenhouten tweedeurs kast uit de zeventiende eeuw.

Summary

The Restitutions Committee has assessed an application for restitution of a seventeenth-century Dutch two-door oak cabinet that is part of the Netherlands Art Property (NK) Collection of the Dutch State. The restitution application was submitted after heirs of the Jewish art dealer Mozes Mogrobi were told about new information arising from research conducted by the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE) as part of the Programme to Accelerate WWII Restitution Policy (2022-2025).

Under the auspices of that programme, the RCE had the cabinet subjected to a detailed physical examination, which revealed the name Mogrobi written in white chalk on the back in old-fashioned handwriting with swashes. Further research by the RCE and NIOD’s Restitution Expert Centre (ECR) revealed that the cabinet was purchased in the Netherlands during the war by the German art dealer Fritz C. Valentien. It also emerged that Valentien and Mozes Mogrobi maintained a business relationship and that during the occupation Valentien purchased several objects from the Mozes Mogrobi gallery, including a piece of furniture whose description corresponds broadly to that of the cabinet.

The Committee concluded on the grounds of the investigation conducted by the RCE and the ECR that it is highly likely that the cabinet was the property of the Jewish art dealer Mozes Mogrobi. It furthermore became sufficiently plausible that Mozes Mogrobi and his wife Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi lost possession of the cabinet involuntarily as a result of circumstances directly connected with the Nazi regime.

The Committee has advised the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to restitute the cabinet to the heirs of Mozes Mogrobi and Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi.

Recommendation regarding Mogrobi IV

The State Secretary for Culture and Media (hereinafter referred to as the State Secretary) asked the Restitutions Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) to issue advice about an application for the restitution of a seventeenth-century two-door oak cabinet (hereinafter referred to as the Cabinet), which is part of the Netherlands Art Property Collection (hereinafter referred to as the NK Collection) under inventory number NK 260. The Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (hereinafter also referred to as the RCE) represented the State Secretary in this case.

The restitution application was submitted by AA, also on behalf of BB, CC and DD (hereinafter also referred to as the Applicants). The Applicants stated they are all heirs of Mozes Mogrobi (10 February 1898 – September 1944) and his wife Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi (13 February 1897 – 22 January 1971).

  1. The Application

In a letter dated 9 November 2023 the RCE, on behalf of the State Secretary, asked the Committee for advice about restitution of the Cabinet. This was prompted by the restitution application to the State Secretary in an e-mail of 17 October 2023 from AA, also on behalf of the other Applicants. The Cabinet was supposedly the property of the art dealer Mozes Mogrobi, the Applicants’ grandfather. The application was submitted after AA had been told by the RCE about new information relating to the Cabinet. This information was revealed by research in the context of the Programme to Accelerate WWII Restitution Policy (2022-2025).

The Committee issued recommendations concerning the Mozes Mogrobi gallery previously: RC 1.37, RC 1.145 and RC 1.203. In the first of these (RC 1.37) the Committee issued a recommendation on 12 February 2007 to reject part of the restitution application and to grant part of it. The second recommendation (RC 1.145), which was issued on 20 July 2015, was to reject the application for the restitution of three artworks. Finally, on 27 May 2024 the Committee recommended (RC 1.203) restitution of twelve artworks to the heirs of Mozes Mogrobi and Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi.

2. The Procedure and the Applicable Assessment Framework

The Committee told the Applicants in a letter of 15 December 2023 about the request for advice from the State Secretary and the Committee’s procedure and regulations. The Committee took note of all submitted documents. It sent copies of all documents to the Applicants and the RCE. The Committee submitted research issues to the Restitution of Items of Cultural Value and the Second World War Expert Centre of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (hereinafter referred to as the ECR). The ECR communicated its findings to the Committee in an overview of the facts.

