Centre Pompidou Archives - bruckfamilyblog.com

POST 189: CEREMONY FOR THE RESTITUTION OF THREE PAINTINGS LOOTED FROM MY FATHER’S COUSIN FÉDOR LOWENSTEIN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: SEPTEMBER 16, 2025

Note: In this post, I tell the story of how after eleven years I prevailed in my quest to have three surviving paintings seized from my father’s first cousin Fédor Löwenstein by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 returned to me. I include pictures from the formal restitution event that took place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on the 16^th of September 2025 and share French and English versions of the 18-minute speech I delivered on the occasion. Along with previous posts I’ve written on this longstanding saga, this post provides readers with some of the history of the seizure along with the story of how I eventually succeeded in my pursuit.

POST 160: UPDATE ON COMPENSATION CLAIM AGAINST THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE INVOLVING NAZI-CONFISCATED FAMILY ART

While this is a story eleven years in the making, the tale had its genesis almost 85 years ago in December 1940. This is when 25 paintings destined for an art gallery in New York were seized at the Port of Bordeaux in France by the Nazis from my father’s first cousin, Fédor Löwenstein. (Figure 1) As I’ve previously reported the Nazis shipped them to the Jeu de Paume in Paris where they were slated to be “vernichtet,” German word for destroyed, as examples of so-called “degenerate art.”

Figure 1. The artist Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946) (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Miraculously, three of Fedor Löwenstein’s confiscated works of art survived (Figure 2), although in 1973 they were conveniently integrated into the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, housed in the Centre Pompidou as an “anonymous donation.” This “error” was only uncovered in 2010. Following this revelation, the French Minister of Culture began the search for the legitimate owner. However, before the Minister of Culture could find me, I contacted them.

Figure 2. Fedor Löwenstein’s three surviving works of art titled from left to right: “Les Arbres,” “Les Peupliers,” and “Composition” (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

As I’ve previously written about in Post 105 and Post 160, I learned about the three surviving paintings in 2014 while doing some forensic genealogy in Berlin. Coincidentally, 2014 is the year that the three seized paintings were first displayed in the city where they were initially seized, in Bordeaux at the Musée des Beaux-Arts. When I learned about the paintings, I immediately contacted the curator of the exhibit, Mme Florence Saragoza (Figure 3), who helped me file a restitution claim. I was eligible to file this claim by dint of the fact that as Fédor Löwenstein’s first cousin once-removed, I’m his closest surviving relative; Fédor never had any children nor did either of his two siblings.

Figure 3. On a bridge overlooking the Seine River framed by a rainbow from left to right, my wife Ann Finan, Mme Muriel de Bastier from the French Ministry of Culture’s “Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS),” and Mme Florence Saragoza

Because France has a civil law system rather a common law system, my claim was trumped by those of two so-called “universal legatees” and denied. It was subrogated by the French Minister of Culture’s Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS) without the legatees ever having even lifted a finger, done any work or research, or even been aware of the artist. To say this was galling is an understatement. To rectify this outrageous situation necessitated a lengthy, costly, and litigious process that took eleven years to resolve. It was only because the French Ministry of Culture was offering a substantial sum of money as compensation for the 22 presumably destroyed works of art, compensation I was willing to forego to obtain possession of the paintings, that Fedor Löwenstein’s works of art now belong to me.

It would be disingenuous to pretend that money does not factor into compensation claims filed by Jewish heirs. Afterall, the only justice many such people are ever apt to obtain for the crimes perpetuated against their ancestors are financial. In my case, this was not possible. That said, I’m satisfied that the path going forward will lead to my ancestor Fédor Löwenstein obtaining some of the accolades he never received in life. He failed to achieve this recognition because he died prematurely at age 45 of Hodgkins Lymphoma and because the Nazis denied him this validation.

I have not decided on the ultimate disposition of the three Löwenstein paintings but over the next few years, I will be loaning them to two museums in Paris, the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme (MAHJ) and the Musée de l’Orangerie, and possibly to the Centre National Jean Moulin in Bordeaux.

Regular readers know that over the years I’ve written about my compensation claim involving the French Minister of Culture’s CIVS, often venting great frustration. I direct first-time readers to these earlier posts, namely, Post 105 and Post 160.

The Restitution Ceremony was held on the 16^th of September 2025 on the fifth floor of the Centre Pompidou in the Grand Salon. (Figure 4) Because the Centre Pompidou has just begun a five-year renovation, the museum was empty save for the approximately 50-75 people who attended the event. Several distinguished guests participated and spoke at the event, after which I was given the floor to say a few remarks. I delivered an 18- minute speech in French, a language I’m reasonably fluent in.

Figure 4. My wife and I standing inside the Centre Pompidou by the sign announcing the Restitution Ceremony

Restitution ceremonies comparable to the one I was the center of are rare events. Without exaggerating, they tend to be noteworthy and newsworthy. Ordinarily, the French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati would have presided over the Restitution Ceremony. Unfortunately, the date of the ceremony coincided with the period after September 8^th in the wake of the French government’s collapse after Prime Minister François Bayrou lost a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly, forcing French President Emmanuel Macron to seek a new prime minister. Because there was no official French Minister of Culture on the 16^th of September, the ceremony was instead presided over by the M. Laurent Le Bon (Figure 5), President of the Centre Pompidou, and M. Luc Allaire (Figure 6), Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture, on behalf of the Minister of Culture.

Figure 5. M. Laurent Le Bon, President of the Centre Pompidou, delivering his prepared remarks at the Restitution Ceremony on September 16, 2025

Figure 6. M. Luc Allaire, Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture, on behalf of the Minister of Culture, delivering his prepared remarks at the Restitution Ceremony on September 16, 2025

Below, I attach the text of my speech in both French and English, along with additional pictures of the event. (Figures 7-18)

Figure 7. Alongside my wife Ann Finan and my cousin Jean-Pierre Bruyere and his wife Huguette Ferre-Bruyere, standing by Fedor Löwenstein’s “Composition” painting (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 8. At the Restitution Ceremony on the 16th of September 2025, me standing between Mme Florence Saragoza (left) and my wife Ann (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 9. At the Restitution Ceremony on the 16th of September, me, my wife Ann, and Florence Saragoza listening to speakers (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 10. Delivering my speech at the Restitution Ceremony with the French and European Union flags as backdrop (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 11. My wife and me standing on either side of Fedor Löwenstein’s “Composition” painting (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 12. Closeup of Fedor Löwenstein’s “Les Arbres” painting with the red “X” signifying the painting was to be destroyed (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 13. Mme Christelle Creff, Head of the Museums of France Department, and me signing the “Discharge Agreement” handing over official title of Fedor Löwenstein’s three surviving paintings (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 14. Mme Rachel Rimmer from the French Shoah Foundation at the Restitution Ceremony (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 15. Me being interviewed during the Restitution Ceremony by Mr. Wolfgang Landmesser from German WDR radio (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 16. Me at the Restitution Ceremony

Figure 17. My wife and I standing on the terrace outside the Grand Salon at the Pompidou Centre with the restored Notre Dame Cathedral in the background

FRENCH

Mesdames et Messieurs,

Je tiens à vous remercier chaleureusement de votre présence à cette cérémonie.

Citoyen américain, je me nomme Richard BROOK. Je vais vous raconter en quelques mots la raison de ma présence, mon lien avec l’artiste Fédor LÖWENSTEIN et comment j’ai appris son existence.

Je suis aujourd’hui à Paris pour reprendre possession de trois tableaux de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN.

Ces tableaux font partie des 25 œuvres saisies par les nazis au port de Bordeaux en décembre 1940 alors que Fédor tentait de les envoyer à une galerie d’art à New York. Les nazis considéraient ces œuvres comme des exemples de ce qu’ils appelaient « l’art dégénéré ». Après leur saisie, elles furent expédiées au Jeu de Paume en attendant d’être détruites. On présume pour exposition que les 22 autres œuvres saisies à Fédor ont effectivement été détruites. La preuve que le même sort attendait les trois tableaux survivants se trouve sur la surface des toiles. En effet, de grands « X » y ont été tracés, signifiant qu’ils devaient être « vernichtet », le mot allemand pour « détruit ».

