3. Establishing the Facts
The Committee establishes the following facts on the grounds of the investigation into the facts conducted by the ECR, in which parts of Dr Kroon’s research are also included.
The Order of Freemasons before the occupation
Freemasonry, which originated in Great Britain, is an initiatory society with a humanistic ideal. In the early eighteenth century various societies joined together to form Grand Lodges, of which the one in England, founded in 1717, is the oldest. The first Masonic lodge in the Netherlands was founded in 1734 in The Hague, L’Union Royale. This was followed a year later by the foundation of a Grand Lodge that is still active today as the Order of Freemasons under the Grand Orient of the Netherlands (hereinafter also referred to as the Order).
From 1816 to 1881 Prince Frederik of the Netherlands (1797–1881), the second son of King William I, fulfilled the role of Grand Master, the highest authority within the Order. In 1846 he purchased the premises at Fluwelen Burgwal 22 in The Hague. Initially he made this building available to the local lodges, but ten years later he officially donated it to the Grand Lodge. Dr Kroon describes how there was talk as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century in the oldest Dutch lodge, L’Union Royale, about setting up a Masonic museum. A library was founded in 1826. L’Union Royale merged with the lodges in The Hague to coincide with the move to Fluwelen Burgwal in 1848. Their legacies were combined with the Order’s property, which was expanded further over the years. In 1854 the Kloss Library, a collection of rare manuscripts, and rare handwritten documents donated by Prince Frederik were brought to the building in Fluwelen Burgwal. After that, exhibitions of archival documents and objects were organized. Exhibition catalogues were printed starting in 1859.
The collection continued to grow thanks to donations, bequests from members and purchases. A museum gallery was furnished and fitted out on the premises in 1910. In 1920 the Order’s main board appointed Willem Nicolaas Arntzenius (1884–1971) as the museum’s deputy curator.
Willem Nicolaas Arntzenius
Willem Nicolaas Arntzenius was initiated into the Hiram Abiff Freemason’s lodge in January 1920. Following on from his appointment in 1920 as deputy curator of the Freemasons’ museum, in 1923 he was appointed deputy librarian, a position he held jointly with André Jean Hooiberg (1873-1937). Starting in 1925, Arntzenius was responsible as curator for the Order’s archive and the museum collection, while Hooiberg was responsible for the library. An acting librarian, the German Freemason Wilhelm Henrich Steul (born in 1894), was taken on after Hooiberg’s death in 1937. Arntzenius and Steul were responsible for the Grand Lodge’s collections at the start of the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940.
Arntzenius played various roles for The Hague City Council, including curator of the municipal archive, for virtually his entire working life in addition to his activities for the Order. Thanks to his position he was able to take archives to a place of safety during the occupation. After he retired, he dedicated himself completely to working for the Order and he concentrated on recovering the possessions of Freemasonry.
Arntzenius collected antiques and art, including paintings and engravings. His painting collection comprised primarily family portraits and works by the Hague School. As far as his family members know, Arntzenius’s collection did not contain any seventeenth-century works
The Order of Freemasons during the occupation
The Nazis saw Freemasonry, with its secretive nature and ideal of freedom, as a threat. In their propaganda they portrayed Freemasonry as a Jewish conspiracy. On 21 May 1940, a week after the Netherlands had capitulated on 15 May, occupying forces visited the Order’s lodge at Fluwelen Burgwal 22. Grand Secretary August Frederik Leopold Faubel (1865-1953) wrote the following about this visit:
It was indicative of the spirit of that visit that it immediately began with the question whether the Grand Master was a Jew, which – perhaps to the gentlemen’s disappointment – had to be answered in the negative. How many Jews were members of the Order? This question could not be answered either because of a lack of data. We had no statistics about Jews because the Order does not ask members which race they belong to.
Faubel’s post-war report also reveals that, after the discussion, the Germans went through the building and the membership records and sealed a few rooms. During the weeks that followed ‘The order’s premises were visited constantly by German police. Archival documents, correspondence, membership lists, notebooks, minutes of all sorts of meetings, the library, etc. were examined on the spot or taken to their office.’ Starting in May 1940 there were also thefts of individual items from the lodges.
