Summary

The Restitutions Committee has assessed an application for restitution of seven paintings that are part of the Netherlands Art Property (Nederlands Kunstbezit – NK) Collection of the Dutch State. The application was submitted by heirs of the Jewish antiques dealer and broker Abraham Nijstad, who found the artworks on the herkomstgezocht.nl (Origins Unknown) website.

The following paintings are involved:

• NK 1383 – De Kraamkamer (The Nursery) by C. Troost
• NK 1384 – Wachtlokaal (The Guardroom), by C. Troost
• NK 1759 – Bergmeer met hert en en vogels (Mountain Lake with Deer and Birds) by A.D. Hondius
• NK 2194 – Landschap met molen (Landscape with Windmill) by A. Schelfhout
• NK 2255 – Bergachtig rivierlandschap (Mountainous River Landscape) by A. Cuyp
• NK 2365 – Imaginaire haven aan de Middellandse Zee (Imaginary Mediterranean Port) by A. Storck
• NK 2550 – Paar in Interieur (Portrait of a Married Couple) by P. Codde

Research revealed it is highly likely that three paintings (Hondius, Schelfhout and Storck) were the property of the Jewish antiques dealer Abraham Nijstad. It also became sufficiently plausible that Nijstad lost possession of these three paintings involuntarily as a result of circumstances directly connected with the Nazi regime.

As a Jewish art dealer, Abraham Nijstad was forced by the Nazis during the occupation to purchase art on the Dutch art market for Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Mission Linz), an organization dedicated to acquiring works of art for a future Führer Museum. Special Mission Linz deployed a network of Jewish experts for purchases from private collections. In return for these activities, they were granted various temporary exemptions from anti-Jewish measures. The duration of the exemptions was deliberately withheld in order to increase the uncertainty. It was clear to Jewish experts, dealers and brokers like Nijstad that their own lives, and also those of their family members, depended on the willingness of their principals and the degree to which they were able to fulfil the expectations. After the liberation of the Netherlands they had to deal with incomprehension about the position they had found themselves in and with being reproached for collaborating.

The NIOD Expert Centre Restitution’s investigation revealed that all the artworks were acquired in 1943 and 1944 by Special Mission Linz through Nijstad. He acted as an intermediary in certain transactions. In other transactions he bought the paintings in a private capacity and sold them on to Dr Erhard Göpel for Special Mission Linz. This distinction formed the basis for establishing Nijstad’s original ownership. The Committee was able to deduce on the basis of internal declaration forms of the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit (Netherlands Art Property Foundation, SNK) filled in by Abraham Nijstad and other archival documents that Nijstad owned three of the seven paintings at the moment they were sold.

Research revealed that the sale of the artworks by Abraham Nijstad to Göpel was connected with the measures taken by the occupying forces and arose out of necessity. The facts and circumstances make involuntary loss of possession of these paintings by Nijstad sufficiently plausible.

The Committee has advised the Minister of Education, Culture and Science to restitute three paintings (Hondius, Schelfhout and Storck) to the legal successors pursuant to inheritance law of Abraham Nijstad and to reject the application to restitute the four other paintings.

1. The Application

In a letter dated 23 March 2021 the RCE, on behalf of the State Secretary, asked the Committee for advice about restitution of seven paintings from the NK Collection (hereinafter referred to as the Artworks). This was prompted by the request from the Applicants to the State Secretary in an e-mail of 10 February 2021. The Applicants are AA, BB, CC and DD. They are grandchildren of the Jewish antiques dealer and broker Abraham Nijstad. The application was also submitted on behalf of the deceased brother of DD, EE.
The Artworks were supposedly originally the property of Abraham Nijstad. The Applicants contend as follows with regard to the loss of possession of the Artworks:
Deze kunstwerken waren blijkens de gegevens op de website herkomstgezocht.nl in het bezit van de Heer A. Nijstad tot hij noodgedwongen zijn Kunsthandel overdroeg aan de Firma Borghouts op 15 augustus 1941. De schilderijen werden door deze Firma onder oorlogsomstandigheden verkocht aan tussenpersonen van de bezetter en zijn zo in de collectie voor het “Führermuseum” beland. [According to information on the herkomstgezocht.nl (Origins Unknown) website, these artworks were in the possession of Mr A. Nijstad until he was compelled to hand over his art dealership to the firm of Borghouts on 15 August 1941. This firm sold the paintings under wartime conditions to intermediaries of the occupying forces and in this way they ended up in the collection intended for the Führer Museum.]

On 23 March 2021 the Applicants confirmed that NK 2194, Landscape with Windmill by Andreas Schelfhout, had been stolen in 1976 from the Ministry of Justice in The Hague. On 9 November 2023 the Committee was informed that the painting was back in the possession of the Dutch State. The painting is one of the works in the present restitution application.

NK 2365 Imaginary Mediterranean Port by Abraham Storck was part of an earlier restitution application concerning the Katz art dealership. The advice issued by the Committee in 2012 was to reject the application for restitution of 188 NK works, including the painting concerned (RC 1.90-B) and NK 2550 Portrait of a Married Couple by Pieter Codde. A request was subsequently submitted to the Committee to issue revised advice. In 2017 the Committee recommended that the earlier decision, in so far as it concerned rejection of the application for restitution of 188 NK works, should not be reconsidered (RC 4.168).

NK 2550 Portrait of a Married Couple by Pieter Codde was also part of a restitution application concerning Van Aldenburg Bentinck (RC 1.102). In 2010 the Committee issued advice to reject the application. A request was subsequently submitted to the Committee to issue revised advice (RC 4.125). In 2012 the Committee recommended that the earlier rejection of the application for restitution should stand.

3. Establishing the Facts

The Committee establishes the following facts on the grounds of the investigation into the facts conducted by the ECR.

The Nijstad family
Abraham (‘Bram’) Nijstad (hereinafter also referred to as Nijstad) was born on 5 July 1895 in Lochem to Leena Trijbits and Hartog Nijstad. He had two sisters: Bertha (1894-1976) and Helena (1896-1944). In 1919 Nijstad married Rosette Dasberg, daughter of a rabbi from Dordrecht. The couple maintained a religious Jewish household and were actively involved inside and also outside Lochem’s Jewish community. They had four children. Their first child died at a young age. A daughter and two sons were born thereafter: Samuel ‘Saam’ Nijstad (1922-2011), Lena ‘Leny’ Nijstad (1924-2012) and Hartog ‘Harts’ Nijstad (1925-2011).

Saam Nijstad married Lily Einhorn (1927-2016). The couple had a son, FF (19xx-20xx, who had no children) and a daughter, CC.

Lena Nijstad married Jules Cohen (1921-1994). The couple had twins: EE and DD. EE had two children: GG and HH.
Harts Nijstad married Kitty de Wijze (1924-2018). They had a daughter (AA) and a son (BB).

The antiques dealership and brokerage of Hartog Nijstad and son Abraham Nijstad before the occupation
Abraham Nijstad grew up in a family of antiques dealers. In 1862 his grandfather became a trader in drapery, antiques and utensils. In 1893 his father, Hartog Nijstad, settled in Lochem. where he ran an antiques shop. Initially it was in Molenstraat but the business soon relocated to Markt 29. According to the Applicants, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam first purchased something from Hartog Nijstad in 1896. In 1906, in addition to the antiques shop, Hartog Nijstad set up an auction house together with partner and bank employee Jan Hammerman where antiques, silverware and paintings went under the hammer. In 1923 Hartog Nijstad was also licensed as a real estate broker.

Abraham Nijstad continued the trading activities after his father died in 1925. In that year he established his antiques dealership under the name A. Nijstad and took over running the antiques shop. During the 1920s and 1930s he was active as a real estate broker and as an auctioneer in household effects auctions, which he organized jointly with Hammerman and where paintings were sold now and again. In 1936 Nijstad and his family moved into the former mayor’s official residence in Lochem at ’t Ei 1. It was a substantial building with three large reception rooms.

Alongside their local activities, Nijstad and his wife established contacts with regional and national art circles. They also had good relations with landed gentry and dignitaries in the Achterhoek region of Gelderland and with up-and-coming manufacturers in Twente. At a national level, in 1929 Nijstad was on a membership list of De Vereeniging van Handelaren in Oude Kunst in Nederland [the Association of Fine Art Dealers in the Netherlands]. According to Harts Nijstad, his father travelled to ‘bijna alle veilingen af die er waren’ [‘almost all the sales that were held’]. These were not just major art sales but also estate auctions. Nijstad furthermore supplied objects for exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Orange-Nassau Museum in The Hague. In 1936 Nijstad was designated a purveyor to the royal household, whereupon he hung a royal coat of arms on the wall of his premises.

It has not been possible to establish what share of Nijstad’s business activities before the war involved trading in paintings. The databases of the RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History refer to the name ‘Nijstad’ with regard to three paintings traded before the war. No information was found about the composition of Nijstad’s trading stock in the years before the German invasion. It is not clear whether it included paintings and, if so, which ones. There are furthermore no known pre-war exhibition catalogues concerning Nijstad’s business. There are also no known records of the art dealership or photographs of the interior of the premises in Lochem. There is similarly nothing known about whether the Nijstad family owned any paintings privately. A summary prepared by the American authorities of businesses liquidated during the occupation on the grounds of descent states the following about A. Nijstad in Lochem: ‘Known to have stored works of art belonging to a number of Dutch firms or private owners.’