J’aime à imaginer que votre héroïne française, MME Rose VALLAND, a joué un rôle essentiel dans la sauvegarde des trois œuvres qui se trouvent devant vous. Elle était le seul membre du personnel du Jeu de Paume à avoir été maintenue en poste par les nazis pendant leur occupation de Paris.

Fédor LÖWENSTEIN est souvent considéré comme un artiste tchécoslovaque. La famille de son père était en effet originaire de ce pays. Il est évident que Fédor ressentait un lien profond avec la patrie de son père. L’une des peintures les plus célèbres de Fédor s’intitule « La Chute ». Elle s’inspire de la signature des accords de Munich le 30 septembre 1938. Ces accords ont démantelé la Tchécoslovaquie de l’époque et conduit à l’annexion des Sudètes par l’Allemagne. Cette peinture s’inspire de « Guernica », le tableau anti-guerre de Picasso datant de 1937.

Fédor LÖWENSTEIN est né en 1901 à Munich. Il était l’aîné de trois enfants. Sa mère, née Hedwig BRUCK, était ma grand-tante (mon nom de famille BROOK est la version anglicisée de BRUCK). Hedwig était la tante de mon père; Fédor et mon père étaient donc cousins germains. On ne sait pas très bien à quel point ils se connaissaient. Fédor et sa mère sont morts à Nice avant ma naissance en 1950. Cependant, enfant, j’ai rencontré le frère et la sœur cadets de Fédor, Jeanne, affectueusement surnommée « Hansi », et Heinz. Mon père était proche d’eux.

Je suis le descendant direct le plus proche de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN encore en vie. Ni Fédor, ni son frère, ni sa sœur n’ont eu d’enfant. La France étant un pays de droit civil, j’ai dû mener une bataille juridique de près de 11 ans pour récupérer ces trois tableaux. En effet selon la loi française, les droits de deux « légataires universels » priment sur les miens. Cependant, mon avocat a réussi à convaincre la CIVS (Commission pour l’Indemnisation des Victimes de Spoliations) que mon long travail de recherches et mes actions nécessaires et indispensables à la mise à jour des 3 tableaux devaient être également indemnisés. Cela n’a en en effet été possible que parce que j’ai été le premier à découvrir que la CIVS cherchait à restituer les tableaux de LÖWENSTEIN à ses descendants. C’est également moi qui ai déposé la demande initiale.

J’ai pu obtenir la possession des tableaux en renonçant à toute compensation financière offerte par la CIVS pour les 22 tableaux détruits. Cette somme est considérable. Au risque d’offenser quelqu’un, j’ai le sentiment d’avoir obtenu gain de cause sans l’intervention de la justice. Il serait peut-être exagéré de dire que cela ressemble presque à une victoire à la Pyrrhus… Deux légataires universels sont indemnisés et récompensés pour un travail que j’ai accompli et payé. Qu’il soit permis de dire que dans un pays régi par la common law, cela ne se serait pas produit.

Permettez-moi de vous raconter brièvement comment j’ai découvert l’existence de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. Mon père ne parlait jamais de sa famille, à l’exception de sa sœur bien-aimée Suzanne, arrêtée à Fayence en août 1942 et assassinée à Auschwitz. J’ai découvert le reste de la famille de mon père grâce à mes propres recherches généalogiques.

Au cours de ces recherches, j’ai découvert que les documents personnels de deux tantes de Fédor, deux autres grands-tantes célèbres, étaient archivés au Stadtmuseum de Berlin. En 2014, j’ai pris des dispositions pour examiner et photographier tous les documents et toutes les photos. La collection comprenait plusieurs photos de Fédor. J’ai rapidement compris qu’il était le frère aîné de Hansi et Heinz, que j’avais rencontrés quand j’étais enfant.

Il y avait également plusieurs lettres, toutes écrites en allemand, langue que je ne maîtrise pas. La plupart étaient manuscrites et presque impossibles à déchiffrer. Mais quelques-unes étaient dactylographiées, principalement par la sœur de Fédor, « Hansi ». À mon retour aux États-Unis, j’ai traduit ses lettres dactylographiées, les seules que je pouvais lire, à l’aide d’une application de traduction. Dans une lettre datée d’août 1946, Hansi écrivait qu’elle avait vendu à titre posthume l’une des peintures de Fédor pour 90 000 francs français. Cela semblait être une somme énorme en 1946.

Déterminé à en savoir plus sur Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, j’ai contacté en 2014 une connaissance travaillant à la mairie de Nice. Je lui ai demandé si elle pouvait trouver la nécrologie de Fédor. Elle m’a plutôt envoyé des liens vers plusieurs articles. Le plus instructif concernait une exposition qui avait eu lieu en 2014 au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux et qui présentait ces trois tableaux. Vers 2010, le Centre Pompidou a découvert que les œuvres de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN lui avaient été confisquées pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’exposition à Bordeaux était la première exposition publique consacrée à cette découverte.

Par coïncidence, 2014 est la même année où ma femme Ann et moi avons passé 13 semaines en Europe. Nous avons voyagé en voiture du nord-est de la Pologne au sud de l’Espagne, visitant des lieux associés à la diaspora de ma famille juive. Si nous avions su qu’il y avait une exposition, nous aurions certainement fait un détour par Bordeaux.

Les documents que j’ai reçus identifiaient Mme Florence SARAGOZA comme la commissaire de l’exposition et fournissaient une adresse électronique. Je l’ai immédiatement contactée. Elle m’a répondu deux jours plus tard. Je me souviendrai toujours de sa réponse. Elle m’a dit, en substance, que le fait d’apprendre qu’un membre de la famille LÖWENSTEIN avait survécu l’avait émue aux larmes. Florence – nous nous appelons désormais par nos prénoms – m’a gracieusement proposé de m’aider à déposer une demande d’indemnisation. Compte tenu de sa connaissance de Fédor, son aide m’a été précieuse. Je serai éternellement reconnaissant à Florence pour son aide désintéressée et compatissante au fil des ans. J’ai la plus haute estime pour Florence.

Il y a quelques autres personnes que je tiens à remercier. Tout d’abord, ma femme, Ann FINAN, qui a été ma plus grande supportrice et admiratrice tout au long de ces 11 années difficiles. Elle m’a aidé à créer mon blog sur l’histoire de ma famille (bruckfamilyblog.com), où j’ai écrit plus de 200 articles depuis ses débuts en 2017.

Après le rejet initial de ma demande par la CIVS début 2020, j’ai rédigé un article de blog très critique pour dénoncer cette décision. Une de mes cousines américaines éloignées a lu cet article et m’a immédiatement appelé. Elle m’a suggéré de contacter son avocat à New York. Sa branche de la famille est impliquée depuis longtemps dans une procédure complexe visant à obtenir une indemnisation pour une très importante collection de tableaux volés à son oncle à Berlin. J’ai immédiatement appelé son avocat. Il m’a mis en contact avec un avocat français formé aux États-Unis, Pierre CIRIC, qui s’occupe de demandes d’indemnisation similaires à la mienne. Pierre s’est montré extrêmement aimable, m’a fourni gratuitement de nombreux conseils juridiques et m’a mis en contact avec mon avocate française, Maître Caroline GAFFODIO. Sans Caroline et Pierre, je ne serais pas ici aujourd’hui.

Enfin, je tiens à remercier deux membres du personnel de la CIVS, David ZIVIE et Muriel DE BASTIER. Même si nous n’avons manifestement pas toujours été d’accord au fil des ans, je n’ai jamais eu l’impression que les décisions de la Commission étaient motivées par autre chose que des contraintes juridiques.

Je voudrais terminer cette présentation par une brève anecdote concernant Heinz, le frère de Fédor. Je ne l’ai rencontré qu’une seule fois, mais je me souviens de lui comme d’un homme très charismatique. Je me souviens qu’on mentionnait ses exploits pendant la guerre. Comme le font souvent les enfants, j’ai confondu réalité et fiction. J’ai toujours cru qu’il avait aidé des Juifs incarcérés à s’échapper des centres de détention. Grâce à un gentleman anglais, j’ai appris la vérité il y a quelques années.