Chronological Overview

  • On 12 October 2023 the RCE told the Applicants about the results of the investigation into the Cabinet in the context of the Programme to Accelerate WWII Restitution Policy (2022-2025). In an e-mail of 17 October 2023, the Applicants asked the State Secretary to restitute the Cabinet.
  • On 9 November 2023 the RCE, on behalf of the State Secretary, asked the Committee to advise about this restitution application.
  • On 15 December 2023 the Committee asked the ECR to conduct an investigation into the facts.
  • The results of this investigation were recorded by the ECR in a draft investigation report that was sent by the ECR to the RCE and the Applicants on 15 March 2024 for additional information and/or comments. The Applicants and the RCE responded to this draft on 19 March 2024 and 9 April 2024 respectively.
  • Op 11 April 2024 the ECR sent the Committee an amended version of the draft report together with the responses of the Applicants and the RCE.
  • On 14 June 2024 the Committee received the final investigation report from the ECR and sent it to the RCE and the Applicants on 19 July 2024. The parties were also asked if they needed a hearing.
  • On 22 July 2024 the Applicants responded to the final investigation report and stated that they did not have any comments on it. The Committee received no response to its question about whether the Applicants wanted a hearing. On 15 August 2024 the RCE responded and stated that it had no additional comments regarding the final report and that it complied with the wishes of the Applicants with respect to the hearing.
  • On 24 October 2024 the Committee sent its draft recommendation to the RCE and the Applicants and also asked the Applicants and the RCE whether there was a need for a hearing.
  • The Applicants responded to the draft recommendation on 24 April 2024 and stated they had no comments. The RCE responded on 28 October 2024 by making a comment about the text.

3. Establishing the Facts

The Committee establishes the following facts on the grounds of the investigation into the facts in cases RC 1.37, RC 1.145, RC 1.203 and in this case.

The Mogrobi family

Mozes Mogrobi was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on 10 February 1898. He was the elder son of Jacob Meijer Mogrobi and Taube Goldstein, both of Jewish decent. The couple had a further son and six daughters. The couple and their children remained in Vienna until at least 1900. In December 1901 the Mogrobi family was registered as stateless in the Amsterdam aliens register.

On 26 May 1921 Mozes Mogrobi married Zilia Jacobi, who was also Jewish and was born on 13 February 1897 in Dinxperlo. The couple had two children: Alfred Mogrobi (1921-1944) and Sonja Mogrobi (1923-1987). Sonja Mogrobi had four children, namely AA, BB, CC and DD, who jointly submitted the application for restitution of the Cabinet.

Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery

Until 1933 the Mogrobi family lived at Zieseniskade 1 in Amsterdam. They then moved to Spiegelgracht 11 in Amsterdam. Mozes Mogrobi had run the Mozes Mogrobi antiques gallery on Spiegelgracht since 1 May 1921 as owner and sole trader. The gallery had a varied trading stock, comprising glazed pottery, glassware, woodwork, sculptures and precious metal artworks. Mozes Mogrobi was above all a pottery expert.

Mozes Mogrobi was also a collector. He was primarily interested in old Italian ceramics. A range of items from his collection was exhibited in the spring of 1932 in the Lodewijk Schelfhout gallery at Nieuwe Doelenstraat 3 in Amsterdam. A few masterpieces from Mogrobi’s collection were also displayed in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He presented his private collection in his own gallery in October 1934.

The Mogrobi family and the gallery during the first few years of the occupation

Soon after the German occupation of the Netherlands began in May 1940, the German authorities took measures to segregate Jews from Dutch society. Regulation VO 189/40 was promulgated on 22 October 1940. It was aimed at removing Jews from the country’s economic life. As a Jewish proprietor, Mozes Mogrobi was obliged under this regulation to register his antiques business with the companies inspectorate (Wirtschaftsprüfstelle) in The Hague, which was responsible for the Aryanization of the Dutch business community.