Assisting Jewish refugees around 1936
In his 2004 book Van antiquair tot kunsthandelaar Saam Nijstad describes how his father around 1936 was absent more and more often after their evening meal: Het was wel vreemd dat hij ‘s avonds nog dergelijk werk deed, maar iets bijzonders zochten wij, de kinderen, er niet achter.’ [‘It was indeed strange that he was still doing such work in the evenings, but we – the children – did not try to find out if there was something special going on.’] During that year’s holiday Nijstad took his son to fellow art dealer Katz in Dieren. Saam normally attended business meetings, but this time he was sent away. Saam Nijstad wrote about this as follows:
Pas veel later heb ik begrepen dat zowel dit gesprek als die vreemde avondlijke taxaties met elkaar in verband stonden. Mijn vader ging in de avonduren naar de grens om in het geheim joodse vluchtelingen, voornamelijk kinderen, op te vangen.
[It was not until much later that I realized there was a link between this discussion and those strange evening valuations. My father went to the border in the evenings to secretly assist Jewish refugees, mainly children.]

In a 1996 interview, Harts Nijstad recalled that the Nijstad family did not conclude from this that it was sensible to flee themselves, trusting that it would remain safe in the Netherlands.

The Nijstad family after the German invasion
In August 1941 the Nijstad family home in Lochem was attacked by members of the NSB (Dutch National Socialist Movement), who broke windows and destroyed the royal coat of arms. Two months later, members of the Jewish community in Lochem were arrested and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp. The Nijstad family narrowly escaped because they had received advanced warning. Nijstad and his son Saam went into hiding for six weeks with a friend – the furniture maker J.G. Wigman, the manager/caretaker (huisbewaarder) of the branch of the D. Katz art dealership at Lange Voorhout 35 in The Hague. After he had received the necessary permission, in December 1941 Nijstad deregistered the family from their address in Lochem and on the same day registered it at Daniël Willinkplein 21a in Amsterdam. Nearly two years later, in September 1943, the family moved to a dwelling on the ground and first floors at Retiefstraat 71 in Amsterdam.

Transfer of the art dealership to J.H. Borghouts
On 15 August 1941 Abraham Nijstad succeeded in formally transferring his antiques business to his art dealer friend J.H. Borghouts, such that the latter’s authorized signatory Willem van der Velden actually managed the art dealership in Lochem during the occupation. This construction involving Borghouts and Van der Velden was apparently Nijstad’s own idea. Harts Nijstad explained the following about this in the book Kunst, Kennis en Kwaliteit. De vereniging van Handelaren in Oude Kunst in Nederland 1911-heden:
Mijn vader […] die aan het begin van de oorlog een tip had gekregen dat de Duitse bezetters een beheerder zouden gaan aanstellen over joodse zaken, is naar J.H. Borghouts, handelaar in oude schilderijen in Utrecht gegaan en vroeg hem of hij niet iemand kende die de zaak als Verwalter kon “overnemen”. Hij zei “Ik weet wel iemand voor je” en riep “Willem?”. Willem van de[r] Velde[n] was daar procuratiehouder en wilde wel helpen. Hij heeft, onverstoorbaar, de zaak onder moeilijke omstandigheden door de oorlog geloodst. De verwijten van de plaatselijke bevolking, die hem uitmaakte voor “vuile NSB-er”, heeft hij naast zich neergelegd. […] Het is aan Van de[r] Velde[n] te danken dat de zaak behouden is gebleven en wij het bedrijf na de oorlog weer terugkregen. Willem is altijd bij ons gebleven, ook toen ik [Harts, RC] naar Amsterdam ging.
[At the beginning of the war my father had received a tip that the German occupying forces intended to appoint administrators to run Jewish businesses. He approached J.H. Borghouts, a dealer in old paintings in Utrecht, and asked him if he knew someone who could ‘take over’ the firm as administrator. He replied, ‘I know just the person for you’ and called ‘Willem?’. Willem van de[r] Velde[n] was his authorized signatory and wanted to help. He unflappably managed the firm in difficult circumstances throughout the war. He ignored accusations from local residents that he was a ‘dirty NSB man’ …. It is thanks to Van de[r] Velde[n] that the firm stayed in business and that we got it back again after the war. Willem remained with us always, even when I [Harts, RC] went to Amsterdam.]

There is the following note in the file concerning Nijstad’s firm in the register of companies of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Deventer: De handel in antiquiteiten is met ingang van 15 Augustus 1941 overdragen aan J.H. Borghouts, die haar voortzet onder den naam: Schilderijen- en Antiekhandel J.H. Borghouts.’[‘With effect from 15 Augustus 1941 the antiques dealership was transferred to J.H. Borghouts, who continues trading under the name of J.H. Borghouts paintings and antiques dealership.’ ]

The purchase price paid by Borghouts to Nijstad (approximately 50,000 guilders according to a post-war report) ended up with the Vermögensverwaltungs- und Renten-Anstalt [Asset Management and Pensions Agency], which acted as manager of capital originating from the different organizations that were involved during the occupation in the liquidation and Aryanization of Jewish holdings. The formal date of the transfer to Borghouts was some considerable time after the registration obligation and the promulgation of regulation 48/1941 of 12 March 1941 concerning the treatment of Jewish financial assets, the First Liro (Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co) Regulation. It is probable, bordering on certain, that the German authorities gave permission for the transfer of the firm. There is the following remark about Nijstad’s firm on an overview of businesses dated 11 November 1941:
Es liegt ein Vorvertrag vor mit J.H. Borghout in Utrecht. Er ist mit der Auflage zu genehmigen, dass Borghout sich verpflichtet, das Geschäft durch einen Fachmann in der bisherigen Weise weiterführen zu lassen.
[A preliminary contract has been signed with J.H. Borghout in Utrecht. It is subject to approval, subject to Borghout’s commitment to have the business continued in the same manner by a specialist.]

According to Harts Nijstad, apart from those directly involved, only two other individuals knew about the arrangement. Such secrecy meant that Borghouts and Van der Velden were in a difficult position during and after the occupation vis a vis the outside world. Van der Velden, in particular, had to live with the consequences, as Harts Nijstad described:
Voor de buitenwacht was de heer van der Velden een foute NSB-er. Willem Van der Velden heeft zich vier jaar lang dit plakkaat om laten hangen, met alle consequenties van dien dat hij door geen sterveling aangekeken wordt.
[As far as outsiders were concerned, Mr van der Velden was an NSB collaborator. For four years Willem Van der Velden had to live with such a label. Not a soul would even look at him.]

Art dealer Jan Borghouts and authorized signatory Willem van der Velden
Johannes Hendrikus (Jan) Borghouts was born on 22 October 1892 in Vaassen. At some point his parents moved to the village of Dieren. At the end of 1924 the Borghouts family moved from Dieren to Venlo. The only thing known about his work in this period is that he was a manager (bedrijfsleider). There are records showing that in 1937 he ran an art dealership in Dutch, Flemish, Italian and Spanish old masters under the name J.H. Borghouts art dealership. Its galleries were at Maagdenberg 17 and 19 in Venlo. On 15 December 1938 Borghouts moved these galleries (showrooms) from Venlo to Maliebaan 70 in Utrecht. He registered his dealership at that address a few weeks later.

Wilhelmus Cornelis van der Velden was born on 1 December 1913 in the village of Voorst. On 11 December 1941 he was registered in the register of companies as the manager of the Borghouts branch in Lochem – Nijstad’s antiques business – and he was authorized to conduct transactions up to an amount of NLG 2,500. In 2010 Harts Nijstad stated with regard to the activities of the firm in Lochem during the occupation that not very much business was done by Van der Velden during the war: ‘Hij probeerde dit zoveel mogelijk te vermijden.’ [‘He tried to avoid it as much as possible’]. The only trace found during the investigation of a transaction that clearly concerned the Borghouts branch in Lochem was the sale of a few pieces of eighteenth-century ceramics to an antiques dealership in Amsterdam.

A large part of the trading stock of the D. Katz art dealership in Dieren was purchased by the German dealer Alois Miedl in the summer of 1940.The inventory of the individual artworks took place in Borghouts’s premises at Maliebaan 70, where there were approximately 320 artworks on show at the time. in November 1940 Borghouts opened a branch at Rokin 64 in Amsterdam. In April 1948 he notified the register of companies in Amsterdam that this branch had been overgedragen aan de Heer H. Katz (…) [transferred to Mr H. Katz ….]. This referred to Hartog (Harry) Katz, who was born in 1916. The art dealership was closed down after Borghouts died in 1962. None of the art dealership’s business records were found.

The Nijstad & Hammerman brokerage firm during the war
On 1 May 1941 Abraham Nijstad became a partner in the Nijstad and Hammerman business, presumably in an attempt to safeguard the auction house from being taken over. H.J. ten Broeke writes in his book Lochem in oorlogstijd 1940-1945 that the Nijstad and Hammerman auction premises remained active: Hier werden soms hele inboedels geveild, waaronder vaak zeer begeerde zaken die normaal niet meer te koop waren. [Sometimes household effects in their entirety went under the hammer, in which there were often very sought-after items that were normally no longer for sale.] According to a notification from Abraham Nijstad in the register of companies, the partnership was dissolved on 1 January 1957.