Heinz était membre du Royal Pioneer Corps anglais. Il s’est engagé alors qu’il se trouvait en Palestine. Il a été capturé par les Allemands en 1941 pendant la bataille de Grèce et incarcéré dans divers stalags. Il s’est évadé quatre ou cinq fois. Son histoire mérite vraiment d’être racontée dans un livre, et il est d’ailleurs mentionné dans plusieurs ouvrages écrits par d’anciens prisonniers de guerre. Le public se demande peut-être pourquoi je termine mon exposé sur cette note. Tous les récits de guerre concernant Heinz soulignent à quel point il était doué pour falsifier des documents afin d’aider les prisonniers à s’échapper. Je ne doute pas que, comme Fédor, Heinz et probablement Hansi aient appris à peindre et à dessiner dès leur plus jeune âge.

Le public se demande sans doute ce qu’il adviendra des peintures de Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. J’ai accepté la demande de la Commission de les laisser en France pendant les prochaines années et pour les exposer au MAHJ (Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme) et à l’Orangerie ici à Paris, peut-être au Centre National Jean Moulin à Bordeaux lieu de leur spoliation. Ils seront au cœur d’expositions consacrées à l’art dégénéré. Une fois les expositions terminées, je déciderai de leur destination finale. Je suis désormais dépositaire d’une longue histoire qu’il ne nous faut pas oublier, je m’y emploie. A vous de me soutenir dans cette tâche

Merci de votre attention ! Y a-t-il des questions ?

ENGLISH

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to warmly thank you for attending this ceremony.

I am an American citizen named Richard BROOK. I will briefly explain why I am here, my connection to the artist Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, and how I learned of his existence.

I am in Paris today to reclaim three paintings by Fédor Löwenstein.

These paintings are among the 25 works seized by the Nazis at the port of Bordeaux in December 1940 while Fédor was attempting to send them to an art gallery in New York. The Nazis considered these works to be examples of what they called “degenerate art .” After their seizure, they were sent to the Jeu de Paume to await destruction. It is presumed that the 22 other works seized from Fédor were indeed destroyed. The proof that the same fate awaited the three surviving paintings can be found on the surface of the canvases. Large “X” marks were drawn on them, signifying that they were to be “vernichtet,” the German word for “destroyed.”

I like to imagine that your French heroine, Mme Rose Valland, played a key role in saving the three works before you. She was the only member of the Jeu de Paume staff to be retained by the Nazis during their occupation of Paris.

Fedor Löwenstein is often considered a Czechoslovakian artist. His father’s family was indeed from that country. It is clear that Fedor felt a deep connection to his father’s homeland. One of Fedor’s most famous paintings is entitled “The Fall.” It was inspired by the signing of the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. These agreements dismantled Czechoslovakia at the time and led to the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany. This painting was inspired by “Guernica,” Picasso’s anti-war painting from 1937.

Fedor Löwenstein was born in 1901 in Munich. He was the eldest of three children. His mother, née Hedwig BRUCK, was my great-aunt (my surname BROOK is the Anglicized version of BRUCK). Hedwig was my father’s aunt, so Fédor and my father were first cousins. It is not clear how well they knew each other. Fédor and his mother died in Nice before I was born in 1950. However, as a child, I met Fédor’s younger brother and sister, Jeanne, affectionately nicknamed “Hansi,” and Heinz. My father was close to them.

I am the closest living direct descendant of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. Neither Fédor, nor his brother, nor his sister had children. As France is a civil law country, I had to fight a legal battle lasting nearly 11 years to recover these three paintings. Under French law, the rights of two “universal legatees” take precedence over mine. However, my lawyer managed to convince the CIVS (Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation) that my extensive research and my actions, which were necessary and essential for updating the three paintings, should also be compensated. This was only possible because I was the first to discover that the CIVS was seeking to return the LÖWENSTEIN paintings to his descendants. I was also the one who filed the initial claim.

I was able to obtain possession of the paintings by waiving any financial compensation offered by the CIVS for the 22 destroyed paintings. This sum is considerable. At the risk of offending someone, I feel that I have won my case without the intervention of the courts. It might be an exaggeration to say that this is almost like a Pyrrhic victory… Two universal legatees are compensated and rewarded for work that I did and paid for. Let me say that in a country governed by common law, this would not have happened.

Let me briefly tell you how I discovered the existence of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN. My father never spoke about his family, except for his beloved sister Suzanne, who was arrested in Fayence in August 1942 and murdered in Auschwitz. I discovered the rest of my father’s family through my own genealogical research.

During my research, I discovered that the personal documents of two of Fédor’s aunts, two other famous great-aunts, were archived at the Stadtmuseum in Berlin. In 2014, I made arrangements to examine and photograph all the documents and photos. The collection included several photos of Fédor. I quickly realized that he was the older brother of Hansi and Heinz, whom I had met when I was a child.

There were also several letters, all written in German, a language I do not speak. Most were handwritten and almost impossible to decipher. But a few were typed, mainly by Fédor’s sister, “Hansi.” When I returned to the United States, I translated his typed letters, the only ones I could read, using a translation app. In a letter dated August 1946, Hansi wrote that she had sold one of Fédor’s paintings posthumously for 90,000 French francs. That seemed like an enormous sum in 1946.

Determined to find out more about Fédor LÖWENSTEIN, in 2014 I contacted an acquaintance who worked at Nice City Hall. I asked her if she could find Fédor’s obituary. Instead, she sent me links to several articles. The most informative one was about an exhibition that had taken place in 2014 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, which featured these three paintings. Around 2010, the Centre Pompidou discovered that Fédor Löwenstein’s works had been confiscated during World War II. The exhibition in Bordeaux was the first public exhibition dedicated to this discovery.

Coincidentally, 2014 was the same year that my wife Ann and I spent 13 weeks in Europe. We traveled by car from northeastern Poland to southern Spain, visiting places associated with my Jewish family’s diaspora. If we had known about the exhibition, we would certainly have made a detour to Bordeaux.

The documents I received identified Ms. Florence SARAGOZA as the exhibition curator and provided an email address. I contacted her immediately. She replied two days later. I will always remember her response. She told me, in essence, that learning that a member of the LÖWENSTEIN family had survived moved her to tears. Florence—we now call each other by our first names—graciously offered to help me file a claim for compensation. Given her knowledge of Fédor, her help was invaluable. I will be eternally grateful to Florence for her selfless and compassionate assistance over the years. I hold Florence in the highest regard.

There are a few other people I would like to thank. First of all, my wife, Ann FINAN, who has been my biggest supporter and admirer throughout these difficult 11 years. She helped me create my blog about my family history (bruckfamilyblog.com), where I have written more than 200 articles since its inception in 2017.

After my claim was initially rejected by the CIVS in early 2020, I wrote a highly critical blog post denouncing the decision. One of my distant American cousins read the post and immediately called me. She suggested I contact her lawyer in New York. Her branch of the family has long been involved in complex proceedings to obtain compensation for a very important collection of paintings stolen from her uncle in Berlin. I immediately called her lawyer. He put me in touch with a French lawyer trained in the United States, Pierre CIRIC, who handles compensation claims similar to mine. Pierre was extremely kind, provided me with a great deal of legal advice free of charge, and put me in touch with my French lawyer, Maître Caroline GAFFODIO. Without Caroline and Pierre, I would not be here today.

Finally, I would like to thank two members of the CIVS staff, David ZIVIE and Muriel DE BASTIER. Even though we clearly did not always agree over the years, I never felt that the Commission’s decisions were motivated by anything other than legal constraints.

I would like to conclude this presentation with a brief anecdote about Heinz, Fédor’s brother. I only met him once, but I remember him as a very charismatic man. I remember people talking about his exploits during the war. As children often do, I confused fact with fiction. I always believed that he had helped imprisoned Jews escape from detention centers. Thanks to an English gentleman, I learned the truth a few years ago.