On the basis of another regulation (VO 6/1941), from 10 January 1941 people ‘van geheel of gedeeltelijk Joodschen bloede’ [of full or partial Jewish blood] were obliged to register with the mayor of their local authority within one month. Mozes Mogrobi registered himself and his family in accordance with this regulation. On 18 February 1941 he stated on the registration form: ‘Portugees-Israelitische gezindte te zijn en vier joodsche grootouders in den zin van artikel 2 der verordening’ [of Portuguese-Jewish denomination and with four Jewish grandparents within the meaning of article 2 of the regulation]. This resulted in all members of the Mogrobi family being designated as full Jews (Volljuden). In March 1941 ‘J’ was noted on their personal registration card.

On 12 March 1941 regulation VO 48/1941, concerning the removal of Jews from the business community, was promulgated. Under this regulation, from then on the businesses of Jewish proprietors could be either put under the control of and then liquidated by a liquidation trustee (Liquidations-Treuhänder) or purchased or permanently managed by an administrative trustee (Verwaltungs-Treuhänder). At some unknown point after promulgation of this regulation, Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery was sealed by the occupying authorities.

Attempts to change the registration as full Jew

The raids in February 1941, implementation of the Nuremberg Race Laws in the Netherlands at the end of March 1942, the obligation to wear a yellow Star of David a few months later and the Liro regulations of 8 August 1941 and 21 May 1942 were among the factors that clearly showed the consequences of being registered as a full Jew. A few days after the large-scale raid in Amsterdam in July 1942, Mozes Mogrobi made several attempts to change the registration of himself and his family as full Jews.

For example, he tried to convince the authorities that he had Turkish nationality and that his family was of ‘arabischen Blutes’ [Arab blood]. After an initial rejection and pending his second request, Mozes Mogrobi asked the Turkish authorities to confirm that his father was ‘tatsächlich arabischen Blutes ist.’ [actually of Arab blood.] He also stated that it was urgent ‘da es für mich eine Lebensfrage gilt.’ [because for me it is a question of life and death.]. Mozes Mogrobi furthermore tried to collect all sorts of evidence that supposedly showed that he was not Jewish. For example, he sent the department for administration of the interior (Abteilung innere Verwaltung), part of the general commissariat for administration and justice (Generalkommissariat für Verwaltung und Justiz), an extract from the population register showing that he was registered as having Turkish nationality. He also collected a number of notarized statements by people who had declared under oath that his father was a Turkish subject and therefore his family was ‘of Arab blood’. Mozes Mogrobi moreover sent a copy of a page from a book with a reference to Moghrabi Mosque. This supposedly showed that the name Mogrobi signifies ‘ein rein-arabischer Mohammedanischer ist.’ [a pure Arab Muslim.]. In addition, he had a report prepared by a Dutch doctor and physical anthropologist who concluded that although Mozes Mogrobi’s appearance was ‘Orientalisch’ [Oriental] it was ‘aber bestimmt nicht typisch Jüdisch.’ [definitely not typically Jewish]. Mozes Mogrobi furthermore submitted a 1903 photograph of his father dressed in Arab-looking clothing.

His most far-reaching attempt to prove he was not Jewish was on 22 April 1943 when he served a summons on the Portuguese-Jewish Congregation of Amsterdam and accused the board of the Jewish Congregation of unjustly registering him and his family as members of it. On 6 May 1943 the court decided in Mozes Mogrobi’s favour.

A few days after the rejection Mozes made a final attempt by submitting a request in which he repeated his earlier arguments. Unlike his previous attempts, he now asked for his registration to be changed to GII (quarter-Jew) and those of his children to GI (half-Jew). This attempt also failed.

Liquidation of the gallery and sale at Mak van Waay

It emerged from the investigation that the German occupying forces sealed Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery at some point after the promulgation of regulation 48/1941 on 12 March 1941 concerning the removal of Jews from the business community. It is not known precisely when this happened. It did emerge from the investigation, however, that the last occasion on which the name Mogrobi appears in the buyers books of the Mak van Waay auction house in Amsterdam was on 24 June 1941. It is also known that Mozes Mogrobi sold various artworks to Jan Herman van Heek, director of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe on 1 February 1941 and 27 March 1942. These artworks were the subject of restitution application RC 1.145.