The Nijstad family relocated to Amsterdam
During the occupation Abraham Nijstad made various attempts to improve the precarious position of his family and to avoid deportation. In July 1942 he was able to obtain exemption from forced labour because he had acquired a position with the Jewish Council of Amsterdam as an administrative/office assistant. It was stated on Nijstad’s identity card that he worked in the department that acted as a liaison between the Jewish Council and the German Central Office for Jewish Emigration (Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung). On occasion he also had the opportunity to obtain information that was vitally important to arranging exemptions. In 1996 Harts Nijstad stated that the family had been on the Weinreb emigration list: Wij hebben daar ook in geloofd. […] Daar kocht je je in. Pure oplichtersbende. Maar je wou zo graag geloven dat er nog een mogelijkheid was.’ [‘We also believed in it …. You had to pay to get on it. It was a complete sham. But you wanted so much to believe that there was still a possibility.’]. In July 1943 the Nijstad family received a communication via the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva from the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem that it was registered on the exchange list for immigration [to] Palestine.

Abraham Nijstad and Special Mission Linz
In 1939 Hitler issued instructions to Dr Hans Posse (1879-1942), director of the Gemäldegalerie Dresden, to put together an art collection for the Führer Museum, which was to be built in Linz. The small organization he was in charge of went about acquiring artworks. Some were employees of the Gemäldegalerie Dresden. This organization was also known as the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Mission Linz). Initially, the purpose of these activities was obscured. Posse would introduce himself as the director of the Dresden museum and purchase objects in a private capacity. The Gemäldegalerie Dresden’s facilities, for example storage space, was used to catalogue and store objects that had been acquired.

Special Mission Linz acquired art in the Netherlands primarily by purchases at sales, through the art trade, or from private collections either directly or through intermediaries and brokers. Starting in May 1942, Posse was assisted in the Netherlands by the German art historian Dr Erhard Göpel, who was appointed to an administrative department of the Reichs Commissariat. Göpel knew the Netherlands well and had many personal and business connections in the Dutch art world. Over time, Special Mission Linz used a network of Jewish experts and art dealers, some of them German refugees, for the purchase of art on the Dutch market, for example from private collections. For the purposes of these activities they were given various temporary exemptions from anti-Jewish measures.

They facilitated the execution of Göpel’s work in a variety of ways. It was clear to the Jewish experts, dealers and brokers that their own lives, and also those of their family members, depended continuously on the willingness of their principals and on the degree to which they were able to fulfil their expectations. The literature reveals that the personal relationships between the Jews involved and their German principals were sometimes complex. Thanks to their specific know-how and the efforts of the Special Mission Linz employees, a small group of Jewish art experts managed to survive the war, but usually not without being permanently scarred by stress during the years of the occupation and the loss of family members. The ordeal for some of those involved did not stop with the liberation of the Netherlands. They had to deal with incomprehension about the position they had found themselves in and with being reproached for collaborating.

It can be deduced from documents found during the investigation that during the occupation Abraham Nijstad was used by the Nazis in the purchase of art on the Dutch art market by Special Mission Linz. It is not clear when this involvement of Nijstad started. In a post-war letter Nijstad himself referred to 1943, but it is clear that Nijstad and his family had been granted exemptions some time before that, on 12 October 1942. Exemptions were granted through the intercession of the Referat Sonderfragen (Special Questions Section), the department of the Reichs Commissariat where Göpel worked. The duration of the validity of this exemption was deliberately withheld from Nijstad in order to increase the uncertainty.

Nijstad’s name was on a Liste der im Kunsthandel eingesetzten Juden [list of Jews employed in the art trade] of 5 February 1943. On the recommendation of the Generalkommissar zur besonderen Verwendung (General Commissioner for Special Tasks), Fritz Schmidt, on 23 April 1943 he was exempted from deportation with effect from 1 May 1943, based on the following reasons: Mein Referat Sonderfragen hat bei der Durchführungen eines Reichswichtigen Auftragen für die Ausführung von Gemälden und anderen Kunstgegenständen die Mitarbeit des jüdischen holländischen Staatsangehörigen A. Nijstad, Amsterdam Daniël Willinkplein 21a nötig. [My Special Questions Section requires the cooperation of the Jewish Dutch citizen A. Nijstad, Amsterdam, Daniël Willinkplein 21a, in carrying out an important national commission for the acquisition of paintings and other works of art.]

An undated list compiled in the middle or at the end of 1943 reveals that the Nijstad family was exempt from Arbeitseinsatz in Deutschland [slave labour in Germany] because Nijstad, who was described as an Kunsthändler und Agent [art dealer and agent], was needed for tracing works of art held by aristocrats, and he would only be able to do this if he was also exempted from wearing a yellow star and was allowed to remain in Amsterdam:
Wird weiterhin für Sonderauftrag Linz zum Aufspüren von Kunstwerken in Adelsbesitz benötigt. Gedeihliche Weiterarbeit jedoch nur falls N [Nijstad] und Familie vom Tragen des Judensternes befreit wird und in Amsterdam wohnen kann.
[He is still needed for the Special Mission Linz to track down artworks owned by the nobility. However, he will only be able to continue his work if N [Nijstad] and his family are exempted from wearing the Star of David and can live in Amsterdam.]

After the war Abraham Nijstad wrote a letter to an acquaintance about these activities. In it he stated the following:
Gekocht voor de Duitsers heb ik nooit. Doch in 1943 heeft men mij voor de keus gesteld: Voor de Duitsers schilderijen te taxeren en te adviseren in aankopen, of met mijn gehele gezin naar Polen te worden doorgezonden. Alvorens hier verder op in te gaan, heb ik mij toen in verbinding gesteld met enige goede Nederlanders uit de museum- en bankkringen. Men adviseerde mij, coûte que coûte deze relatie niet te verbreken om hierdoor het gevaar van deportatie te voorkomen. De zeer weinige zaken die ik daarna op deze wijze tot stand bracht, vonden slechts dan plaats, na advies ingewonnen te hebben bij Dr. J.G. van Gelder, directeur van het Mauritshuis die de onbelangrijkheid van deze zaken vaststelde. In de brief voegde hij toe: Deze zaken zouden ook zonder mij doorgang gevonden hebben, aangezien de heren Duitsers beschikten over een leger van adviseurs, en met hun geld deze vrijwillige verkopen afdwongen
[I never bought anything for the Germans. But in 1943 I was given a choice: To value paintings for the Germans and advise about purchases or to be shipped off to Poland with my entire family. Before going into this, I contacted a few sound Dutch nationals from museum and banking circles. I was advised at all costs not to break off this relationship in order to avoid the risk of deportation. The very few transactions that I consequently facilitated in this way only went ahead after I had obtained advice from Dr J.G. van Gelder, director of the Mauritshuis, who confirmed the unimportance of these transactions. In his letter he added the following: These transactions would have gone ahead without me because the German gentlemen had an army of advisors and used their money to impose these voluntary sales.]

 Placement on the Barneveld list
During the occupation Nijstad and his family received help from friends and acquaintances, in particular from Dr Jan Gerrit van Gelder (1903-1980), acting director of the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History and later director of the Mauritshuis. Van Gelder was able to arrange for Nijstad and his family to be added to the list of Jews who enjoyed protection by being on the Frederiks List. During the occupation the number of names on the list grew to many hundreds. Many of them were interned in De Schaffelaar Castle in Barneveld: the Barneveld group.

As far as we know, the Nijstad family was equated administratively with the Barneveld group but was not part of it in a physical sense. On 29 September 1943 there was a large-scale raid during which the group was taken to Westerbork transit camp. According to the available information, the Nijstad family was transported to Westerbork transit camp on that same day. In 2001 Harts Nijstad explained that the initiative to place the family on the Frederiks List was taken by Van Gelder.
Wij moesten naar Amsterdam verhuizen, en toen zei de kunsthistoricus Jan van Gelder tegen mijn vader, dat hij hem graag op de lijst zou zien. En toen zijn wij naar Westerbork gehaald, als Barnevelders, en werden daar nog iets vreemd aangekeken, hoe dat kon, dat je een Barnevelder was en niet in Barneveld bent geweest?
[We had to move to Amsterdam, and then the art historian Jan van Gelder told my father that he would like to see him on the list. Later we were taken to Westerbork, because we were on the Barneveld list, and we were looked at rather strangely. How come you were on the Barneveld list but were not in Barneveld?]

According to documentation in the archive of the Dutch Red Cross, Abraham Nijstad was registered in Westerbork on 29 September 1943. After the occupation he wrote that their entire household effects, including the art library he had built up over a period of twenty years, were seized by the Germans and that he, at the time of writing, had never seen anything again.

During a meeting in October 1943, Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart went through the list, on which there were non-Aryans who had been given exemption from wearing a Jewish star. At that time there were about ninety people on the list, including ‘die für den Sonderauftrag Museum Linz vom Sterntragen befreiten Juden’ [‘Jews who were exempted from wearing the star for the Special Mission of the Linz Museum’.]. They included the Nijstad family. Seyss-Inquart decided as follows: Nijstad wird vom Tragen des Judensterns befreit, seine Familie bleibt mit den Frederiks-Juden im Lager Westerbork und wird nicht abtransportiert.’ [‘Nijstad is exempted from wearing the Star of David, his family remains with the Frederiks Jews in the Westerbork camp and is not transported.’]. Nijstad, who was expected to track down art on behalf of Special Mission Linz, left Westerbork on 3 February 1944 to that end, while his family had to remain behind in the camp. Five of the seven Artworks whose restitution is being requested were purchased by Special Mission Linz after that moment. Nijstad’s family remained in Westerbork, while Nijstad registered in March 1944 as residing on the ground floor of Zuider Amstellaan 31 in Amsterdam. It is stated on a list of personal details sent in June 1944 by Van Gelder that Nijstad was in fact living at Lange Voorhout 35 in The Hague in June 1944.