Liquidation
Freemasonry was dissolved in September 1940. So too were such organizations as the Rotary Club and the Dutch Rosicrucian Society. This measure was implemented by the Commander of the Security Police and the SD. By order of the General Commissioner for Special Tasks, Fritz Schmidt (1903-1943), dated 30 September 1940, the assets of the dissolved organisations were requisitioned for the ‘general benefit’ of the occupied Dutch territory on the basis of Regulation 33/1940. The Department of International Organizations (RIO), headed by the German Werner Schwier (1907-1971), was responsible for the dissolution of many international organizations labelled by the Nazis as ‘hostile ‘. Schwier located his head office in the order’s premises at Fluwelen Burgwal 22. The Hague lawyer and local counsel Joan Muller (1886-1955) was appointed as liquidator-general to liquidate the lodges. Twelve Dutch lawyers were appointed province liquidators. Freemason lodges throughout the country were subsequently systematically liquidated.
The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (ERR) had anticipated liquidation and had already taken away the valuable archives and libraries of the Order, including the Kloss Library, as well as those of its lodges and related organizations, to Germany. The intention was to provide them to Alfred Rosenberg’s Advanced School of the NSDAP. This involved 470 crates of library and archive items Valuable jewellery belonging to the Order was also removed from the premises prior to the liquidation. The province liquidators were then tasked with liquidating the movable property. This was carried out through public and private sales. The proceeds were paid to Muller. Liquidation auctions were held in 1940 and at the beginning of 1941 throughout the whole country. Freemasons tried to buy back objects of historical or sentimental value at these sales.
The province liquidators received instructions to destroy all objects with Masonic symbols unless they were valuable or they could still be sold after the symbols had been removed. In that case they had to be surrendered to RIO or at the designated collection centres. This also applied to paintings.
The post-war official report on the activities of liquidator general Joan Muller reveals that in some cases he exercised leniency. The province liquidator for the city of The Hague and the northern part of the province of South Holland, Fred. C. Stähle, stated:
I know of several cases in which Muller, in consultation with me and possibly with others, attempted to retain paintings and other valuable artwork in Dutch hands. This could be done by donating or selling them to museums or similar institutions.
According to Stähle, Muller was sensitive to statements from members that certain objects were family property:
As far as liquidation in my area was concerned, I know that Muller was rather accommodating when it came to goods that were the private property of the members. These were often handed over upon the mere declaration of these members that this or that was their personal property.
A few Freemasons were also questioned about Muller’s actions. Arntzenius’s statement reveals that the Order’s portrait collection was saved from destruction in consultation with Muller:
At the end of 1940, he [Muller] invited me to meet with him to discuss the route he should follow to save the portraits, which were the Order’s property, from a genealogical standpoint. … We agreed to donate them to the Dutch State, and I saw the opportunity to save them for the lodge.
Muller stated the following in this regard:
I saved an estimated 150 to 200 paintings and lithographs from the lodge in The Hague from destruction by donating them to the Iconology Bureau in The Hague in consultation with Dr Van Gelder, director of that bureau, as they were actually to be destroyed on Schwier’s instructions. I also sold a life-size portrait of HM the Queen, painted by Nauta, and a life-size portrait of Prince Frederik for the very low sum of 200 guilders. In so doing I ensured that these portraits were not lost, and on the other hand I was able to point out the benefits in favour of liquidation. Schwier relented, accepted the latter argument and allowed the sale.
After liquidation
Alongside suppressing Freemasonry and plundering its assets, the Nazis conducted a propaganda campaign against the organization. In 1941 the aforementioned Werner Schwier published a booklet entitled De Vrijmetselarij, een volkvijandige organisatie [Freemasonry, an anti-people organization]. The exhibition ‘Freemasonry in the Netherlands’ opened in the building in Fluwelen Burgwal in May 1941, and later on it was staged in various Dutch cities. The brochure accompanying the exhibition ‘reveals’ the international collaboration between Freemasons and Jews, and describes Freemasonry as, among other things, ‘an instrument for exclusively Jewish interests’. A report from the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce (ERR), translated by the allies, reveals that it was the intention to hand the objects over to them.
There was no systematic persecution policy against individual members of the Order, but Grand Master Hermannus van Tongeren (1876-1941) was arrested in October 1940. He was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the beginning of March 1941, and he died there on 29 March 1941.