In March 1944 Omnia Treuhandgesellschaft mbH received instructions from the companies inspectorate (Wirtschaftsprüfstelle) to act as liquidation trustee (Liquidationstreuhänder) of Mogrobi’s business. The Committee assumes on the grounds of research that the gallery had been sealed until that moment. Liquidation was initiated at the end of March 1944. The superior court counsel (Kammergerichtsrat) issued instructions to have the gallery’s contents sold at auction. The sale took place on 25 July 1944 at the Mak van Waay auction house.

The catalogue prepared for this public sale, entitled Catalogus van de veiling van oude en moderne schilderijen en antiquiteiten uit verschillend Nederlandsch kunstbezit [Catalogue of Old and Modern Paintings and Antiques from Different Dutch Art Collections], lists 919 lot numbers divided into 18 categories. It is clear from the catalogue that the number of items was large and their nature was also very diverse. The items that went under the hammer included paintings, furniture, precious metal objects, ceramics, East Asian art, and jewellery. The catalogue contains no information about the provenance of the objects put into the sale, so it is not known which of the auctioned goods came from Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery. None of the entries in the catalogue corresponds to the Cabinet.

Fates of the Mogrobi family

According to a post-war statement by Mozes’s wife Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi, Mozes and she they went into hiding during the war in Sloterdijk. It is not known when this period of hiding started. In 1947 Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi stated the following about it:
‘Destijds lag er reeds beslag op onze boedel, welk beslag gelegd was door een of andere Duitse instantie; alles was gezegeld. Wij waren in die tijd ondergedoken. [At the time, all our possessions had already been seized. The seizure had been organized by some German agency or other. Everything was sealed. We went into hiding during that period.]

Mozes and Zilia Mogrobi were arrested by the security service (Sicherheitsdienst) on 6 July 1944. It emerges from a post-war statement by Zilia that on 12 July 1944 Mozes and she were deported to Westerbork transit camp, and from there they were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp on 3 September 1944.
Before the end of the month Mozes Mogrobi was murdered in Auschwitz. He was 46 years old. His son Alfred Mogrobi, who was 23, was murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp on 1 December 1944. On 26 October 1944 Zilia Mogrobi was taken to the Latvian labour camp Liebau, where she was liberated on 9 May 1945. The couple’s daughter, Sonja Mogrobi, also survived the war.

Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery after the war

Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi continued her husband’s business after she had returned to the Netherlands on 13 June 1945. She submitted a number of compensation claims in order to receive some recompense for the goods lost during the Second World War. These claims primarily concerned the goods that went under the hammer at the Mak van Waay auction house on 25 July 1944 on the instructions of the occupying forces. Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi stated the following about this after the war:
De totaalschade, welke wij gedurende de bezettingstijd door diefstal uit onze zaak enz. enz. geleden hebben, bedraagt circa 50.000 gulden. Verder is onze privé-boedel in veiling gebracht bij de Fa. S. Mak van Waay, hetgeen ongeveer 58.000 gulden heeft opgebracht. [The overall loss we sustained during the occupation because of thefts from our shop etc. etc. amounted to about 50,000 guilders. Furthermore, our personal possessions were auctioned off at the firm of S. Mak van Waay, and the proceeds were approximately 58,000 guilders.]

An accountant’s report reveals that Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi received a total of 17,500 guilders from H.S. Nienhuis, the director of the Mak van Waay auction house. This payment related to the sale organized by Mak van Waay on 25 July 1944. Y. Scholten, who acted as Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi’s authorized representative, wrote about this to O.J.Tj.N. Domela Nieuwenhuis, H.S. Nienhuis’s authorized representative:
Ter voldoening aan de verbintenis, welke Uw client H.S. Nienhuis uit moraal en fatsoen tegenover mijn cliente, Mevrouw Mogrobi gevoelt te hebben ter zake van de door hem, tijdens de bezetting gehouden veiling (dd. 25 Juli 1944), van de goederen van cliente, kwamen wij het navolgende overeen: [In fulfilment of the obligation that my client, Mrs Mogrobi, considers your client, H.S. Nienhuis, to be under on the grounds of ethics and decency in regard to the auction of my client’s goods that was conducted by him during the occupation on 25 July 1944, we have agreed as follows:]