J.G. Wigman, manager/caretaker of the D. Katz art dealership branch in The Hague
The name Johannes Gerardus Wigman occurs frequently in the documentation concerning purchases by Special Mission Linz, including those relating to some of the Artworks. Wigman, who was born in Arnhem 1900, was a friend of Abraham Nijstad. In 1940 Wigman was made manager of the D. Katz art dealership branch at Lange Voorhout 35 in The Hague, which had opened shortly before. It was also his residential address. In a post-war letter to a business contact, Abraham Nijstad denied having anything to do with Katz’s firm and asserted that he: […] dat ik bevriend ben met den concierge van een huis van de Fa. Katz, de heer J. Wigman Lange Voorhout 35 Den Haag, bij wien ik tijdens de Mauthausen-razzia in 1941 gedurende 6 weken ondergedoken was, en die ons in 1943-44 op buitengewone wijze met voedselpaketten verzorgde toen wij in Westerbork waren [was friends with the manager of premises used by the firm of Katz, Mr J. Wigman Lange Voorhout 35 The Hague, where I went into hiding for 6 weeks during the Mauthausen round-up in 1941 and who provided us with food parcels in 1943-44 in an extraordinary way when we were in Westerbork].

During an interrogation in July 1948 by the Dutch National Investigation Department, Wigman stated that he was employed as caretaker of the art gallery but, being a furniture maker, he ‘in het geheel geen verstand [had] van schilderijen.’ [‘knew nothing about paintings.’]. It can nevertheless be deduced from a letter from Wigman to Nathan Katz dated 1 February 1943 that Wigman actively participated in the trading of artworks, although it is not clear whether he was acting on his own behalf or on behalf of others.
[Nu] mijnheer ik ben afgelopen week aan het handelen geweest. Ridder had van iemand een goed schilderij wat wij moesten verkopen nu heb ik het voor mijn doen met succes aan Bandertje [mogelijk Heinz Bandermann, ECR] verkocht het was een vroege J. Steen volgens Dr. v. Gelder en Friedländer een goed schilderij. Het heeft 50 mil opgebracht dit was voor ons een buitenkansje.
[Sir, last week I conducted some trading. Ridder had acquired a good painting from someone that we had to sell. Well, I successfully sold it to Bandertje [possibly Heinz Bandermann, ECR]. It was an early J. Steen that according to Dr v. Gelder and Friedländer was a good painting. It fetched 50 thousand. It was a godsend for us.]

During the occupation Wigman remained involved in the handling of art purchases by Special Mission Linz and in that period he maintained contacts with members of the Katz family inside and outside the Netherlands. His name is referred to frequently with regard to purchases by Special Mission Linz, particularly in 1944. It is often unclear in what capacity Wigman was acting. For example, notes were found in the archives concerning paintings and silverware, including silverware that was probably the property of Nijstad’s firm that was supplied to Special Mission Linz in the course of 1944. The invoices and receipts were signed by Wigman, yet post-war information indicates that in any event some of the objects were the property of third parties. It is therefore plausible that Wigman in any case acted as an intermediary in some of these transactions and took care of transport and packaging.

Attempt by Nijstad and family to leave the country in 1944 by supplying art
The exemptions that Nijstad and his family succeeded in obtaining were temporary and extremely uncertain. On 28 March 1944 Van Gelder contacted the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior, K.J. Frederiks, in order avert a threatened impending deportation on an urgent basis. He wrote:
Hierbij doe ik U de gegevens toekomen betreffende de familie A. Nijstad te Lochem, waarvoor ik u zoojuist heb opgebeld. Deze familie is indertijd mede door Jhr. Sandberg van Heldring en Pierson gelijkgesteld en volgens een beschikking van 20-12-’43 toegevoegd aan de Barneveld-groep. Voor de heer Nijstad kunnen de heer Sandberg en ik ten volle instaan. Desondanks is de Heer N. thans medegedeeld dat hij maandag a.s. met familie naar The.Stadt zou moeten vertrekken. Kan dit als hij reeds toegevoegd is? En wat is daar nog aan te doen. Staat hij, ondanks wat bereikt, niet op de lijst, dan zou dit feit nog hersteld kunnen worden, naar ik hoop. Zeer hoop ik dat u iets kunt bereiken vòòr maandag a.s.
[I send you herewith the information concerning the A. Nijstad family of Lochem, about whom I just telephoned you. At the time, this family was equated to and, according to a decision of 20-12-’43, added to the Barneveld group thanks to, among others, Jonkheer Sandberg of Heldring en Pierson. Mr Sandberg and I can fully vouch for Mr Nijstad. In spite of this, Mr N. has now been notified that he would have to leave for The.Stadt with his family on next Monday. Is this possible if he has already been added? And what can still be done about it If, despite what has been achieved, he is not on the list, I hope that this fact could still be rectified. I hope very much that you can do something about it before next Monday.]

Not long afterwards, Van Gelder made an attempt to put Nijstad definitively beyond the reach of the Nazi regime by arranging for him to leave the Netherlands for a neutral country and he turned to the head of Special Mission Linz, Professor Hermann Voss, with a request for help. Van Gelder subsequently wrote an extensive letter of thanks to Voss in response to the latter’s offer of support and told him that meanwhile an ‘Curatorium angesehener Holländer […], zu dem auch einiger Ihrer Kollegen und bekannte Kunsthändler gehören’ [‘advisory committee of distinguished Dutchmen … which also includes some of your colleagues and well-known art dealers’] had been formed. It was prepared to provide a German museum with a valuable painting by Jacob Marrel if Nijstad was able to go to a neutral country.

In June 1944 Dr Erhard Göpel wrote a long letter to Voss about all kinds of complications relating to the purchase of artworks. In it, he also briefly discussed the painting that was offered by the advisory committee chaired by Van Gelder that had been formed for the Vermittler [intermediary] Nijstad. Göpel made positive comments about the quality of the painting and stressed the recent acquisition through Nijstad of works by Codde and Cuyp (in all probability NK 2550 and NK 2255) as an argument for putting pressure on his superiors not to transfer Nijstad to a camp:
Da mir sehr daran liegt, den Vermittler Nijstadt bis zu seiner eventuelle Ausreise mit seiner Familie zu meiner Verfügung zu haben, so würde ich bitten, falls Sie sich zu einer Weitergabe des Vorschlages von Dr. v. Gelder entschliessen könnten, die Sperrung des Nijstadt von der Verbringung in ein Lager zu beantragen. Da der augenblickliche kritische Zustand in den Küstengebieten überraschende Massnahmen möglich erscheinen lässt, eilt die Angelegenheit. Über N. ist kürzlich der Pieter Codde und neuerdings der Cuyp gekommen, sowie zahlreiche Silbergegenstände.
[Since it is very important to me to have the mediator Nijstadt at my disposal until his possible departure with his family, I would like to ask if you could decide to pass on Dr v. Gelder’s proposal to request that Nijstadt be barred from being taken to a camp. Since the current critical situation in the coastal areas makes unexpected measures seem possible, the matter is urgent. The Pieter Codde and, more recently, the Cuyp, as well as numerous silver objects, recently arrived via N.]

Meanwhile the discussions about Nijstad’s departure continued. Voss supported Van Gelder’s request. That same day he raised the matter in writing with Martin Bormann, Hitler’s right-hand man, making complimentary remarks about the proposed artwork:
Es handelt sich bei den fraglichen Personen um die Familie des jüdischen Kunsthandlers Nystad, der sich, wie mir Herr van Gelder mitteilt, vielfache Verdienste um die öffentliche holländischen Kunstsammlung erworben und in übrigen wiederholt auch wichtige Gemälde und kunstgewerbliche Gegenstände für den Sonderauftrag Linz sowie andere deutsche Museen beschafft ist.
[The people in question are the family of the Jewish art dealer Nystad, who, as Mr van Gelder tells me, has rendered many services to the Dutch public art collection and has also repeatedly procured important paintings and decorative art objects for Special Mission Linz and other German museums.]

Among the enclosures that Voss sent with his letter to Bormann was a list of people who, as a result of provision of the painting, should be permitted to leave the Netherlands:

PERSONALIA von der Familie A. Nystad.
Kernkarte

1. Nystad Abraham. Geboren 5-7-1895 in Lochem                No P.B.L. 36 No 002907
2. Dasberg Rosette. Geboren 11-9-1897 in Dordrecht          No P.B.L. 35 No 000773
3. Nystad Samuel. Geboren 20-5-1922 in Lochem              No P.B.L. 36 No 002906
4. Nystad Lena. Geboren 11-4-1924 in Lochem                    No P.B.L. 35 No 596574
5. Nystad Hartog. Geboren 12-9-1925 in Lochem              No P.B.L. 36 No 002906

 PERSONALIA von Jules Cohen (Ehemann von Lena Nystad (4))

6. Cohen Jules. Geboren 21-12-1921 in Groningen.       No P.B.G. 49 No 033322

Die in dieser Liste aufgeführten Personen (2-6) befinden sich momentan im Lager Westerbork (Holland). Herr Nystad selbst (1) wohnt im Haag, Lange Voorhout 35. Gültige Pässe (bis Mai 1944) sind in ihrem Besitz.
[The people listed in this list (2-6) are currently in the Westerbork camp (Holland). Mr Nystad himself (1) lives in The Hague, Lange Voorhout 35. They have valid passports (until May 1944).]