Heinz was a member of the English Royal Pioneer Corps. He enlisted while he was in Palestine. He was captured by the Germans in 1941 during the Battle of Greece and imprisoned in various stalags. He escaped four or five times. His story really deserves to be told in a book, and he is mentioned in several works written by former prisoners of war. The audience may wonder why I am ending my presentation on this note. All the war stories about Heinz emphasize how skilled he was at forging documents to help prisoners escape. I have no doubt that, like Fédor, Heinz and probably Hansi learned to paint and draw from an early age.

The public is no doubt wondering what will become of Fédor LÖWENSTEIN’s paintings. I have accepted the Commission’s request to leave them in France for the next few years and to exhibit them at the MAHJ (Museum of Jewish Art and History) and the Orangerie here in Paris, and perhaps at the Centre National Jean Moulin in Bordeaux, where they were looted. They will be the focus of exhibitions devoted to degenerate art. Once the exhibitions are over, I will decide on their final destination. I am now the custodian of a long history that we must not forget, and I am committed to this task. It is up to you to support me in this endeavor.

Thank you for your attention! Are there any questions?

POST 187: EIGHT COUNTRIES IN THIRTY-FIVE DAYS

Note: This brief post is a prelude to upcoming posts where I will talk about thrilling events that took place during a five-week European vacation my wife and I recently took.

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL

POST 11, POSTSCRIPT 2: RATIBOR & BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL

POST 105: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN’S NAZI-CONFISCATED ART: RESTITUTION DENIED

POST 132: FATE OF THE BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN“ FAMILY HOTEL IN RATIBOR (RACIBÓRZ): GEOPOLITICAL FACTORS

POST 155: HISTORY OF THE PROPERTY WHERE THE BRUCK’S “PRINZ VON PREUßEN” HOTEL IN RATIBOR CAME TO BE BUILT

POST 160: UPDATE ON COMPENSATION CLAIM AGAINST THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE INVOLVING NAZI-CONFISCATED FAMILY ART

My wife Ann and I recently returned from a five-week trip to Europe that had us leaving from San Diego and traveling to or through parts of Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Italy (Figure 1), and France. We visited multiple out-of-the-way places connected to my Jewish family’s history. This required renting a car and driving long distances through often unfamiliar territory and on small backroads. This occasionally led to unexpected adventures and mishaps. Suffice it to say, our vacations are not conventional and are in some ways reminiscent of the semi-structured travel we took through Europe in our youth. Realistically, our advancing age makes it unlikely we’ll take more such trips in the future.

Figure 1. My wife Ann and me at Miramare Castle, a 19th-castle located on the Gulf of Trieste in northeastern Italy. The castle was built from 1856 to 1860 for Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium

Notwithstanding the pace of our vacation, I had two primary aims during this trip. The first was to revisit the town where my father, Dr. Otto Bruck, was born in 1907, Ratibor, Germany [Racibórz, Poland]. As I’ve frequently discussed, my family owned a hotel restaurant in the town from ca. 1850 to 1925 known as the Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel. The hotel survived the Second World War intact save for the burned roof, but sadly following their rise to power the Communist authorities dismantled the establishment to “harvest” bricks to rebuild Warsaw. I have old cutlery monogrammed with the three generations of my Bruck family that owned the hotel and decided to donate them to the local museum. I also bequeathed a small briefcase of my father’s surviving dental tools. (Figure 2) While my father never practiced dentistry in his birthplace, coincidentally, the Muzeum w Raciborzu has an entire floor of its exhibit space devoted to old dental machines and equipment so donating my father’s dental instruments there made sense.

Figure 2. Examining the family memorabilia I donated to the “Muzeum w Raciborzu”

The second purpose of my trip to Europe was to attend a restitution ceremony in Paris to retrieve three paintings from the French Ministry of Culture that were seized by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 from my father’s first cousin, a man named Fedor Löwenstein. (Figure 3) Following their confiscation, the three surviving paintings, among 25 originally expropriated, were shipped to the Jeu de Paume in Paris where they remain unrecognized as seized works until the early 2010s. Over the years, I’ve written multiple posts about my compensation claim originally filed in 2014. After 11 long contentious and litigious years, I finally achieved the goal of reclaiming the paintings. (Figure 4) The restitution ceremony took place on the 16^th of September 2025 at the soon-to-be renovated and now empty Centre Pompidou in Paris, and my wife and I participated in this event where I delivered a formal speech in French, a language I speak passably well. (Figure 5)

Figure 3. My father’s first cousin Fedor Löwenstein (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 4. Standing between two of the three paintings rendered by Fedor Löwenstein that I recovered from the Centre Pompidou (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

Figure 5. Delivering my speech at the restitution ceremony with the French and European Union flags as backdrop (photo credit: Damien Carles/SIPA Press)

In upcoming posts, I will tell readers more about these two events.

Sandwiched between these happenings, which occurred towards the beginning and end of our vacation, my wife and I met a great many other people I’ve encountered through my blog or developed a friendship with over the years. These rendezvous will be the source of additional forthcoming posts. I look forward to relating to readers some delicious little tales connected to our vacation that expand on posts I’ve previously written or that explore new topics.

POST 180: REICHSMARSCHALL HERMANN GÖRING: FROM TIEGENHOF’S MARKTSTRASSE TO PARIS’ JEU DE PAUME

Note: In this post, I draw a connection between two “encounters” my family had with the Nazi war criminal Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring. This gives me an opportunity to discuss where so-called “decadent art” confiscated in France by the Nazis, including from my father’s first cousin, wound up and explore Göring’s role as leader of the “artistic underworld” during the Nazi Occupation.

From the window of his dental office (Figure 1) in Tiegenhof (today: Nowy Dwór Gdański, Poland) in the Free City of Danzig, my father Dr. Otto Bruck witnessed and recorded increasingly large crowds of Danzigers (i.e., residents of the Free City of Danzig, basically a city-state) parading in support of Nazi candidates in 1933, 1934, and 1935. This culminated in the participation by Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring in the 1935 procession. (Figure 2) My father’s unique pictures of the event that took place on April 5, 1935, capture one “interaction” of my family with this psychopath who played a key role in issuing orders that led to the Final Solution.

Figure 1. The office building in Tiegenhof, Free City of Danzig where my father had his dental practice between 1932 and 1937

Figure 2. Photos my father took on April 5, 1935, when Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring paraded through Tiegenhof

I recently discovered another indirect interaction of Göring with my family, specifically to artworks that once belonged to one of my ancestors. Though a remote connection, I’ve chosen to link it to my father’s 1935 “encounter” with Göring because it represents the culmination of an almost 11-year journey to repatriate on behalf of my family artworks confiscated by the Nazis from my father’s first cousin in December 1940 at the Port of Bordeaux in France. As the closest and only surviving heir, the task of recovering the paintings in question has of necessity fallen to me. While I have finally prevailed in my quest to have the three surviving paintings returned, I grapple with the existential question of whether I’ve simply attained success at the expense of obtaining justice? I’ve not satisfactorily answered this question, though one of my lawyers characterizes my achievement as “nothing less than a miracle.” I would only say that since France is governed by a civil law system, obtaining justice would have been an impossible bar to clear and would have jeopardized the success I have achieved.

Let me provide more background. One of my father’s first cousins was named Fedor Löwenstein, the oldest of Rudolf Löwenstein and Hedwig Löwenstein, née Bruck’s three children; Hedwig Bruck was my father’s aunt and likely the one he was closest to. Fedor Löwenstein has been the subject of several previous posts. He passed away before I was born so I never met him. However, I met his two younger siblings, Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein and Heinz Löwenstein as a young boy in Nice, France. (Figure 3)

Figure 3. Fedor Löwenstein (seated) with his sister Hansi, brother Heinz, and mother Hedwig on the balcony of their apartment in Nice, France in March 1946, several months before Fedor’s death in August 1946

As detailed in Post 105, in 2014 I uncovered a letter at the Stadtmuseum in Spandau, outside Berlin, that Hansi wrote in 1946 to another aunt, Elsbeth Bruck, following her older brother’s death earlier that year. She mentioned that one of his paintings had posthumously sold for 90,000 French Francs, a sizeable amount of money at the time. In the process I discovered Fedor had been an accomplished artist.