It emerges from the agreements made and the subsequent entries referred to in the accountant’s report that Nienhuis paid the sum of 17,500 guilders in twelve instalments starting on 1 May 1947. The sums received did not benefit the profit and loss account of Mozes Mogrobi’s business but were paid into the personal account. According to the accountant’s report, the fact that the sums received were deposited in the personal account was related to ‘een verbintenis voortvloeiende uit moraal en fatsoen’ [an obligation arising from ethics and decency], and it also aligns with Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi’s statement that ‘onze privé-boedel in veiling [is] gebracht bij de Fa. S. Mak van Waay.’ [our personal possessions were auctioned off at the firm of S. Mak van Waay]. The gallery was liquidated with effect from 1 October 1956 after Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi in her capacity as ‘eigenaresse’ [proprietress] had reported that the business had ceased trading to the commercial register in Amsterdam.

No documents or indications were found in the archives of the Netherlands Art Property Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the SNK) that bear witness to any contact between Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi and the SNK.

Provenance research into the Cabinet

The restitution application concerns the present NK 260, a seventeenth-century Dutch two-door oak cabinet, maker unknown, with approximate dimensions 123 x 121 x 58 cm. The Cabinet is currently in the RCE’s depot, CollectieCentrum Nederland (Dutch National Collection Centre). A 1999 form completed by the then Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Instituut Collectie Nederland – one of the forerunners of the RCE) states that the Cabinet was made from old and new parts: ‘(…) nieuw zijn o.a. het bovenblad. De achterstijlen, de achterregel, de rechter onderregel en de 2 linkerdelen v.h. achterschot’ [The new parts include the top, the rear stiles, the rear rail, the right-hand lower rail and the two left-hand parts of the back panel]. The restoration file contained no indications that the Cabinet has been restored since 1945.

In the context of accelerating the investigation into objects in the NK Collection, the RCE subjected the Cabinet to a detailed physical examination. It found the name Mogrobi written in white chalk on the back of one of the two new left-hand parts of the back panel. The documentation unearthed during the investigation does not reveal when this name was put on the Cabinet, by whom and for what purpose.

Recovery of the Cabinet from Stuttgart

On 16 September 1948 the Cabinet was seized by the MFA&A (Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives) Section of the American army from one Otto Braun of Stuttgart after it had been identified as being Dutch owned. An inventory card completed at the Collecting Point in Wiesbaden states the following about the circumstances in which the Cabinet had ended up in Germany: ‘Acquired by Dr. Valentin, Stuttgart, in Holland during the war’. The Cabinet was returned to the Netherlands in the course of 1948 on the grounds of a claim with the number 1409 submitted by the Dutch authorities at the Collecting Point in Wiesbaden. No underlying documentation concerning this claim was found. The manifest drawn up for the purposes of sending the Cabinet back to the Netherlands refers to the presence of a label with the text ‘no. 29’. There is no mention of the name Mogrobi being written on the Cabinet. On 13 April 1949 the SNK completed an internal declaration form for the Cabinet that had been returned from Wiesbaden. It is stated on this form that the Cabinet’s provenance was not known.

The German art dealer Fritz Valentien

The aforementioned note about ‘Dr. Valentin’ on the inventory card of the Collecting Point in Wiesbaden refers to the German art dealer Fritz C. Valentien (1902-1982), owner of the Valentien gallery in Stuttgart. His name is spelt ‘Valentin’ or ‘Valentien’ in the sources. It emerged from the investigation that Valentien and Mozes Mogrobi maintained a business relationship and that during the occupation Valentien purchased several objects from the Mozes Mogrobi gallery, including furniture.