Voss reported about progress to Göpel on 15 June 1944 and at the same time referred to the impending closure of Göpel’s office in The Hague:
Das Schriftstück des Herrn van Gelder hatte ich bereits erhalten und die Bitte des holländischen Komitees sogleich befürwortend und Herrn Reichleiter Bormann weitergereicht. Nachdem ich heute telefonisch erfuhr, daß Ihre Dienststelle aufgelöst werden soll, sandte ich sogleich ein Telegram an Herrn Dr. von Hummel, in dem ich mich auf Ihren telefonischen Anruf bei ihm bezog und den Standpunkt vertrat, daß weitere Erwerbungen gerade in diesem Augenblick leicht zu machen und Fortsetzung Ihrer Tätigkeit mithin erwünscht sei. Hoffentlich haben wir damit Erfolg.
[I had already received Mr van Gelder’s letter and immediately endorsed the Dutch committee’s request and forwarded it to Reich Leader Bormann. After learning by telephone today that your office is to be closed, I immediately sent a telegram to Dr von Hummel, in which I referred to your telephone call to him and expressed the view that further acquisitions could easily be made at this very moment and that the continuation of your work was therefore desirable. Hopefully we will be successful.]

Despite all the arguments in favour of the arrangement, Bormann’s personal secretary Helmut von Hummel notified Voss on 20 June 1944 that Bormann had rejected the request verzoek ‘om principiële redenen’ [‘for reasons of principle’]. Von Hummel ended the message by blaming Voss: ‘Ich bitte Sie, künftig Anträge und Anregungen dieser Art von vornherein als ungeeignet unmittelbar abzulehnen.’ [‘I ask you to immediately reject as unsuitable any applications and suggestions of this kind in the future.’] It took several weeks thereafter before notification of the rejection reached Van Gelder and Nijstad because Bormann’s office had overlooked a few items that should have been posted. It was finally sent to Voss on 7 July 1944. Unaware of the rejection, Van Gelder wrote a further letter of thanks to Voss in June 1944 and stated that he had agreed with Göpel that Voss would be telephoned in the event of impending deportation:
Darf ich Ihnen verbindlichst danken für Ihr freundliches Schreiben vom 13 Juni. Wir sind Ihnen besonderes erkenntlich, dass Sie unser Anliegen so rasch und energisch bei der zuständigen Stelle vertreten haben. Ich spreche in Namen des gesamten Komitees, wenn ich Ihnen für diese Hilfe unseren herzlichen Dank sage. Wir wollen hoffen, dass unsere gemeinsamen Bemühungen Erfolg haben werden. Mit Herrn Dr. Göpel habe ich verabredet, dass ich mir erlauben wurde, Sie telefonisch zu benachrichtigen für den Fall, dass sich hier die Verhältnissen in den Sinne Ändern, dass die betreffenden Personen gezwungen würden das Land zu verlassen. Ich nehme an, dass in einer sochen Notlage vielleicht durch eine telefonische Rücksprache ein kurzer Aufschub zu erwirken ist, bis die ganze Angelegenheit geklärt ist. Unter Wiederholung meines und meiner Kollegen Dankes verbleibe ich mit den besten Empfehlungen.
[May I thank you most sincerely for your kind letter of 13 June. We are particularly grateful to you for representing our concerns so quickly and energetically to the relevant authorities. I speak on behalf of the entire committee when I express our sincere thanks for this assistance. Let us hope our joint efforts will be successful. I have agreed with Dr Göpel that I will take the liberty of notifying you by telephone if the circumstances here change to the extent that the persons concerned are forced to leave the country. I assume that in such an emergency, a telephone consultation might provide a brief delay until the whole matter is resolved. Repeating my gratitude and that of my colleagues, I send you my best regards.]

After Voss had eventually received notice of the rejection in July 1944, he telephoned Göpel and asked him to send a letter that same day to inform Van Gelder personally of the result (‘bedauerlicherweise’ [‘unfortunately’] in the last sentence of the document was crossed out):
Anliegend übersende ich Ihnen zur Kenntnisnahme eine Abschrift der in der Angelegenheit Nystad an mich ergangenen Antwort. Wie ich Ihnen heute bereits telefonisch mitteilte, wäre ich Ihnen dankbar, wenn Sie den negativen Ausgang dieser Aktion Herrn van Gelder persönlich mitteilen und ihm zugleich sagen würden, dass die Angelegenheit bedauerlicherweise damit leider erledigt sei.
[I enclose for your information a copy of the reply I received in the Nystad case. As I already asked you by telephone today, I would be grateful if you would inform Mr van Gelder personally of the negative outcome of this action and at the same time tell him that unfortunately the matter is now closed.]

In September 1944 Abraham Nijstad and his family were deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt concentration camp. He wrote about it after the war as follows: ‘Doordat ik toen mede door toedoen van genoemde Dr. v. Gelder op de zgn. Barneveld-lijst geplaatst was, ben ik tenslotte in Theresienstadt terecht gekomen, hetgeen uiteindelijk onze redding bleek te zijn. [‘Because the aforementioned Dr v. Gelder had put me on the Barneveld list, I finally ended up in Theresienstadt, which ultimately turned out to be our salvation.’]

Fates of the Nijstad family after the occupation
The Nijstad family survived the horrors of the occupation and the stay in Theresienstadt, but they were not unscathed. The Applicants wrote the following about Abraham Nijstad:
       De realiteit in 1945 was bitter en het is belangrijk om een paar van de verliezen te benoemen.

1. Zijn zusje, Helena Vromen-Nijstad werd met haar man en hun drie kinderen vermoord. Twee broers van zijn echtgenote vonden hetzelfde noodlot.
2. Van de Joodse Gemeente in Lochem, waarvan hij de laatste voorzitter was, overleefden slechts 18 leden, 100 werden vermoord en dientengevolge moest onze grootvader zien hoe zijn gemeente niet langer kon bestaan omdat er simpelweg geen minjan meer was.
3. Ook in zijn ruime sociale- en professionele netwerk waren de verliezen onder het Joodse deel enorm.

[The reality of 1945 was bitter, and it is important to mention a couple of the losses.

1. His sister, Helena Vromen-Nijstad, her husband and their three children were murdered. Two brothers of his spouse met the same fate.
2. Only 18 members of Lochem’s Jewish Community, of which he was the last chairman, survived. A hundred were murdered. As a result, our grandfather had to recognize that his community could no longer exist simply because there was no longer a minyan.
3. The losses among the Jews in his extensive social and professional network were also enormous.]

After the liberation it took some time to get rid of suspicion of Van der Velden’s collaboration. Saam Nijstad’s obituary contains the following:
Na de oorlog moest Abraham Nijstad alle zeilen bijzetten om ‘oom Wim’, zoals Saams kinderen hem ongedwongen noemden, van landverraad vrijgepleit te krijgen.
[After the war Abraham Nijstad did everything he could to have ‘Uncle Wim’, as Saam’s children chose to call him, acquitted of treason.]

Activities for the SNK
In October 1945 Abraham Nijstad started working for the Netherlands Art Property Foundation (SNK) as a valuer. His son Saam lent a helping hand:
Van juni 1945 tot 1 januari 1947 was ik [J.G. Van Gelders] knechtje en chauffeur geweest. Terug uit Theresienstadt was ik op aanraden van mijn vader naar Van Gelder gegaan. Ik had hem gevraagd of hij mij kon helpen omdat ik mij wilde gaan bezighouden met kunst om later kunsthandelaar te worden. Mijn vader was al jarenlang bevriend met, zoals hij hen noemde, de oude en de jonge Van Gelder. De oude dr. H.E. van Gelder was directeur van het Gemeentemuseum in Den Haag. De vriendschapsband met de jonge Van Gelder dateerde uit de oorlogsjaren. […] Een nieuwe periode in mijn leven brak aan. Van Gelder had de opdracht gekregen om voor de Nederlandse Staat alle schilderijen uit Nederlandse musea die opgeslagen waren in schuilkelders en andere bewaarplaatsen te gaan controleren. Hij had hiervoor een auto toegewezen gekregen, maar hij kon zelf niet autorijden. Zijn chauffeur en leerjongen werd ik. […] Hij werd mijn tweede vader, zoals hij dat voor vele tientallen van zijn studenten werd.
[Between June 1945 and 1 January 1947 I was [J.G. Van Gelder’s] assistant and chauffeur. After I returned from Theresienstadt my father advised me to approach Van Gelder. I had asked him if he could help me because I wanted to do something connected with art so that later I could become an art dealer. For years my father had been friends with the old and the young Van Gelder, as he called them. The old Dr H.E. van Gelder was director of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. The friendship with the young Van Gelder dated from the war. A new chapter in my life dawned. The Dutch State gave Van Gelder the task of checking all the paintings from Dutch museums that had been stored in air raid shelters and other repositories. He had been assigned a car for this but he did not know how to drive. I became his chauffeur and apprentice.… He became my second father, as he had become for many dozens of his students.]

