(France) Genealogists Help Identify Families to Return Nazi Stolen Art

[Jan Meisels Allen janmallen@att.net]

X-No-archive: yes
Painstaking detective work by French genealogists scouring death records and
other private and public archives resulted in putting together family trees
of Nazi victims. The French genealogists are close to identifying several
families as the rightful owners of recovered Nazi looted art. The
genealogists' searches led them to Britain, Switzerland, Luxembourg,
Portugal and Japan. President of Genealogists of France, Antoine Djikpa said
their "goal is to establish all legal certainty."

Previously, the French government relied on owners of lost or looted World
War ll art treasures to seek out the government. With the passage of time
and recognizing that identifying owners may soon be one with the passage of
time, the French government is now actively seeking the rightful owners.

The first beneficiary was the daughter of Maurice Dreyfus who received a
charcoal sketch of three ballerinas by Edgar Degas in 2015. Mr. Dreyfus died
in 1957. France's museums still have 2,000 pieces of unclaimed art and
other treasures that were recovered by the Allies after defeating the Nazis
in 1945. At least 145 of the items are known to have been stolen from Jews.

To read the story go to: http://tinyurl.com/hd3rbr5
Original url:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f52ce5941ff14a5bbd7803fefb331179/healing-wounds-looted-art-reunited-nazi-victims-heirs

Thank you to Jewish genner, Randy Herschaft, Associated Press for sharing
this story with us.

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee
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