The Order of Freemasons after the occupation
In September 1945 the Netherlands Property Administration Institute (NBI) restored the Order’s legal status retroactively. The building at Fluwelen Burgwal 22 was released in April 1946. The Order no longer had any cash and was in urgent need of resources to resume its activities. A few overmantel paintings were sold to this end. In the Order’s archive is a 1964 letter from the lawyers Dr W. Diamand and M. Ingrid Roessel informing them that a claim for damages amounting to 600,000 deutschmarks had been granted. This was done on the grounds of the post-war legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany, namely the Federal Restitution Law (BRüG). The Applicant explains as follows:
A further note is in order here about the said sum of 600,000 guilders [sic deutschmarks] compensation for damages. Until now it has been estimated that the plundering of Freemasonry generated about 9 million guilders for the Nazis (the current equivalent of some 74 million euros!). In fact, the amount was many times higher. Starting in May 1940, and throughout the occupation, there were also thefts of individual items from the lodges, out of sight of the liquidators. As said, they kept little account of their own theft. There are records of auctions of Freemason property organized by the occupying forces, but the valuations of the stolen goods were deliberately kept low, for example market values as though they were everyday objects, while they were often valuable antiques, art or heritage. The ritual objects were kept outside the liquidation and therefore also outside the scope of the calculations. Regalia and ritual objects of precious metal and precious stones had to be handed over to Schwier personally. There are no known records relating to this. The historical libraries, archives and museum objects taken away by the ERR and Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) were not valued in regard to their antiquarian value. The value of the Kloss Library alone was estimated in 1930 at 5 million dollars.
After the liberation it was impossible for the Grand Lodge and the affiliated lodges to prove how severely they had actually been affected because financial records had been destroyed or stolen.
The Painting
The Painting, Fruit Still Life by Johannes Bosschaert, is an oil painting on panel with dimensions 68.6 x 108.9 cm. The Painting has been part of the NK Collection since it was returned from Germany in 1948.
Many of Bosschaert’s works can be described using the same wording. They are still lifes with flowers or fruit, or a combination thereof, usually presented in a vase, in a basket or on a dish. The individual artworks, however, can easily be distinguished from one another. There are no known copies or very similar examples of the Painting.
No provenance information was unearthed about the Painting in the period before 1938. The collection, exhibition and sales catalogues that were studied provided no leads. The Applicant considers this to be confirmation that the Painting had already been in the possession of the Order for a long time and had remained out of sight of the general public.
A fruit still life on a photograph of the Order’s main board can be identified as the Painting. According to the Applicant, this photograph was used to introduce the new board to the members in a 1938 Freemasonry members’ magazine. The year 1938 is written on the back of this photograph.
Additional photographic material from the Applicant supports its contention that the photograph was taken on the Order’s premises. They are photographs of the Grand Secretary’s office in 1911. The Applicant points out the similarity in the motif of grooves in the fireplace. The light fittings next to the mirror also correspond very closely with those in the 1938 photograph.
The photograph was probably taken in the Grand Secretary’s room. At the beginning of the nineteen-thirties the lodge’s interior was completely renovated in the context of urban renewal. Dr Kroon wrote the following about it:
The still life by Bosschaert can be seen next to a cupboard with a globe on it in a 1938 group photograph of the main board. The 1932 inventory refers to a globe in the Grand Secretary’s room. Since there were renovation works in the nineteen-thirties, it seems plausible that the still life was moved during that period from the dining room to the Grand Secretary’s room. The 1938 group photograph, without recognizable windows or other identifying elements, was probably taken in the Grand Secretary’s room, which is consistent with other photographs of the main board dating from the 1920s and 1930s, which were taken in more easily recognizable boardrooms.
1932 lodge inventory
The inventory referred to in the quotation above is a listing concerning the building at Fluwelen Burgwal 22 prepared by M.J.N. Wakkie on 20 September 1932. The inventory of the Grand Secretary’s room at that moment contained a number of objects, including four paintings. The inventory also mentions two unspecified still lifes in the dining room: one on the wall and one above the mantelpiece.