After further investigation, I learned that France’s ministère de la culture, the French Ministry of Culture had uncovered three paintings by Fedor Löwenstein at the Centre Pompidou in the early 2010s that had been confiscated by the Nazis at the Port of Bordeaux in December 1940 and sent to the Jeu de Paume (more on this below); the three paintings were among a cache of 25 of his works originally seized on their way to New York, the remainder presumed to have been destroyed by the Nazis as examples of so-called “decadent art.” According to the information I discovered in 2014, France’s ministère de la culture is looking to return rediscovered stolen art to surviving heirs.

Let me provide more context. In 2014 my wife and I spent 13 weeks in Europe driving from northeast Poland to south-central Spain visiting places associated with my Jewish ancestors’ diaspora. Coincidentally, that year, soon after the Centre Pompidou recognized Fedor Löwenstein’s works to be stolen art, they were exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. (Figure 4) Given our extensive travels that year, had we known about Fedor Löwenstein and the exhibition, my wife and I would certainly have detoured there to see the artworks. Regrettably, I only learned of the exposition following my return stateside.

Figure 4. Cover page of the 2014 exhibition catalog from the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux that featured Fedor Löwenstein’s three orphaned paintings

Online materials identified the curator of the exhibit, a Mme Florence Saragoza. Two days after learning about her, we were in communication. In her response, she wrote words that resonate with me to this day and probably will for the remainder of my life. Paraphrasing, she wrote words to the effect that learning that a descendant of Fedor Löwenstein survives brought tears to her eyes. While Florence and I have never met, a situation we hope to rectify at the upcoming restitution ceremony in Paris later this year, I consider her a friend who has aided and always supported my repatriation claim. I have tremendous admiration for her.

Given my background as an archaeologist, it was coincidental that at the time we first communicated Mme Saragoza was the Director of the Musée Crozatier in Le Puy-en-Velay, France, an archaeology, Velay crafts, fine arts, and science museum. (Figure 5) Today, Florence is the Director of the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi, France. Florence’s familiarity with Fedor Löwenstein’s art given her involvement as curator of the 2014 Bordeaux exhibition was exceedingly helpful when she offered to help me file my claim with France’s ministère de la culture’s CIVS.

Figure 5. Mme Florence Saragoza when she was the Director of Musée Crozatier in le Puy-en-Velay, France

The CIVS, now called the Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisémites (Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation for Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation), has three distinct missions:

to recommend measures to compensate for material and bank-related anti-Semitic spoliations that occurred in France between 1940 and 1944, exclusively based on referrals from heirs;
to recommend measures to compensate for the anti-Semitic spoliation of cultural property in France between 1940 and 1944, at the request of any person concerned or on its own initiative;
to recommend the restitution of cultural property looted in the context of Nazi anti-Semitic persecution, including outside France, between 1933 and 1945, when this property is held in a public or similar collection.

Let me shift gears and discuss the Jeu de Paume in Paris where works of art confiscated by Nazis from Jewish painters, private collectors, gallery owners, and art dealers living in France were shipped.

According to their mission statement, today, the Jeu de Paume is “. . .an art center that exhibits and promotes all forms of mechanical and electronic imagery (photography, cinema, video, installation, online creation, etc.) from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It produces and coproduces exhibitions but also organizes film programs, symposiums and seminars, as well as educational activities. Jeu de Paume also publishes a few art publications each year. With its high-profile exhibitions of established, less known, and emerging artists, this venue ties together different narrative strands, mixing the historic and the contemporary.”

The Jeu de Paume, however, did not begin as an art center. It was constructed in 1862 in the Tuileries Garden as an area in which to play an early variant of tennis, the so-called jeu de paulme, literally the “palm game.” Nowadays, this sport is known as real tennis or court tennis, while in France it is called courte paume. Originally an indoor precursor of tennis played without rackets, thus the “game of the hand,” rackets were eventually introduced.

The relevance of the Jeu de Paume for the purpose of the present post was its use from 1940 to 1944 as the place to store Nazi plunder looted by the regime’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce. This was the Nazi Party’s organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during WWII. It was under the command of the Nazi Party’s chief ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg. The plundered works included masterpieces from the collections of French Jewish families like the Rothschilds, the David-Weills, the Bernheims, and noted dealers including Paul Rosenberg who specialized in impressionist and post-impressionist works. As mentioned above, the works of Fedor Löwenstein confiscated in December 1940 in Bordeaux were among those that wound up at the Jeu de Paume (Figure 6), 25 pieces of art according to the information gathered by Florence Saragoza from contemporary documents and included in my repatriation claim.

Figure 6. Details from the “Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume” about Fedor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Composition (Landcape)” drawn from a list of “Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg”

Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring directed that the looted art would first be divided between Adolf Hitler and himself. Towards this end, Göring visited the Jeu de Paume twenty times between November 1940 and November 1942. (Figures 7-8) The art dealer Bruno Lohse (1912-2007), art historian and specialist in Flemish and Dutch masters of the 17th century, attracted Göring’s attention because of his art knowledge. (Figure 9) He essentially became Goring’s envoy in charge of enriching his collection by tracking down the most beautiful works in French art collections. (Polack & Prevet, 2014) In conjunction with each of Göring’s visits, Lohse staged special expositions of newly looted art objects, from which Göring is known to have selected at least 594 pieces for his own collection; the remaining pieces were destined for Adolf Hitler’s unrealized art museum, the so-called Führermuseum, in Linz, Austria.

Figure 7. Hermann Göring entering the Jeu de Paume on one of his twenty visits there (from the Collection Archives des musées nationaux)

Figure 8. Hermann Göring inside the Jeu de Paume (from the Collection Archives des musées nationaux)

Figure 9. Hermann Göring and Bruno Lohse seated on a sofa at the Jeu de Paume (from the Collection Archives des musées nationaux)

Figure 10 is a plan view of the Jeu de Paume. Salle 15, room 15, was specifically referred to as the “Salle des Martyrs,” the “Martyrs’ Room.” This is the room that was designated for so-called “degenerate art,” that’s to say modern art deemed “unworthy” in the eyes of the Nazis and slated for destruction. Much of the art dealer Paul Rosenberg’s professional and private collection wound up here, as did some, perhaps all, of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings.

Figure 10. General view of the Jeu de Paume including room 15, the “Salle des Martyrs”

Joseph Goebbels was the chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945. He had privately decreed that the degenerate works of art should be sold to obtain foreign currency to fund the building of the Führermuseum and the wider war effort. Göring used this decree to personally appoint a series of ERR-approved dealers to liquidate the looted art and then pass the funds to him to enlarge his personal art collection. Much of the looted art designated as degenerate was sold via Switzerland. Unsold art, including works by Picasso and Dali, as well as my lesser-known relative Fedor Löwenstein, were destroyed in a bonfire on the grounds of the Jeu de Paume on the night of 27th of July 1942. This unparalleled vandalism was unfortunately not unprecedented; the Nazis had perpetuated a similar outrage in Berlin in 1939 when they destroyed 4,000 works of German “degenerate” art.

In a March 2014 article entitled “Bruno Lohse and Herman Göring,” the authors Emmanuelle Polack and Alain Prevet, discuss the art market in Paris under the Nazi Occupation. They characterize it as undeniably flourishing, the “. . .euphoria (being) . . .a reflection of a massive influx of goods taken from people of Jewish faith and from all opponents of the Third Reich.” The authors characterize Göring as the true leader of this “artistic underworld.” They use the French word “rabatteur” to describe essentially the “beaters” and “canvassers” Göring surrounded himself with, people such as Bruno Lohse, to flush out collections of great value.

I’ve included three photographs (Figures 7-9) in this post that immortalized at least two of the 20 twenty visits Hermann Göring made to the Jeu de Paume. They are attributed to German staff working for the ERR, either Rudolph Scholz or Heinz Simokat, both photographers at the Jeu de Paume. The one of Göring and Lohse is described as follows: “Comfortably installed on a sofa in a museum office, requisitioned for the benefit of the Parisian service of the ERR, under the satisfied gaze of Bruno Lohse, Hermann Goring carefully examines a monograph devoted to Rembrandt, most likely one of the publications of the German art historian Wilhelm R. Valentiner, a great painter’s specialist since his thesis in 1904.”

