Two lawsuits filed over stolen paintings

Jewish heirs sued the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland to recover Nazi-looted artwork still on display.

New laws enable the claims

California and the US Congress recently passed laws strengthening claims by Jewish families to artwork forcibly taken during the second world war.

The Cranach paintings at Pasadena

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and board chair Daniel Gryczman sued for Adam and Eve, two sixteen thirty oil-on-panel masterpieces by Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Auschwitz watercolors forced by Mengele

The daughters of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, a Holocaust survivor and animator, sued for watercolors she was forced to paint for Josef Mengele, the Nazi physician known as the Angel of Death.

Scale of Nazi art theft

Between nineteen thirty-three and nineteen forty-five, the Nazi regime seized more than six hundred thousand works of art across Europe from Jewish families, collectors and museums.

Museum claims legal ownership

The Norton Simon Museum says it holds proper title to the Cranach paintings. A federal court ruled in twenty eighteen that the museum had valid ownership, and the US Supreme Court declined to intervene in twenty nineteen.

“For nearly fifty years, they have been on view at the Norton Simon Museum and will continue to be accessible to the public for years to come.”

Auschwitz museum opposes removal

The Auschwitz-Birkenau museum argues the watercolors must remain as unique documents of Mengele's crimes. Removing them would cause irreparable harm to the memorial's historical record.

“The loss of even the smallest part of the documentation is an irreparable loss and blemish on the memory of the victims of Auschwitz.”

Federation plans to aid survivors

Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, said the organization plans to use most recovered art proceeds to help the approximately twenty-five hundred Holocaust survivors living in the Los Angeles area.