Pre-war catalogues of the Order’s museum date from 1910 and 1913. The Painting was not found in these catalogues. The objects that were part of the museum collection had a clear link with Freemasonry as regards history or symbolism. The Painting has no Freemasonry symbolism and should therefore most probably not be considered a part of the museum collection but as being among the Order’s belongings. This is also confirmed by the Applicant’s research in the handwritten lists of museum items: ‘NK 2856 and 14698 do not appear to be on these lists, which once again underlines that they were considered to be part of the belongings and not part of the collection’.
According to the Applicant, the Order’s museum had an acquisition policy but no divestiture policy and furthermore had had no financial need to divest itself of belongings.
The Painting during the Occupation
The Freemasons were refused access to the building after the Netherlands capitulated in May 1940 and the premises at Fluwelen Burgwal 22 were seized by the Nazis. Nevertheless, Arntzenius and the building’s caretaker, Nicolaas Peters, were able to take a few important items to a place of safety. An article written by G.F. Venema in the Algemeen Maçonniek Tijdschrift to mark Arntzenius’s fiftieth anniversary as a Freemason in 1970 recounts that at the beginning of the war, Arntzenius and Peters secured ‘archival documents, museum pieces, tableaus and regalia’ by getting into the Order’s building at night. According to Venema, several valuable paintings were ‘cut from their frames and later sold in consultation with Brothers Caron and Faubel to raise the funds so essential for the continuation of the Order.’
The Painting is painted on panel and will therefore not have been among the paintings referred to by Venema. Yet it is clear that members of the Order succeeded in removing objects from the lodge early in the occupation. It is not known exactly which artworks were taken by Arntzenius and Peters to a place of safety.
It is possible that the Painting was among them. Arntzenius is linked several times to the Painting in archival documents. Documentation in the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), for example, refers, with regard to two paintings that were photographed on the instructions of Hendrik Schuuring in May 1944 together with the Painting, to ‘Arntzenius collection, The Hague’, 1944’ and ‘Arntzenius collection, Wassenaar, 1944’. Descendants of Arntzenius interviewed for this investigation recognize the descriptions about their grandfather from family stories. In this context they recalled that their grandfather brought objects belonging to the Order to his home. They stated, for instance, that their grandfather had had to testify in court and had declared that the goods stolen from the Order were family possessions, yet the actual goods were the property of the Order. According to his grandchildren, this was how Arntzenius kept possessions of the Order safe. He returned them to the Freemasons after the war. The role played by Arntzenius and Peters in keeping the Order’s property safe is referred to in various sources and family stories.
The sale of the Painting in 1944
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. Initially the small organization that carried out these instructions comprised largely of employees of the Gemäldegalerie Dresden and was known as the Sonderauftrag Linz (Special Mission Linz). 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 on 1 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.
The sums paid by the German authorities for paintings during the occupation were large. Prices shot through the roof during the years of the occupation. Fears that the boom on the art market was past its best resulted in explosive growth in the supply of paintings for sale. Between 1 January and 30 June 1944, Special Mission Linz purchased dozens of additional paintings in the Netherlands for a total 3.6 million guilders.
Despite the high prices that German buyers were offering, some Dutch art owners were reluctant to sell their works, both on principle and for fear of being seen in a bad light later, or worse still of being accused of collaboration or trading with the enemy. During the years of the occupation both Posse, and later on also Göpel, mobilized a small circle of mostly German-Jewish refugees, who were deployed in the identification and acquisition of art on behalf of the Third Reich and who obtained various temporary exemptions from anti-Jewish measures to that end. They facilitated the execution of Göpel’s instructions 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.
May 1944: photographic reproductions on the instructions of Hendrik Schuuring
In May 1944 the Hague-based photographer Alexander Jean Alphonsus Antonius (‘Lex’) Dingjan (1893-1966), a specialist in taking photographs of works of art, made a photographic reproduction of the Painting. Many glass negatives originating from Dingjan’s firm have survived and are in the RKD. These glass negatives usually bear a negative number and a client number. In 1944 Dingjan kept track of his clients in a notebook. The name ‘Schuuring’ is recorded under the month of May and after client number 430, with the corresponding negative numbers 441312 to 441314. The photographic reproduction of the Painting has negative number 441312 and client number 430. Negative number 441313 concerns a painting of sheep and a goat by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (1821-1909). A postcard from the RKD’s pictorial documentation relating to this work states: ‘Arntzenius collection, The Hague, 1944’. Negative number 441314 relates to a fish still life by Abraham van Beyeren (1620-1690). The postcard from the RKD’s pictorial documentation about this work states: ‘Arntzenius collection, Wassenaar 1944’. As regards the Fish Still Life, the Applicant contends it is plausible that this painting was also the property of the Order.