Preserved in the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FR-MAE Centre des archives diplomatiques de La Corneuve, 20160007AC/7) are 14 negatives showing the rooms of the Jeu de Paume museum taken after November 1, 1940. This date corresponds to when the museum was made available to the ERR to store the confiscated works of art plundered by this organization in France. The shots were likely also taken by the photographers working at the Jeu de Paume. The photographs have been optimized thanks to a specific digitization of the details. This has allowed for the identification of 232 works of art. Among the 14 negatives are two photographs of room 15, the Salle des Martyrs. More on this below.

A list exists of the works present at the Jeu de Paume at the beginning of 1942. The notes were compiled by Rose Valland (Figures 11a-f) and sent to her boss Jacques Jaujard on March 10, 1942; Rose Valland was an unpaid museum employee and the only one retained by the Nazis upon their takeover of the Jeu de Paume and was a clandestine member of the French resistance. The list translated into French, most probably surreptitiously, is an inventory drawn up by the ERR staff. It has the advantage of including a description of the looted works and providing the names of the people from whom they were plundered. The comparison of this list with the works visible on the two photographs of room 15 has made it possible for museum staff to identify many works that were previously unknown or poorly attributed. Figures 11b-c include a few details of some of Fedor Löwenstein’s confiscated works of art from Rose Valland’s list.

Figure 11a. Page 1 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art

Figure 11b. Page 2 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art including details on some of Fedor Löwenstein’s works

Figure 11c. Page 3 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art including details on some of Fedor Löwenstein’s works

Figure 11d. Page 4 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art

Figure 11e. Page 5 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art

Figure 11f. Page 6 of Rose Valland’s 1942 list of Nazi-confiscated art

As confiscated art passed through the building, Rose Valland eavesdropped on German conversations and covertly kept notes on where the looted pieces were being shipped. Her records were instrumental in the recovery of tens of thousands of artworks, many of which were returned to rightful owners. Yet about 70 of the paintings belonging to the French art dealer Paul Rosenberg, for example, are still missing.

Let me conclude this post by mentioning two ERR photographs of room 15, the Salle des Martyrs, where some of Fedor Löwenstein’s confiscated paintings were hung. Until recently, I was uncertain how many photographs of the Jeu de Paume existed. One picture I had stumbled upon, then lost track of, showed Rose Valland standing in the Salle des Martyrs. (Figure 12) Relocating this picture was of paramount interest because clearly visible in the background is one of Fedor Löwenstein’s paintings, the one known as “Composition (Paysage),” which happens to be one of the three paintings I’ll be repatriating. (Figure 13)

Figure 12. Rose Valland seemingly standing in room 15, the “Salle des Martyrs” at the Jeu de Paume

Figure 13. Details and photo of Fedor Löwenstein’s painting entitled “Composition (Paysage)” that I’ll be repatriating

Unable to relocate this image on my own, I asked one of my acquaintances at the CIVS if she could help me track it down. Of passing interest to readers but of great personal interest is that Rose Valland has been “photoshopped” into the Salle des Martyrs. If she was ever photographed there, such a picture does not survive; I’ve included an authentic one of Rose standing elsewhere in the Jeu de Paume. (Figure 14) The one I’d come across was based on a photo of Rose taken elsewhere where she was “inserted” into room 15. I include a copy of that original. (Figure 15)

Figure 14. Rose Valland in one of the rooms at the Jeu de Paume

Figure 15. The original of the photo of Rose Valland used to “photoshop” her into the “Salle des Martyrs”

The two contemporary authentic photos of the Salle des Martyrs both show Fedor Löwenstein paintings. So-called View 1 (Figure 16) includes two Loewenstein paintings. Photographed is a fragmentary section of an unknown painting (Figure 17), and a second one titled “La Ville Moderne,” “The Modern City.” (Figures 18a-b) Regrettably, the latter two were lost or destroyed. View 2 (Figure 19), the one where Rose Valland has been photoshopped into the image, includes the still existing painting “Composition (Paysage).” This is one of the three paintings I will be repatriating.

Figure 16. The so-called View 1 of the “Salle des Martyrs” where a fragment of an untitled work by Löwenstein and the painting known as “The Modern City” were hung

Figure 17. The description and view of the “Untitled Work” by Fedor Löwenstein

Figure 18a. The description and view of “The Modern City” by Fedor Löwenstein

Figure 18b. “The Modern City” by Fedor Löwenstein

Figure 19. The so-called View 2 of the “Salle des Martyrs” where Fedor Löwenstein painting known as “Composition (Paysage)” can be seen

Besides the painting “Composition (Paysage),” I’ll also be acquiring artworks entitled “les Peupliers” (Figure 20) and “Arbres.” (Figure 21) Neither of these paintings is pictured in the ERR photographs. Having personally seen the three paintings, it is obvious the Nazis intended to destroy them as evidenced by the fact that now faintly visible red Xs were scrawled across their painted surfaces. Whether Rose Valland played a role in saving Löwenstein’s paintings is unknown.

Figure 20. Fedor Löwenstein’s painting known as “les Peupliers”

Figure 21. Fedor Löwenstein’s painting known as “Arbres”

REFERENCES

Doré-Rivé, Isabelle. “La Dame du Jeu de Paume Rose Valland Sur Le Front de L’Art Sommaire.” “Centre d’Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation.”

plan-général-dp2

“History of CIVS.” Premier Ministère, Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisémites (Commission for the Restitution of Property and Compensation for Victims of Anti-Semitic Spoliation), Updated 19 April 2024.

History of CIVS | CIVS

“Jeu de Paume.” Wikipedia, Wikipedia Foundation, 21 May 2025.

Jeu de paume – Wikipedia

“Jeu de Paume.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 August 2024.

Jeu de Paume | Museum, History, Impressionism, Photography, & Facts | Britannica

“Jeu de Paume (museum).” Wikipedia, Wikipedia Foundation, 13 March 2025.

Jeu de Paume (museum) – Wikipedia

Ministère De La Culture. “POP : la plateforme ouverte du patrimoine”

Vue 1 de la salle 15

La Ville moderne

Titre inconnu

Vue 2 de la salle 15

Paysage

Composition

Polack, E. (March 2014). “Rose Valland à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.” “L’Historire Par L’Image.”

Rose Valland à la veille de la Seconde Guerre mondiale – Histoire analysée en images et œuvres d’art | https://histoire-image.org/

Polack, Emmanuelle & Alan Prevet (March 2014). “Bruno Lohse et Hermann Goering.” “L’Historire Par L’Image.”

Bruno Lohse et Hermann Goering – Histoire analysée en images et œuvres d’art | https://histoire-image.org/

POST 161: FATE OR COINCIDENCE? THE FLEA MARKET FIND OF FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHS

Note: In this post, I briefly consider the philosophical question whether the chance discovery of family photographs of my father’s first cousin Fedor Löwenstein found in a Paris flea market was fated or coincidental. The circumstances under which the event occurred was so improbable that a small part of me wonders if it was not predestined.

POST 35: FATE OF SOME JEWISH GUESTS WHO STAYED AT THE VILLA PRIMAVERA (FIESOLE, ITALY), 1937-1938

POST 105: FEDOR LÖWENSTEIN ‘S NAZI-CONFISCATED ART: RESTITUTION DENIED

POST 160: UPDATE ON COMPENSATION CLAIM AGAINST THE FRENCH MINISTRY OF CULTURE INVOLVING NAZI-CONFISCATED FAMILY ART

In several earlier posts, I’ve mentioned my friend Ms. Madeleine Isenberg (Figure 1) who volunteers at the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles assisting members doing ancestral research. Madeleine once wrote an article for a periodical entitled “Avotaynu” detailing one of her research endeavors. She quoted her English uncle who claimed there is no such thing as coincidence, it’s all “beshert,” a Hebrew word for predestination or fate. My father Dr. Otto Bruck would have agreed with him.

Figure 1. Madeleine Isenberg and me in 2016

While I claim no adherence to this notion, I’ve come across several instances while doing ancestral research that make me think there may be an element of fate at work. Or, could it be as Branch Rickey, the brainy former General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, once said that “Luck is the residue of design?” That’s to say, by planning and knowing where opportunities lurk, perhaps one is more apt to find oneself in a place where a coincidental find may be made. I don’t pretend to know the answer.