SNK administration, declaration forms and white cards
Many of the Artworks were purchased in 1944 by Göpel, who at that time used the services of a group of Jewish experts who depended on his protection. People in the immediate environment of the experts were also involved in the transactions. Among those in Göpel’s circle were the Russian-Jewish art historian, dealer and collector Vitale Bloch (1900-1975) and scene artist and restorer Hendrik Schuuring (1883-1955) (they lived at the same address), the brothers Nathan and Benjamin Katz and their branch manager J.G. Wigman (who Abraham Nijstad was friends with). Their names occur in various combinations in the documentation about Göpel’s purchases. It is not always clear which role they played in an individual transaction. There are indications that the names recorded on the invoices associated with the transactions were not always those of the owner.

After the occupation the ambiguity about the circumstances surrounding some of the purchases increased because a link was made between the premises at Lange Voorhout 35 and the art dealership of D. Katz established there. This resulted in the name of Katz being connected with various artworks. Some of the works purchased by Göpel were indeed supplied by or through N.V. Katz, which meanwhile had been Aryanized, or the brothers individually, while it is also plausible in many cases that the premises in Lange Voorhout or manager Wigman represented the only connection with this art dealership. Further administrative processing of the information provided also resulted in data getting into circulation and being referred to in documentation or on inventory cards that played a role in the administrative process of tracing and repatriation. The upshot was that inside this complex of sources there are sometimes contradictory entries about provenance and ownership.

Declaration forms completed by Abraham Nijstad
The SNK’s tasks after the war included tracking down artworks and returning them from Germany. This required information about what had been lost. In order to acquire documentation needed for these tasks, the post-war military authorities issued a regulation obliging everyone with knowledge about art in enemy possession to provide information to the SNK. This declaration obligation applied to former owners of the artworks and also to everyone who knew of artworks that ended up in enemy hands after 10 May 1940, irrespective of their own involvement and regardless of how the art ceased being in the possession of the owner. In support of this objective, pre-printed declaration forms were issued on which data could be provided about the work of art and the nature of the loss of possession.

Information collected in this way helped in tracking down artworks in Germany and was used by the Dutch authorities when submitting claims to the allied collecting points on the grounds of which the artworks could be brought back to the Netherlands. The fact that someone provided the SNK with information about an artwork by completing a declaration form does not imply that the individual concerned was asking the SNK for restitution or was its owner.

After the liberation Abraham Nijstad completed numerous declaration forms concerning artworks that had ended up in Göpel’s hands during the occupation. Altogether some 16 forms completed and signed by Nijstad were found in the SNK archive. Declaration forms completed by Abraham Nijstad are available for five of the seven Artworks. Declaration forms completed by Nijstad were not found only in the case of the two gouaches by Troost.

Some two months after he had submitted the forms to the SNK, Nijstad wrote about his role as valuer and advisor with regard to art purchases by the Germans:
Het voordeel is dan ook dat ik, en met mij vrijwel de gehele kunsthandel na de oorlog waardevolle inlichtingen kon geven aan de Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit die konden leiden tot het terugvinden van verdwenen kunstvoorwerpen.
[The advantage is therefore that I, and with me almost the entire art trade, was able to provide valuable information to the SNK after the war, which could lead to the recovery of missing artworks.]

The declaration forms have two fields that relate to the ownership: field 8 and field 14.

Field 8 (Herkomst) [(Provenance)] was intended for stating what the object’s history was:
Ad. 8 Niet slechts opgave van vroegere verzamelingen, maar ook van eventueelen kunsthandelaar of veilinghouder bij wien het object werd gekocht. [8 Not just references to earlier collections but also possible art dealer or auctioneer where the object was bought.] The Applicants rightly point out that the concept of provenance was regularly interpreted in the art world as referring to the most prestigious collection to which the object had previously belonged in order to make the object more distinguished. Among other things they wrote:
De ‘handel’ werd vaak overgeslagen omdat ze in de geschiedenis van de herkomst niet relevant werd geacht en vooral werd gezien als tussenpersoon. Het noemen van de laatste eigenaar als bron van herkomst was dus niet zo vreemd en het kan ook een verklaring zijn voor de wijze van invullen van de formulieren door onze grootvader.
[The ‘trade’ was often omitted because it was not deemed relevant to the provenance and was seen primarily as an intermediary. Naming the last owner as the provenance was therefore not so surprising and it may also be an explanation for the way our grandfather filled in the forms.]

Field 14 relates to a pre-printed sentence (oorspronkelijk bezit, gebruik, bewaring of anderszins) [(original ownership, use, custody or otherwise)] followed by a space for a name. The person completing the form was expected to cross out the non-relevant words in the pre-printed sentence and in so doing provide clarity about the current ownership situation:
Ad 14. Doorhalen hetgeen niet van toepassing is, zoodat b.v. gelezen wordt “Was oorspronkelijk in bezit van”. Indien object eigendom was van twee of meer personen of firma’s (contameta) s.v.p. opgeven.
[14. Cross out what is not applicable, for example so that the sentence reads: ‘Was originally owned by’. Please specify if the object was the property of two or more people or firms (joint purchase).]

 Nijstad was relatively consistent in the way he completed and signed forms. He submitted 16 forms. Eleven were dated 18 March 1946 and five 23 March 1946. Five of the 16 forms relate to the Artworks. All the forms were filled in using a typewriter and were signed by Abraham Nijstad by hand.

On six forms he stated in field 8 that the work came from A. Nijstad, Lochem (Hondius) or from the firm of A. Nijstad, Lochem (the form filled in on 23 March 1946 concerning silverware). It is not clear in the case of the Hondius whether the reference to the firm is deliberately not present in order to distinguish between trading stock and private property. On 4 October 1946 Nijstad provided the SNK with additional information about the objects that he had recollected. The silver objects on the 1944 German invoice are booked in the name of Wigman, which indicates that the name that occurs in the German documentation relating to the transactions of Special Mission Linz in 1944 do not always refer to the original owner of the objects.

On the other five forms Nijstad refers unambiguously to parties other than himself or his firm and in almost all cases he entered the same name in fields 8 and 14.
– NK 2194 (Schelfhout)         – ‘Jhr. Laman Trip Laan Copes v. Cattenburgh 89 Den Haag’
– NK 2255 (Cuyp)                – ‘Borghouts, Utrecht’
– NK 2550 (Codde)              – ‘Graaf Bentinck, Middachten
– NK 2365 (Storck)               – ‘J.H. Borghouts, Utrecht’

Besides the Artworks, Nijstad completed forms for six paintings that are not in the NK Collection. He does not refer to himself or his art dealership in the provenance but the name of a third party.

Field 15 of the declaration form is included to describe the way in which possession was lost as well as what qualification was attached to the loss of possession by the person who completed the form. There was a pre-printed sentence here too and the person submitting the form was expected to cross out irrelevant words: Ad 15. Doorhalen hetgeen niet van toepassing is, zoodat b.v. gelezen wordt: “Is door confiscatie in bezit gekomen van”. [15. Cross out what is not applicable, for example so that the sentence reads: ‘Came into the possession of … as a result of confiscation’.]

As far as we know, Nijstad never requested the restitution of artworks. The phrase confiscatie, diefstal, gedwongen of  [confiscation, theft, forced or] in field 15 is crossed out by typewriter on all the forms he signed, so that the remaining text reads: : Is door vrijwillige verkoop in bezit gekomen van. [‘Came into the possession of … as a result of voluntary sale’].

The Applicants wrote the following about this:
Over hoe overlevenden van de holocaust omgingen met het niet te bevatten verlies is na de oorlog veel geschreven. De oorlog en het daarmee gepaard gaande verdriet was een moeilijk gespreksonderwerp. Voor onze grootvader is dat zeker voorstelbaar gezien het feit dat hij en zijn gezin waarschijnlijk overleefd hebben en hij de deportatie heeft kunnen uitstellen door zijn positie als kunsthandelaar, die waardevol was voor de bezetter. Daarbij is het ook heel aannemelijk dat hij de behoefte had om deze intens trieste periode af te sluiten, de deur dicht te doen en niet verwikkeld blijven in allerlei eindeloze procedures. Bijvoorbeeld over restitutie van schilderijen. Vooruit kijken en doorgaan was het devies en ook een manier om door te kùnnen leven. In dit kader is het ons inziens terecht om vraagtekens te stellen bij het woordje “vrijwillig”.
[Much has been written since the war about how Holocaust survivors coped with the incomprehensible loss. The war and the associated grief were difficult to talk about. This is readily imaginable for our grandfather, given the fact that he and his family probably survived and he was able to postpone deportation due to his position as an art dealer, which was valuable to the occupying forces. It is also highly likely that he felt the need to end this intensely sad period, to close the door, and not to remain entangled in all sorts of endless procedures. For example about the restitution of paintings. Looking ahead and moving on was the slogan and also a way to carry on living. Against this backdrop it is justified in our opinion to question use of the word ’voluntary’.]

Post-war JOKOS compensation
After the war, Abraham Nijstad submitted a claim for damages to the German government in the context of the Bundesrückerstattungsgesetz (BRüG) [Federal Restitution Law].The claim for damages concerned household effects that were seized from a dwelling on the ground and first floors at Retiefstraat 71 in Amsterdam. A sum NLG 16,838.75 was paid out as a result of the claim. The file makes no mention of artworks or objects of special value or of loss of possession at other addresses.