Since the said three reproductions were made by Dingjan at the same time and pursuant to the same instructions from Schuuring, it is obvious that the references to ‘Arntzenius’ in the RKD’s pictorial documentation are about the same person. A similar reference to Arntzenius with regard to the Painting was not found in the RKD’s pictorial documentation.
Vitale Bloch and Hendrik Schuuring
Given the other information that has been found, the remark ‘Schuuring’ in Dingjan’s notebook refers to the restorer Hendrik Schuuring (1883-1955). He worked together with the Russian-Jewish art historian, art dealer and collector Vitale Bloch (1900-1975). During the war years Bloch and Schuuring were involved in several purchases by Dr Erhard Göpel on behalf of Special Mission Linz. During the war Bloch occupied a room in Schuuring’s home at 2nd Sweelinckstraat in The Hague.
Purchase by Göpel
Research has revealed that the Painting was bought around 5 June 1944 for 20,000 guilders by Dr Erhard Göpel on behalf of Special Mission Linz. On 5 June 1944 Hendrik Schuuring sent a handwritten invoice to Special Mission Linz concerning four artworks, of which the Painting was by far the most valuable: ‘Still life by Jan Bosschaaert (…) f. 20,000’. A receipt signed by Schuuring was found in the Special Mission Linz archive on which Schuuring confirmed on 7 June 1944 he had received the amount totalling 23,650 guilders in good order. The sum of 20,000 guilders can be found in the statements of the Special Account: the account to which the German authorities in the Netherlands posted the purchases of artworks. The entry includes the name Schuuring and the date 9 June 1944.
The aforementioned fish still life by Abraham van Beyeren was photographed by Dingjan in May 1944 at the same time as the painting by Bosschaert. The order was placed by Schuuring, and the work supposedly came from the ‘Arntzenius collection, Wassenaar’. The fish still life was sold to Göpel around 30 June 1944 via Schuuring for 12,500 guilders.
On 20 July 1944 Dr Hermann Voss wrote to Chief of the Reich Chancellery Hans Lammers enclosing an overview of the purchases in ‘the occupied Dutch territories in The Hague’ between 1 January and 30 June 1944. This overview lists the purchase of the Painting ‘Still Life’ from H. Schuuring in The Hague for a sum of 20,000 guilders, with the transaction dated 9 June 1944. After its acquisition by Special Mission Linz, the painting was shipped to Germany on 28 and 29 June 1944.
Theft from the Führer’s Building and recovery
When the allies approached Munich at the end of April 1945, the Painting was in the air raid shelters of the Führer’s Building in Munich, together with hundreds of other artworks. A large proportion of them was destined for the Führer Museum to be built in Linz. The Painting was stolen from the air raid shelters in April 1945 during what was known as the Führer’s Building Theft. The stolen Painting was retrieved in September 1946 and taken to the Central Collecting Point Munich (CCPM) by the criminal investigation department. In July 1948 the Painting was returned from Munich to Amsterdam, where it went into the custody of the SNK.
Netherlands Art Property Foundation (SNK) declarations
Tracking down artworks returned from Germany required information about what had been lost. Everyone with knowledge about artworks in enemy possession was obliged to provide information to the SNK so that the necessary information could be collected. The military authorities promulgated regulation 133 on 24 July 1945 in that context. This declaration obligation applied to former owners and also to everyone who knew of artworks that ended up in enemy hands after 10 May 1940. This applied irrespective of someone’s involvement and regardless of how the work ceased being in the possession of the original owner.
The investigation did not establish that a declaration had been made about the Painting after the occupation. On an internal declaration form filled in by the SNK on 12 February 1946 it is stated that it was originally in the possession of ‘Bloch, The Hague’ with ‘Arntzenius Z., The Hague’ given as the provenance. It supposedly came into Goepel‘s possession via Schuuring on 9 June1944 as a result of a voluntary sale.