Buried in Post 21, published in February 2018, I recounted the story of a similar coincidental or fated event related to my family. Before moving to the subject of this post, I’ll review that earlier incident as it may have been overlooked by readers. Interestingly, it involves two elements of chance.

I estimate my uncle Dr. Franz Müller and aunt Susanne Müller, née Bruck, arrived in Florence, Italy in the early part of 1936, following their emigration from Germany to escape Nazi authoritarianism. Thanks to a friend my uncle knew in the Tuscan hill town of Fiesole, above Florence [Italian: Firenze] by the name of Dr. Gino Frascani, he and my aunt leased one of his villas, the Villa Primavera. (Figure 2) Eventually, in collaboration with an Austrian Jewish woman, Ms. Lucia von Jacobi (Figure 3), who’d also emigrated from Austria via Germany, my aunt Susanne and Lucia turned the Villa Primavera into a bed-and-breakfast. In Post 35, I discussed some of the guests who stayed there between 1937 and 1938 and their eventual fates.

Figure 2. Photograph of the Villa Primavera in 1938 taken by my father

Figure 3. Ms. Lucia von Jacobi in 1936-1937

In connection with my ancestral research, my wife Ann and I visited Fiesole and Florence in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Prior to our initial visit in 2014, I contacted the then-town archivist, Ms. Lucia Nadetti (Figure 4), at the “Archivio Storico Comunale,” the “Municipal Historic Archive,” and arranged to review pertinent documents. I’ve detailed the results of those archival investigations in Post 21, so refer readers to that post.

Figure 4. My friend Ms. Lucia Nadetti, the former archivist at the Municipal Historic Archive in Fiesole in 2014

Curious whether my uncle and aunt had purchased the Villa Primavera when they arrived in Fiesole, Ms. Nadetti directed us to the “Conservatoria Dei Registri Immobiliari” in nearby Firenze (Florence) to check ownership records. Here, we learned the descendants of the former obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Gino Frascani currently own two houses along Via Del Salviatino, the street where the Villa Primavera is located. However, the family no longer owns the villa though my uncle never purchased it.

The visit to the “Conservatoria,” however, resulted in the first of the two chance events mentioned above. In 2014, my wife and I were staying at a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of Fiesole, but rather than deal with Florence’s traffic to get to the Conservatoria, we took the bus. While trying to ascertain where to catch the return bus at the end of the day, an English-speaking Italian woman, Ms. Giuditta Melli (Figure 5), noticed our confusion and confirmed we were in the right place. Giuditta was headed on the same bus, so we exchanged pleasantries on the ride, and she invited us to visit the ceramic shop near the Conservatoria where she teaches. Two days later we dropped by and mentioned our reason for visiting Fiesole. Giuditta was literally moved to tears because she’d recently learned that her great-uncle was Jewish and had been deported to Buchenwald from Firenze by the Italian Fascists and murdered there; the house where Giuditta currently lives was once owned by this great-uncle. It should be noted that Giuditta is very familiar with the Villa Primavera as it’s located a stone’s throw from her home. Regardless, as we prepared to leave, we exchanged emails and promised to stay in touch. This has turned into an exceptionally warm and productive friendship, one that led to the discovery of the second chance event.

Figure 5. My good friend, Ms. Giuditta Melli, in 2024 who my wife and I first met at a bus stop in Florence in 2014

Following our visit to Fiesole in 2015, my wife and I had not anticipated returning in 2016. However, Giuditta made a surprising discovery while doing a casual online search of Lucia von Jacobi, the Austrian lady with whom my aunt ran the Pension Villa Primavera. As a result our plans changed. She learned of a professor, Dr. Irene Below (Figure 6), from Werther, Germany, who’d written a full-length book about Ms. Jacobi. Giuditta immediately contacted her, explained her interest in Lucia, told her of my aunt and uncle, and mentioned she was in touch and assisting me. Dr. Below was surprised to learn of Giuditta’s interest in people she’d studied and knew about, including my aunt and uncle. Consequently, Giuditta invited Irene and my wife and me for a get-together at her home in 2016.

Figure 6. Dr. Irene Below at Parco di Monte Ceceri in Florence, Italy in 2016

Dr. Below explained how she came to write a book about Lucia von Jacobi. She arrived in Firenze in 1964 as a student intending to write about the history of art. While researching this topic, however, she happened upon magazines and diaries of an unknown person who turned out to be Ms. von Jacobi, a woman with very famous friends (e.g., Heinrich Mann and Thomas Mann, Gustaf Gründgens, etc.), and decided instead to write about her. Then, as fate would have it, in 1966, Dr. Below walked into an antiquarian shop in Firenze (Figure 7) and discovered the bulk of Ms. Jacobi’s personal papers, which she soon purchased with her parents’ financial assistance. For those unaware of events in Firenze in 1966, great floods along the Arno in November resulted in countless treasures being swept away and destroyed; if not for Dr. Below’s fortuitous discovery, the same would likely have happened to Ms. Jacobi’s papers.

Figure 7. The antiquarian shop in Florence where Dr. Below discovered Lucia von Jacobi’s personal papers

Readers may rightly wonder how or why Lucia’s personal papers wound up in an antiquarian shop in Florence. A little bit of historical context is necessary to explain how this likely happened. In May 1938, Hitler paid his second visit to Italy since becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the first since the two countries signed the Axis agreement in 1936. Over the course of seven days, Hitler and his extensive entourage were treated to a massive display of fascist spectacle in three cities: Rome, Naples and Florence. Hitler’s tour of Florence took place on May 9, 1938.

Soon after on July 14, 1938, Mussolini embraced the “Manifesto of the Racial Scientists.” This Manifesto declared the Italian civilization to be of Aryan origin and claimed the existence of a “pure” Italian race to which Jews did not belong. Between September 2, 1938, and November 17, 1938, Italy enacted a series of racial laws, including one forbidding foreign Jews from settling in Italy. Ms. Jacobi had just returned to Firenze from Palestine, but after passage of the racial laws, she escaped in October 1938 to Switzerland, forced to leave all her possessions behind. As a related aside, this corresponds with the same time that my aunt and uncle emigrated from Italy to France. Dr. Below surmises that Lucia’s personal papers remained in the Villa Primavera until Dr. Frascani’s descendants sold the house, after which they were sold to an antique dealer.

As to belongings among Lucia’s personal papers that relate to my aunt and uncle, there were several relevant items. Dr. Below discovered a photograph of Ms. Jacobi with my Uncle Franz seated on the same chairs as a photo I possess showing my aunt and uncle. (Figures 8-9) Another picture shows my aunt and uncle in their Sunday best. (Figure 10) Irene also found a card written by my Aunt Susanne to Lucia on July 31, 1938, from Champoluc in the Aosta Valley of Italy, where my aunt and uncle had gone on vacation. Most interesting is the surviving second page of a letter my Aunt Susanne wrote to Lucia when Lucia traveled to Palestine for three months in the latter half of 1938.

Figure 8. My uncle Dr. Franz Müller and Lucia von Jacobi at the Villa Primavera sometime between 1936 and 1938 seated at the same table and on the same chairs as my aunt and uncle as seen in Figure 9

Figure 9. My aunt and uncle at the Villa Primavera in 1938 seated at the same table and on the same chairs as seen in Figure 8

Figure 10. Photo of my aunt and uncle discovered by Dr. Irene Below in 1966 at an antiquarian shop in Florence

Thus, a chance encounter with an Italian lady Giuditta Melli on the streets of Florence in 2014 led to learning about Dr. Below who in 1966 walked into an antiquarian shop in Florence where she happened upon Lucia von Jacobi’s personal papers, the Austrian lady with whom my Aunt Susanne co-managed the Pension Villa Primavera in Fiesole between 1936 and 1938. Dr. Below then wrote a book about Lucia von Jacobi that my dear friend Giuditta stumbled upon. Included in this stash of papers are several items related to my family. Is this coincidence or predestination? I’ll let readers decide.