Abraham Nijstad and his art dealership after the occupation
According to Harts Nijstad, the takeover of the firm of A. Nijstad in Lochem by Borghouts during the German occupation took place ‘met de afspraak dat de zaak na de oorlog zou worden teruggekocht, en zo is het gegaan.’ [‘based on the agreement that the business would be bought back after the war, and that is what happened.’] There is a note in the register of companies of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Deventer that the business was taken over again by Nijstad from Borghouts with effect from July 1945. In April 1949 the Netherlands Government Gazette published an announcement that the Netherlands Property Administration Institute had confirmed it had recognized a claim by Abraham Nijstad against the de Stichting Vermögensverwaltungs- und Renten-Anstalt [Asset Management and Pensions Foundation] in Amsterdam ‘Wegens koopsom der firma A. Nijstad te Lochem, f. 51 007,05’. [‘Regarding the purchase price of the firm of A. Nijstad in Lochem, NLG 51 007.05’]. According to the Applicants, the sum of approximately NLG 50,000 was not in proportion to the sale of both Nijstad’s real estate and the business’s entire trading stock, bearing in mind that at the time he was running a very successful internationally renowned art dealership.

During the years after the war Saam and Harts Nijstad played a major role in perpetuating and enhancing the reputation of the Nijstad name. N.V. A. Nijstad & Zn was founded on 1 January 1953, with Nijstad and his sons as partners. In 1949 Abraham Nijstad reported the establishment of a branch at Surinamestraat 34 in Den Haag.
Abraham Nijstad died on 21 May 1960. There is the following note in the register of companies:
‘De eigenaar A. Nijstad is op 21 mei 1960 overleden. De makelaardij in roerende en onroerende goederen is met ingang van 21 mei 1960 opgeheven. De rest van het bedrijf is per die datum ingebracht in […] Nijstad, Antiquairs N.V.’.
[‘The owner A. Nijstad died on 21 May 1960. The brokerage in movable and immovable goods ceased trading on 21 May 1960. The rest of the business was absorbed into Nijstad, Antiquairs N.V. on the same day.]

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 Artworks were the property of Nijstad and, on the grounds of section 3, whether it is sufficiently plausible that possession of the Artworks 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 ECR’s investigation results indicate that Nijstad frequently had an intermediary role with regard to the artworks he sold. The Committee finds that during the occupation by the Nazis, Nijstad acted in any event as a mediator on behalf of Special Mission Linz around October 1942. At that moment Nijstad and his family had already been granted exemptions through the intercession of the Referat Sonderfragen.

Research has revealed that all the Artworks in 1943 (the gouaches – NK 1283 and NK 1284) or 1944 (the other Artworks) were acquired by Special Mission Linz during the period in which Nijstad obtained exemptions from the German authorities that were linked to providing services in respect of the Führer Museum.

In so far as the investigation revealed that Nijstad bought or sold artworks, in the Committee’s opinion Nijstad’s original ownership has to be established by distinguishing between the following situations:

1. the situation in which Nijstad, through his intervention in opdracht van en ten behoeve van [on the instructions of and on behalf of] Special Mission Linz (for commission or otherwise) bought or sold an artwork;
2. the situation in which Nijstad bought or sold an artwork op eigen titel ten behoeve van [in a private capacity for the purposes of] Special Mission Linz. In that situation Nijstad took the risk associated with the purchase himself, in the sense that he remained the owner if he could not sell on his purchase.

The Committee has taken the following into account in answering the question of whether Nijstad can be assessed as owner in respect of the Artworks:
a) the circumstances in which the Artworks were bought/sold, in so far as they emerge from documentation found during the investigation, b) the information by Nijstad himself on declaration forms and c) the information on internal declaration forms completed by the SNK itself and the information on the SNK inventory card, also referred to as the white card. The Committee has assessed these sources when taken together.

The Committee finds as follows on these grounds:

NK 1383 and NK 1384 – Two gouaches by C. Troost
As regards the circumstances in which sale of the two gouaches by C. Troost (The Nursery and The Guardroom) took place, the Committee concludes on the basis of the aforementioned results of the investigation into the facts that Göpel acquired the two artworks from the Counts Bentinck. In this instance he asked his ‘verplichtete freunde’[indebted friends] to advance the sum concerned. It emerges from the receipt issued by the estate manager of Weldam that he received NLG 8,000 from Nijstad for the print of soldiers. This documentation corresponds with an overview of the account from which acquisitions by the Referat Sonderfragen were debited. It is not clear whether and how Nijstad was involved in regard to the sale of the artwork The Nursery to Special Mission Linz. There is also a receipt relating to this sale in which Count Bentinck confirms he received NLG 10,000 from Göpel. Although the precise role or roles that Nijstad, Schuuring and Bloch played in the purchase of Troost ‘s gouaches by Göpel from the possessions of the Counts Van Aldenburg Bentinck have not become clear from the investigation, it has emerged that in any event Nijstad himself was not owner of the two gouaches at any point. No declaration forms completed by Nijstad concerning these artworks were found. The internal declaration forms filled in for both artworks state that they were originally in the possession of Count Bentinck and that they came into Göpel’s possession ‘by intermediance of Nijstad 1942’. The Committee finds on the grounds of this information that it is not highly plausible that Nijstad can be designated as owner of the two gouaches.

NK 1759 – A.D. Hondius, Mountain Lake with Deer and Birds
The Committee concludes on the grounds of the results of the investigation into the facts described earlier that, in regard to the circumstances in which this artwork was sold to Special Mission Linz, that it was bought by Göpel in 1944 for NLG 12,000. The investigation documentation contains an invoice signed by J.G. Wigman and a confirmation that he received a sum of NLG 101,000 for a total of five artworks including this artwork by Hondius.
After the war Nijstad put his own name on the declaration form as provenance. He also stated that the artwork came into Göpel’s possession. A. Nijstad is furthermore specified as the original owner on the internal declaration form completed by the SNK. The white card also gives Nijstad as Owner. The Committee finds that out of all the declaration forms filled in by Nijstad, it is only in regard to this artwork that he quoted himself as provenance. As is the case with the painting by Schelfhout (see below) it is clear that the artwork was sold to Göpel by J.G. Wigman and that Nijstad had no direct involvement in the sale. This was, however, the situation with the artworks in respect of which the Committee finds that Nijstad has to be designated as an intermediary and not as owner. The pieces of information above, when considered together, lead the Committee to conclude that it is highly plausible that Nijstad owned this artwork.

NK 2194 – A. Schelfhout, Landscape with Windmill
The Committee finds with regard to the circumstances in which this artwork was sold that it was sold to Nijstad by Jonkheer Willem Laman Trip in June 1944 for NLG 750. Shortly after Nijstad had bought the painting from Laman Trip it was sold by J.G. Wigman to Special Mission Linz for NLG 2,500. After the war Nijstad specified ‘Jhr. Laman Trip, Laan Copes v. Cattenburgh 89, Den Haag’ on a declaration form as provenance. He also stated that the work came into Göpel’s possession. A. Nijstad is quoted as originally possessing the artwork on an internal declaration form filled in later by the SNK. The white card gives Nijstad as ‘Owner’. Compared with the artworks regarding which Nijstad’s role as mediator is clearly documented, the case with this artwork is different. The Committee also takes into consideration that Laman Trip’s diary notes about the Schelfhout were followed by the number ‘750’. The Committee is of the opinion that it is highly improbable that this sum can be designated as commission because such a sum for an intermediary at that time was an exceptionally large amount of money. This applies all the more relative to the sum for which the artwork was sold to Special Mission Linz: NLG 2,500.

During the hearing, Nijstad’s grandson remarked that while Nijstad saw himself as a pronounced intermediary, he had nevertheless been the owner of the objects that he bought and subsequently sold on. According to him, Nijstad saw himself as an intermediary because he had certain clients in mind at the moment he purchased something. This explanation is in line with Laman Trip’s diary notes in which he wrote that Nijstad was hoping for a sale in the near future. The pieces of information above, when considered together, lead the Committee to conclude that it is highly plausible that Nijstad owned this artwork after the purchase from Laman Trip. The fact that he sold it on shortly afterwards for the benefit of Special Mission Linz does not alter this.

NK 2255 – A. Cuyp, Mountainous River Landscape
With regard to the artwork River Landscape by A. Cuyp, the Committee concludes on the grounds of the results of the investigation into the facts described earlier that it was purchased in 1944 by Special Mission Linz for NLG 90,000. Documentation reveals that Göpel corresponded about the acquisitions of the artworks by Codde (see below) and Cuyp through Nijstad. After the war Nijstad specified the work’s provenance as Borghouts, Utrecht on a declaration form. The SNK specified explicitly on the internal declaration form dated before Nijstad’s own declaration that the artwork was purchased via Göpel in 1944 for Special Mission Linz ‘door bemiddeling van Nijstad’ [through mediation by Nijstad]. No indications that this statement was incorrect were found during the investigation. Similarly, no information was found to justify a conclusion that Nijstad had possessed the Cuyp. The Committee concludes on the grounds of this information that Nijstad was not involved in the transaction concerning the Cuyp as owner, but as a broker, intermediary or expert. The Committee is of the opinion that it is not highly plausible that Nijstad can be designated as owner.