The SNK archive contains a typed post-war list entitled ‘PURCHASES BY GOEPEL since 7 June ’44 (referred to in letters)’. This list contains ‘J. Bosschaert, Fruit still life’, with the date 7 June 1944. Alongside this list an SNK employee noted the name ‘Arntzenius’ in pencil. On a separate sheet of paper listing works sold to Göpel via Schuuring, the provenance of the Painting is given as ‘Arntzenius collection The Hague’.
The name Arntzenius is also referred to in German sources about recovery of the artwork, including a reference in the Dresdner Katalog.
Furthermore, Arntzenius himself played an important part in the Order’s efforts to get its possessions back. A management file entitled the Grand Orient of the Netherlands (The Hague) was found in the SNK archive. It contains correspondence between the SNK and representatives of the Order, mostly authored by Arntzenius. Most documentation in the management file concerns the recovery of books and archives. There are also mentions of more general objects, such as chairs and curtains, and specific items, for instance the golden gavel and the bust of Prince Frederik.
In August 1945 Arntzenius sent the SNK catalogues and a brief description of the Order’s collections. Arntzenius refers in his description to the following collections owned by the Order: the library (1), the manuscript collection (2), the print collection (3), the museum collection (4) and the Kloss Library (5). The management file also contains a statement of the seized possessions that were found; ‘transported to Germany, probably to Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Berlin’. In addition to the aforementioned collections, this list also includes the Order’s archive (6) and temple (7). No references to the Painting were found. There are no indications that the Order made a declaration about the Painting to the SNK.
The archive also contains overviews of heritage collections that the Order provided the SNK with for the purposes of recovery and a valuation of stolen goods. This report was prepared in August 1945 by valuer Leendert Kok. It concerns the movable property that was present on 10 May 1940 in the building at Fluwelen Burgwal 22, but that was no longer to be found during an inspection on 1 August 1945. No paintings are listed on the inventory of the room of Mr Faubel, the Grand Secretary.
At the bottom of the entire inventory and total valuation, there is a subheading ‘Pro Memoria’. Below this subheading, in addition to the museum collection and the library, ‘paintings’ are also listed as a separate category. This, together with the absence of paintings on the list itself, indicates that these categories were kept completely outside the valuation. The Applicant explains this as follows:
It is easy to explain the omission of the paintings, including NK 2856, in the valuation by Leendert Kok in 1945. Arntzenius was responsible for providing information about the collection and supplied catalogues to the SNK to that end. NK 2856 was not included because of the absence of Freemasonry symbolism. Valuer Kok was responsible for listing the contents and, based on the assumption that Arntzenius would take all paintings into consideration, did not realize that some did not belong to the museum, but were part of the contents. In other words, each of them assumed that the other would include NK 2856. Given the huge amount of paperwork associated with restoration of rights, it might be that no one noticed this.
The efforts of the Order and the SNK resulted in recovery, primarily of valuable books and archives. The main board stated the following in the 1946 annual report of the Grand Lodge:
It was possible to track down in Germany the costly library and most of our archive looted by the Germans and to send them back to their former home… The main board extends its special appreciation to Brother W.N. Arntzenius, curator of the archive, for the outstanding, very difficult work he has done in this regard.
The annual report covering the period from 1 March 1947 to 1 March 1948, states:
The Masonic museum has as yet only received a small proportion of its former possessions. Fortunately, the portrait collection and the collection of aprons are an exception to this. Prince Frederik’s golden chair’s gavel, stolen by the Germans, has come into our possession again thanks to the involvement of the Netherlands Art Property Foundation, which also saw to the return of our library.
The aforementioned portrait collection was kept intact because it was taken to the home of Brothers, as were the aprons. In particular, the curator Brother Arntzenius, who I referred to above, had large quantities of items in his residence.
A few objects were restituted to the Order by the NBI over and above these returned through the efforts of the SNK. In this case they were objects that were held by the liquidator Joan Muller, but that were the Order’s property. Arntzenius signed for receipt of these goods as representative of the Order. In 2000 Evert Kwaadgras, at that time librarian of the Dutch Museum of Freemasonry (Cultureel Maçonniek Centrum Prins Frederik), wrote that 95% of the Order’s library and 80% of its archive had returned. A few years later, in 2003, part of the archive was restituted to the Grand Lodge from Moscow. Archival material is currently still missing, in particular items dating from the 1930s.
Unlike the archives and libraries, to this day most of the museum objects have not returned.