An inventory was found in the SNK archive with the heading ‘INVENTORY made on 18th November at the home of Mr. VALENTIN’’. The document reveals that the Inventory was compiled over a period of several days in 1947 by the allied recovery authorities. The inventory contains various objects that were purchased by Valentien from Mogrobi during the occupation. The Dutch government claimed all the objects on the list prepared by the recovery authorities in Wiesbaden en bloc under claim number 1405.

Item number 173 of the inventory, which according to the document was added on 20 November 1947, is a cupboard whose description corresponds broadly to that of the Cabinet: ‘Cupboard, Renaissance, oak, [bought from] Mogrobi, [Amsterdam]’. There is no information in the inventory about the dimensions or the date of purchase. The number ‘20243’ is noted in pencil in the margin of the inventory next to the oak cupboard acquired from Mogrobi listed under number 173. That number is a reference to the internal declaration form completed by the SNK in February 1948 concerning, among other things, the aforementioned Mogrobi cupboard. The declaration form contains no new information about the Cabinet and is filed in the SNK archive under the category ‘objects that have not been returned to the Netherlands’.

The SNK between 1948 and 1949

During the course of 1948, the period in which the Cabinet was returned to the Netherlands, the activities of the SNK were seriously disrupted and even largely stopped for a while because the SNK’s records were sealed and seized as part of an investigation into a few employees. It had emerged previously that best practices had not always been applied in the execution of the SNK’s tasks, including the registration of recovered works of art. A major part of the SNK’s documentation that had been sealed or seized was not returned to the organization until 1949, at which point the SNK could resume the full scope of its activities.

4. Substantive Assessment of the Application

In view of the requirements in section 1 a to e of the assessment framework, the application is eligible for substantive handling by the Committee.

Pursuant to section 2 of the assessment framework, the Committee must assess whether it is highly plausible that the Cabinet was the property of Mozes Mogrobi, and on the grounds of section 3 whether it is sufficiently plausible that possession of the Cabinet was lost involuntarily as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime. To this end the Committee finds as follows:

Ownership requirements (section 2 van het assessment framework)

The Committee must give an opinion about the original ownership of the Cabinet, on which the name Mogrobi is clearly legible in old-fashioned handwriting with swashes. The Committee deems it probable that this lettering is a reference to the Jewish art dealer Mozes Mogrobi, the Applicants’ grandfather.

The documentation found during the investigation does not contain any information about the purchase of the Cabinet by Mozes Mogrobi. Although it is therefore not clear when Mozes Mogrobi acquired the Cabinet, appraised sources, when taken together, indicate that Mogrobi was its rightful owner at the time it was sold during the occupation. The Committee attributes great weight to the fact that the name Mogrobi was written on the back of the Cabinet. It is the basis for a direct link between Mogrobi and the Cabinet. The Committee furthermore concludes from documentation relating to the recovery of the Cabinet and its return to the Netherlands that it was bought by ‘Dr. Valentin, Stuttgart, in Holland during the war’. The investigation did not yield any further information about the circumstances in which this purchase took place or any data about the people involved in the transaction. The results of the investigation do not contain any indications that the Cabinet did not belong to Mozes Mogrobi at the time of the occupation. The fact that Dr Valentien actually traded with Mozes Mogrobi and acquired several objects from him during the occupation, including furniture, is confirmed by documentation that was unearthed, for example the inventory that was drawn up in Valentien’s home in 1947.

The Committee observes that it can only be concluded that Valentien had a ‘Cupboard, Renaissance, oak, [bought from] Mogrobi [Amsterdam]’ in his possession on the grounds of the aforementioned inventory. The inventory does not indicate whether this entry concerns the Cabinet or another cupboard, however. The Committee does conclude, though, that the description of cupboard number 173 on that list corresponds broadly to that of NK 260 (the Cabinet). It has been established that Valentien acquired the Cabinet during the occupation in the Netherlands.