NK 2365 – A. Storck, Imaginary Mediterranean Port
The Committee finds that the painting by Storck was purchased by Göpel on behalf of Special Mission Linz in 1944. On the grounds of the declaration obligation described in the overview of the facts, after the war Nijstad filled in a declaration form about the painting. Nijstad specified ‘J.H. Borghouts, Utrecht’ as provenance. He also stated that the work came into Göpel’s possession. Nothing is stated on the declaration form about any possible personal involvement by Nijstad in the transaction.

The SNK completed an internal declaration form about the Storck a week after Nijstad’s declaration. The SNK frequently used the declaration forms that had been submitted to fill in the internal declaration forms. The data that could be deduced from the declaration forms were adopted on the internal declaration forms and – if applicable – supplemented with information obtained by the SNK elsewhere about the transaction, for example in the records of German purchasers. In the case of the painting by Storck, the SNK adopted the name J.H. Borghouts on the internal declaration form as the provenance, but contrary to Nijstad’s own declaration, it stated that the artwork was originally was in the possession of A. Nijstad Lochem. There is the same combination of data on the SNK inventory card. On this white card J.H. Borghouts is specified under the heading Origin with A. Nijstad Lochem stated under Owner.
The Committee finds on these grounds that after the war the SNK concluded that the painting by Storck was the property of Nijstad at the moment it was sold. The Committee takes the view that the mention of Borghouts does not contradict this and that it goes without saying that Borghouts was the person who was the last to be involved in the transaction with Göpel and was specified by Nijstad for that reason. In so doing, Nijstad provided the SNK with the information necessary to facilitate the search for the Storck, which had disappeared at that point, since it would have been possible to find the name Borghouts in the buyer’s records. On the grounds of, among other things, the fact that during the same period Nijstad was working at the SNK, the Committee concludes that, when completing the declaration forms, he has to have been particularly focussed on the information needed by the SNK to search for disappeared artworks. Two months after completing the declaration forms, he declared the following about this:
Het voordeel is dan ook dat ik (…) na de oorlog waardevolle inlichtingen kon geven aan de Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit die konden leiden tot het terugvinden van verdwenen kunstvoorwerpen.[The advantage is therefore that I … was able to provide valuable information to the SNK after the war, which could lead to the recovery of missing artworks.]
The fact that Nijstad was carrying out activities for the SNK has convinced the Committee that, when completing the internal declaration form about the Storck, the SNK could obtain information straight from the horse’s mouth, namely Nijstad himself.

In regard to the combination of the names Borghouts and Nijstad, the Committee furthermore refers to the fact that J.H. Borghouts took over Nijstad’s art dealership during the occupation, in an attempt to help Nijstad, after which the name was changed to Borghouts art dealership, Lochem. This transaction, which the Applicants characterized as a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between two dealers who were friends, was reversed after the war.

The Committee deems it highly plausible on the basis of the information above when considered together that it was not Borghouts but Nijstad who owned the Storck at the moment of sale.

NK 2550 – P. Codde – Portrait of a Married Couple
The Committee comes to a different conclusion as regards the artwork by P. Codde. Documentation has not revealed who owned the artwork prior to its acquisition in 1944 by Special Mission Linz. As was the case with the gouaches by Troost, this artwork was also owned by the Van Aldenburg Bentinck family for a long time During the hearing the Applicants explained with regard to the gouaches by Troost and the artwork by P. Codde that there is hardly any other conclusion imaginable than that their grandfather acted solely as an intermediary. Given the current status of the investigation, the Committee considers it not implausible that the artwork was in the possession of Bentinck and that Nijstad acted as a mediator in the sale to Special Mission Linz. In any event it does not emerge that Nijstad owned the artwork at any point. Furthermore, the Committee also gives weight to the declaration form completed by Nijstad on which he specified Count Bentinck, Middachten as the provenance. The internal declaration form filled in by the SNK also names Count Bentinck as the ‘provenance’. Although Nijstad is given as the original owner on the internal declaration form, the white card states that the artwork was bought by Göpel ‘via Nijstad’ [through Nijstad]. The items of information above, when considered together, lead the Committee to conclude that it is not highly plausible that Nijstad can be designated as owner of the artwork.

Involuntary loss of possession (section 3 of the assessment framework)
Now that it has not become highly plausible that the artworks by Troost, Codde and Cuyp were the property of Nijstad, the Committee does not turn to assessing the nature of the loss of possession of those artworks.

In the assessment of the nature of the loss of possession of the works by Storck, Schelfhout and Hondius, 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.

The Committee finds with regard to these three artworks that declaration forms completed by Nijstad have been found on which he consistently crossed out the phrase confiscatie, diefstal, gedwongen of’ [confiscation, theft, forced or] so that only Is door […] vrijwillige verkoop in bezit gekomen van [Came into the possession of … as a result of voluntary sale} is legible. Although in principle the Committee should rely on the correctness of the data provided on the declaration forms, in their written response and during the hearing the Applicants pointed out the circumstances in which Nijstad filled in these forms. The Applicants contend that, as far as they are concerned, serious questions should be asked about the word ‘voluntary’ against the backdrop of the fact that at the time of the sale of the seven Artworks, Nijstad’s family was imprisoned in Westerbork and was threatened with deportation. The Committee found support for this contention of the Applicants in the investigation conducted by the ECR. Reference was made in it to the particularly dire position of Jewish art lovers in Göpel’s circle. Their own lives, and also those of their family members, depended continuously on the willingness of their principals and on the degree to which they were able to fulfil their expectations. The people who were able to survive the war because their knowledge was used by Special Mission Linz were permanently scarred after the liberation. They had to deal with incomprehension about the position they had found themselves in, often combined with being reproached for collaborating. This point, when taken together with the circumstances characterizing this case, including the internment of Nijstad’s family in Westerbork, leads the Committee to conclude that the way Nijstad filled in the declaration forms after the war cannot be given the weight that is usually attributed to a written statement. The fact that Nijstad understood perfectly well that his cooperation in the sales concerned was not voluntary emerges from his letter of 21 June 1946 in which he commented about his activities as follows: “(..) Deze zaken zouden ook zonder mij doorgang gevonden hebben, aangezien de heren Duitsers beschikten over een leger van adviseurs, en met hun geld deze vrijwillige verkopen afdwongen”. [These transactions would have gone ahead without me because the German gentlemen had an army of advisors and used their money to impose these voluntary sales.]

Now that the declaration forms completed by Nijstad can no longer serve as starting point for appraising the nature of the loss of possession, it is up to the Committee to assess whether there are indications that make involuntary loss of possession sufficiently plausible on the grounds of other facts and circumstances. The Committee takes the following into account against this backdrop.

After the German invasion of the Netherlands, Nijstad could not immediately count on protection from anti-Jewish measures that existed from around 1942. In this context the Committee points to the following facts and general threatening circumstances:

• 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.
• In August 1941 the Nijstad family home in Lochem was attacked by members of the NSB (Dutch National Socialist Movement), who broke windows and destroyed the royal coat of arms.
• Two months later, members of the Jewish community in Lochem were arrested and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp. The Nijstad family narrowly escaped because they had probably received advanced warning.
• Nijstad and his son Saam went into hiding for six weeks with a friend – the furniture maker J.G. Wigman, the manager/caretaker of the branch of the D. Katz art dealership at Lange Voorhout 35 in The Hague.

There are no indications that Nijstad was exempted from the ‘Eerste Liro-verordening’ [first Liro (Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co) Regulation] 148/1941 of 8 August 1941 and the ‘Tweede Liro-verordening’ [second Liro regulation] 58/1942 of 21 May 1942. Given the measures taken against Jews, it is not likely that in this period Nijstad could still openly have financial resources and trade at his own expense. The Applicants do not rule out that Nijstad, given his outstanding relationships with various very wealthy people, was able to clandestinely possess the necessary capital.

The Committee also takes account of the following in its assessment.

• On 29 September 1943 there was a large-scale raid in which Jews who were on the Barneveld list (or were equated to being so) were taken away to Westerbork.
• After the occupation Nijstad wrote that their entire household effects, including the art library he had built up over a period of twenty years, were seized by the Germans and that he, at the time of writing, had never seen anything again.
• Nijstad left Westerbork on 3 February 1944 and was expected to track down art on behalf of Special Mission Linz while his family had to remain behind in Westerbork.
• Five of the seven Artworks were purchased by Special Mission Linz after this moment.

Against the backdrop of the above, the Committee concludes that it is unthinkable, in the absence of circumstances indicating the contrary, that Nijstad did not experience pressure or threats at the time of the sales to Göpel. The Committee therefore takes the view that there were no normal sales by Nijstad as art dealer.

On the grounds of the aforementioned facts and circumstances considered together, the Committee concludes that Nijstad’s involuntary loss of possession is sufficiently plausible, in accordance with the first paragraph of criterion 3.2 of section 3 of the assessment framework

Conclusion with regard to the restitution application
The Committee concludes that it is highly plausible that NK 1759, NK 2194 and NK 2365 were the property of the art dealer Abraham Nijstad and that it is sufficiently plausible that Nijstad lost possession of the Artworks involuntarily as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime.

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

The Committee will advise the Minister to reject the application for restitution of NK 1383, NK 1384, NK 2255 and NK 2550.