This brings me to a discussion of another more recent chance discovery. This involves a cache of photographs portraying my father’s first cousin, Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946), that were found in a Paris flea market by a man named Nicolas Neumann (Figure 11) from Somogy Éditions d’Art; this is a French art book publishing house founded in 1937. Readers will recall that Fedor Löwenstein is my father’s first cousin who was most recently discussed in Post 160 and is the subject of my restitution and repatriation claim involving the French Ministry of Culture. Readers are invited to peruse my earlier post. However, let me review a few salient facts.

Figure 11. Nicolas Neumann from Somogy Editions who purchased documents and photos at a Paris flea market ca. 2015 belonging to Doris Halphen, Fedor Löwenstein’s onetime girlfriend

As mentioned in Post 160, I originally filed my claim for restitution and repatriation of Fedor Löwenstein’s artworks in October 2014. This was filed with the French Ministry of Culture’s (Premier Ministre) Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victims de spoliations antisemites (CIVS), Commission for the restitution of property and compensation for victims of anti-Semitic spoliation. In May 2015 I traveled to Paris to discuss my claim with the CIVS and met staff members Mme. Muriel de Bastier and her intern Mlle. Eleonore Claret. (Figure 12)

Figure 12. In May 2015, me with Mme. Muriel de Bastier and her intern Eleonore Claret, CIVS staff

Several months later, Eleonore sent me photos of Fedor Löwenstein (Figure 13) from an exhibit on spoliated art that took place at the Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou (“National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture”) in 2015. The origin of these photos was not explained so I sent an email to the Centre Pompidou requesting copies of the images and an explanation as to their source; I never heard back from them. I eventually ascertained the photos of Fedor Löwenstein that had been part of the 2015 museum exhibit at the Centre Pompidou originated from Nicolas Neumann’s find at the Paris flea market.

Figure 13. A page of photos showing Fedor Löwenstein originating from Nicolas Neumann’s find at a Paris flea market

Mr. Neumann determined the documents he’d found probably belonged to Fedor’s onetime girlfriend, Doris Halphen. (Figure 14) Mr. Neumann loaned the documents and photos he had purchased for the 2015 exhibit to the Centre Pompidou. Nicolas is friends with the retired Director of the Kandinsky Library, M. Didier Schulmann, who convinced him to donate the materials in February 2017 to the Kandinsky Library which is part of the Centre Pompidou.

Figure 14. Photograph from Doris Halphen’s album showing her with Fedor Löwenstein in Mirmande in the Drôme

The eclectic body of documentation is referred to as the “Corposano Archive Fund-Doris Halphen.” The archival collection comprises three significant groups. The first, the most substantial, is composed of documentation from the Corposano dance studio; the second is about Fedor Löwenstein; and the last is made up of biographical photographs and family albums.

The Kandinsky Library provides the following description about Doris Halphen, the Studio Corposano, and Fedor Löwenstein:

“Doris Halphen was born in Prague and co-founded the Corposano studio with her Finnish collaborator Marianne Pontan in 1932 in Paris. They taught a very innovative dance method at the time: the Hallerau-Laxenberg method. (Figures 15-18) The documents in the collection, mostly photographs, are both portraits of dancers in the studio and advertising items. Press articles and dance magazines provide an overview of the context of dance in the 1930s and 1940s and an understanding of the Hallerau-Laxenberg method and its principles.

Figure 15. Dancers from the Corposano Studio in Mirmande in the Drôme dancing the Hallerau-Laxenberg method

Figure 16. Dancers from the Corposano Studio in Mirmande in the Drôme

Figure 17. Doris Halphen, Fedor Löwenstein’s onetime girlfriend, dancing at Mirmande

Figure 18. Doris Halphen, Fedor Löwenstein’s onetime girlfriend, dancing at Mirmande

A second part of the collection consists of documentation on Fedor Löwenstein (1901-1946). Born in Munich on April 13, 1901, he studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Berlin, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, where Oskar Kokoschka taught from 1919 to 1924. He joined France in 1923 and settled in Paris, attracted by the artistic influence of the capital. A lover of Doris Halphen, the painter’s Jewish and Czechoslovak condition forced him to leave Paris at the beginning of the war and take refuge in Mirmande in the Drôme. (Figure 19) The couple separated shortly afterwards, and Fedor Löwenstein lived a tumultuous passion with the artist Marcelle Rivier until October-November 1943.”

Figure 19. Postcard of Mirmande in Drôme in southern France, where Fedor Löwenstein went into hiding during part of WWII

The collection includes unidentified biographical photographs of Doris Halphen that were probably taken at the beginning of the twentieth century in Prague. Additionally, there are two photographic albums that retrace the memories of two summers in Mirmande in the Drôme, including one from 1938. Fedor Löwenstein and Doris Halphen are the recurring characters.

My April 2024 visit to Paris to attend a CIVS committee meeting where my compensation claim was being discussed provided a perfect opportunity to visit the Kandinsky Library where the Doris Halphen collection is archived. Appointments must be scheduled in advance. With the grateful assistance of Mme. Florence Saragoza, who originally helped me file my claim in 2014, I was able to make last-minute arrangements to examine and photograph the collection.

Fortunately, Mme. Muriel de Bastier, whom I first met in 2015 and who still works at the CIVS, accompanied my wife and me to the Kandinsky Library; I say fortunately because the line to enter the Centre Pompidou extended for blocks, and I otherwise would never have been able to view the Doris Halphen Collection before the museum closed. Muriel graciously also arranged for us to meet M. Didier Schulmann, the former Director of the Kandinsky Library, who gave me an extremely useful orientation to the collection. (Figure 20)

Figure 20. From left to right: Didier Schulmann, former Director of the Kandinsky Library, me, and Muriel de Bastier at the Centre Pompidou in April 2024

During my all-too brief visit, I concentrated on photographing the album with pictures of Fedor Löwenstein and Doris Halphen. (Figure 21-23) Among the images unlikely to have been recognized by any other researcher were two of Fedor with his sister Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein (1902-1986) that were taken in Mirmande. (Figures 24-25) Unlike Fedor who died in 1946 before I was born, I met Hansi in Nice, France on multiple occasions as a child.

Figure 23. Fedor Löwenstein and Doris Halphen in Mirmande

Figure 24. One of two photographs of Fedor Löwenstein with his sister Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein in Mirmande

Figure 25. Second of two photographs of Fedor Löwenstein with his sister Jeanne “Hansi” Goff, née Löwenstein, seated next to him, in Mirmande

An out-of-place picture I discovered in the collection was of the famous African American, Paul Robeson (1898-1976). He was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances. Among the few pictures in Doris Halphen’s collection that is captioned it reads “Robeson at Wo-Chula.” (Figures 26a-b) I think this picture was taken in Chowula, Ghana, but the circumstances for its inclusion in Doris’ album is a complete mystery.

Figure 26a. Photo from Doris Halphen’s album of Paul Robeson at Wo-Chula, believed to be in Ghana

Figure 26b. Caption on picture of “Robeson at Wo-Chula”

I’ve never met nor communicated with Nicolas Neumann so am in the dark regarding the precise circumstances under which he found Doris Halphen’s collection. Regardless, I imagine he’s one of the few people who would have realized the significance of what he’d found and had connections with the Kandinsky Library to ensure the materials wound up in an archive where they would be properly cared for. From a personal standpoint, what is gratifying is that I was able to track down a previously unknown to me cache of Fedor Löwenstein photographs. The more existential question is that Nicolas Neimann even found Doris Halphen’s surviving papers and photographs. Again, I ask whether this was fated or coincidental?

REFERENCES

Isenberg, Madeleine. (2012). The Rotter Relic. AVOTAYNU, Volume XXVIII (Issue 4, Winter 2012), pp. 27-31.

Studio Corposano – Doris Halphen. Circa 1900-1950, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kandinsky Library – Documentation and Research Centre of the National Museum of Modern Art – Centre for Industrial Creation, Call number: COR 1 – 4.

Studio Corposano – Doris Halphen, 1900-1950 | Funds and sub-funds | Union Catalogue of France (CCFr) (bnf.fr)