The Committee deduces from the investigation results that the name Mogrobi was written on the Cabinet after it had returned from Germany, probably by the SNK. The manifest drawn up for the purposes of sending the Cabinet back to the Netherlands does not in any event refer to the name Mogrobi being written on the Cabinet. As regards the SNK, it has been established that it was in a state of administrative chaos when the Cabinet was returned from Germany in 1948. Given this fact, and on the basis of the provenance research conducted with regard to the Cabinet, the Committee considers it plausible that, after the recovery of the Cabinet, the SNK established a connection with Mozes Mogrobi and put his name on the Cabinet to identify it, but failed to carry out any further administrative steps, possibly as a result of the chaos that existed in that organization at that moment. The Committee also deems it plausible that the link between the Cabinet and Mozes Mogrobi was established via the name Valentin on the Wiesbaden inventory card in combination with the description of cupboard number 173 on the 1947 inventory, which broadly corresponds to that of the Cabinet, and the declaration form completed by the SNK in February 1948 for cupboard number 173. The fact that the SNK stated on the February 1948 declaration form that cupboard number 173 had not been returned does not mean, given the circumstances outlined above, that this cupboard was not returned later in that same year as the present NK 260 (the Cabinet). Finally, the Committee notes that items of cultural value that were recovered from enemy property were handed over to the SNK for the purposes of restituting them to the lawful owner. It may be assumed on that basis that the SNK, whose primary role was to reunite returned objects with their rightful owners or their descendants, will not have approached the task of ascribing an object rashly and/or have ascribed it without reason.

On the grounds of these data, when considered together, the Committee has come to the conclusion that it is highly likely that the Cabinet was the property of Mozes Mogrobi after 10 May 1940. This means that the ownership requirement of section 2 of the assessment framework has been met.

The consequence of this is that the Committee now has to evaluate whether, with regard to the Cabinet, there was involuntary loss of possession as a result of circumstances directly associated with the Nazi regime.

Involuntary loss of possession (section 3 of the assessment framework)

In the assessment of the nature of the loss of possession, the applicable principle, on the grounds of the first paragraph of criterion 3.2 of section 3 of the assessment framework, is that a sale by a Jewish art dealer is considered to be involuntary if there are indications that make involuntary loss of possession sufficiently plausible. According to paragraph 4 of criterion 3.2, the presence of involuntary loss of possession is assessed on the basis of criterion 3.1 if there are sufficient indications that the item of cultural value did not belong to the art dealer’s trading stock but to his private collection

It is clear for the Committee that Mozes Mogrobi sold the Cabinet at a moment when he was experiencing the threat of the Nazi regime to a progressively greater degree.

The Committee concludes that in the present case it is difficult to determine whether the sold Cabinet belonged to the trading stock or the personal possessions of Mozes Mogrobi. The investigation unearthed further information that, in the Committee’s opinion, shows that in practice Mozes Mogrobi’s trading stock and his personal possessions were intermingled. After the war Zilia Mogrobi stated that the works of art that Omnia considered to be trading stock and that were auctioned off as such in 1944 at Mak van Waay were private property: : ‘Verder is onze privé-boedel in veiling gebracht bij de Fa. S. Mak van Waay, hetgeen ongeveer 58.000 gulden heeft opgebracht.’ [Furthermore, our personal possessions were auctioned off at the firm of S. Mak van Waay, and the proceeds were approximately 58,000 guilders]. Zilia Mogrobi’s statement is consistent with the fact that the compensation she received in connection with this auction did not benefit the profit and loss account of Mozes Mogrobi’s business but were paid into the personal account.

The Committee furthermore points out that the Mogrobi gallery was a small one-man business run by someone who was first and foremost a devotee and collector of the types of objects that he sold in his gallery. Mozes Mogrobi’s private collection and trading stock were furthermore in the same building because the Mogrobi family lived above the gallery. Information that emerged from the investigation confirms that Mozes Mogrobi indeed used his gallery to exhibit objects from his private collection, as described above in the section about ‘Mozes Mogrobi’s gallery’.

After considering the aforementioned facts and circumstances together, the Committee concludes that the Cabinet has to be designated as not belonging to Mozes Mogrobi’s trading stock but to his private collection. This means that the Committee will assess the loss of possession of the Cabinet according to criterion 3.1 of section 3, which is based on loss of possession by a private individual who belonged to a persecuted population group. In that case, loss of possession in the Netherlands is deemed to be involuntary if it occurred after 10 May 1940, unless it is expressly revealed that it was not involuntary loss of possession. The Committee concludes that this was not the case.

In the Committee’s opinion, the sale ‘tijdens de bezetting’ [during the occupation] to Valentien cannot be considered in isolation from the context in which it took place, namely the growing anti-Jewish measures and the threat and Mozes Mogrobi’s limited freedom of movement arising from them. In this context the Committee refers to the following facts:

  • as a consequence of the information that Mozes Mogrobi was compelled to report to the German authorities in accordance with the registration obligation, all the members of his family were designated by the occupying forces as ‘Volljuden’ [full Jews];
  • in February 1941 hundreds of Jewish residents of Amsterdam – where the Mogrobi family lived – were assaulted, arrested, violently driven onto lorries and deported. This raid was a response by the occupying forces to fights between Jews, anti-Semitic gangs and the German police;
  • on 12 March 1941 regulation VO 48/1941, concerning the removal of Jews from the business community, was promulgated. This regulation was aimed at Aryanizing or closing down Jewish businesses. Pursuant to this regulation, at an unknown moment, but probably not long after March 1941, occupying forces seized Mozes Mogrobi’s one-man business and sealed his gallery;
  • in March 1941 the designation ‘J’ was noted on the Mogrobi family’s personal registration cards.

In the Committee’s opinion, indications of the serious threat perceived by Mozes Mogrobi can also be found in Mozes Mogrobi’s hopeless attempts between July 1942 and the end of 1943 to have his registration as a ‘Volljude’ [full Jew] amended. These attempts resulted from:

  • the promulgation of the first Liro regulation on 8 August 194, under which Jews had to surrender their financial assets;
  • the introduction of the Nuremberg Race Laws in the Netherlands on 27 March 1942;
  • the obligation to wear a Star of David from April 1942;
  • the second Liro regulation of 21 May 1942, aimed at obtaining all other valuable goods possessed by Jews including artworks, gold, silver and jewellery, and
  • the start of deportations in July 1942.

As a result of the aforementioned events, the Committee considers it likely that Mozes Mogrobi felt the need to generate the maximum possible amount of financial resources; resources that he might have been able to use later to go into hiding.

The above leads the Committee to conclude that there are indications which make it sufficiently plausible that possession of the Cabinet was lost involuntarily, in accordance with criterion 3.2 paragraph 4 in combination with criterion 3.1 of section 3 of the assessment framework. The Committee therefore concludes that the loss of possession was involuntary, caused by circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime. This means that the requirements relating to involuntary loss of possession in section 3 of the assessment framework have been met.

Conclusion with regard to the restitution application

The Committee concludes that it is highly plausible that the Cabinet, which is known under inventory number NK 260, came from the collection of and belonged to the art dealer Mozes Mogrobi, and that it is sufficiently plausible that possession of the Cabinet was lost involuntarily during the occupation as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime.

In view of sections 2 and 3 of the assessment framework (criteria 3.2, 3.1 and the end of section 3), the upshot of all this is that the Committee will recommend that the Cabinet should be restituted to the Applicants.

5. Recommendation

The Restitutions Committee advises the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to restitute the two-door oak Cabinet currently in the NK Collection under inventory number NK 260 to the heirs of Mozes Mogrobi and Zilia Mogrobi-Jacobi.

Adopted at the meeting of 18 November 2024 by A.I.M. van Mierlo (Chair), D. Oostinga (Vice-Chair), J.F. Cohen, S.G. Cohen-Willner, J.J. Euwe, C.J.H. Jansen, and A. Marck and signed by the Chair and Committee Member A. Marck.

(A.I.M. van Mierlo, Chair)    (A. Marck, Committee Member)