Nazi-looted cultural property

The German Lost Art Foundation hosts talks with descendants of Jewish art collectors

This summer, the German Lost Art Foundation is organising a three-part series of talks with descendants of Jewish art collectors. In this way, the Foundation is continuing a format that it started in connection with the anniversary year #2021JLID – Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland (“#2021JLID – Jewish Life in Germany”) in 2021.

This sum­mer, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion is or­gan­is­ing a three-part se­ries of talks with de­scen­dants of Jew­ish art col­lec­tors. In this way, the Foun­da­tion is con­tin­u­ing a for­mat that it start­ed in con­nec­tion with the an­niver­sary year #2021JLID – Jüdis­ches Leben in Deutsch­land (“#2021JLID – Jew­ish Life in Ger­many”) in 2021.

Jew­ish pa­trons and col­lec­tors played an im­por­tant role in Ger­man cul­tur­al life from the 19th cen­tu­ry on­wards. When the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists came to pow­er, Jew­ish cit­i­zens were per­se­cut­ed and dis­en­fran­chised, their prop­er­ty con­fis­cat­ed and loot­ed. To this day, many once im­por­tant art col­lec­tions have been scat­tered to the four winds, the col­lec­tors of­ten for­got­ten. The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion sup­ports projects that en­gage with de­scen­dants who re­con­struct their lost her­itage, there­by re­viv­ing an im­por­tant piece of the his­to­ry of cul­tur­al as­sets. In three in­ter­views, Al­fred Fass, Rafael Car­doso and Jo­hannes Nathan talk about the search for their fam­i­lies’ lost col­lec­tions and the re­con­struc­tion of mem­o­ries.

11 July, 6 pm: Alfred Fass in conversation with Yana Slavova and Uwe Hartmann (digital):
Alfred Fass is the great-grandson of Nuremberg toy manufacturer Abraham Adelsberger (1863-1940), who owned an art collection comprising at least 1,000 items. After his company Fischer & Co. ran into financial difficulties at the end of the 1920s, Adelsberger used parts of the collection as collateral for loans with lenders such as Dresdner Bank. The Abraham Adelsberger Art Research Project is being conducted by the Art History Institute at FU Berlin and funded by the German Lost Art Foundation: it aims not only to reconstruct the collection but also seeks to shed light on the role of banks in the exploitation of the objects. Abraham Adelsberger had works of art auctioned off before 1933, but the family lost the rest of the collection as a result of persecution by the National Socialists. In 1939, Abraham Adelsberger fled with his wife Clothilde to Amsterdam, where he died in 1940. Clothilde Adelsberger was deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1943 and survived the Holocaust.

Alfred Fass is a businessman and historian from Israel.
Yana Slavova is a research assistant working on the Abraham Adelsberger Art Research Project at the Art History Institute, FU Berlin.
Dr. Uwe Hartmann is Head of the Department of Cultural Property Losses in Europe in the 20th Century at the German Lost Art Foundation.

Note: The discussion will be held in English.
25 July, 6pm: Rafael Cardoso in conversation with Catherine Hickley (digital)
Rafael Cardoso was born in Brazil and knew nothing of the fate of his great-grandfather Hugo Simon for a long time. It was only when he came across a chest of drawers full of documents at his grandparents’ estate in São Paulo that he began to work through the history of the persecution of his German-Jewish family. The banker, pacifist and politician Hugo Simon (1880-1950) was an influential man in Berlin in the 1920s; after the November Revolution of 1918 he even briefly became Prussian finance minister for the USPD. Well-connected in the cultural world, Simon was instrumental in setting up the New Department at the National Gallery. He himself owned one of the most important art collections in Berlin, comprising some 200 works. When Hugo Simon was forced to flee Germany in 1933, he was able to take most of his collection abroad with him, but from 1934 onwards he was forced to successively sell off many works of art and lost others during the German occupation of Paris. By the end of the war when he was in exile in Brazil, only a small number of works remained in his possession. His great-grandson Rafael Cardoso is devoting himself to the reconstruction of the collection and the search for its whereabouts in a project funded by the Foundation together with the Department of Art History at the University of Hamburg.

Prof. Dr. Rafael Cardoso is an art historian and writer who now lives in Berlin.
Catherine Hickley writes as a journalist for publications such as The Art Newspaper and The New York Times. She is also the chief curator of the Berend Lehmann Museum in Halberstadt.

Note: The discussion will be held in English.
1 September, 6:30 pm: Johannes Nathan in conversation with Lea Rosh (in-person event at Liebermann Villa am Wannsee)
Johannes Nathan is a descendant of Hugo Helbing (1863-1938), who until 1935 was one of the leading art dealers and auctioneers in Europe and amassed a significant art collection. In addition to his main business in Munich, Helbing maintained a branch in Frankfurt am Main and an office in Berlin, and he also collaborated closely with Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer. His auctions were considered social events, and he was highly decorated for his services to the Bavarian State Painting Collections. From 1933 onwards his business fell on difficult times. On the night of the pogrom, Hugo Helbing was attacked in his apartment and so badly maltreated that he died of his injuries on 30 November 1938. The forced liquidation of his art business began two days later, and the collection was seized from his heirs. In a project funded by the Foundation in cooperation with Meike Hopp, Department of Art History and Historical Urban Studies at TU Berlin, the collection is currently being reconstructed as far as possible and the whereabouts of the artworks is being traced.

Dr. Johannes Nathan is an art historian and art dealer in Potsdam and Zurich and Chairman of the Max-Liebermann-Gesellschaft Berlin e.V.
Lea Rosh is an author and publicist who has won multiple awards.

Note: The event on 1 September will take place in cooperation with the Liebermann Villa am Wannsee. The evening is already fully booked, but a live stream will be available online.

The events on 11 and 25 Ju­ly will be held as video con­fer­ences via We­bex. Par­tic­i­pa­tion is free of charge, but guests are re­quired to sign up by the pre­vi­ous day. Ac­cess da­ta will be sent out a few days be­fore­hand. You will re­ceive sep­a­rate in­vi­ta­tions for each of the dates. Please let us know which dis­cus­sion you would like to at­tend.

Reg­is­tra­tions to:
Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion
Hein­rich Natho
phone +49 (0) 391 727 763-23
veranstaltungen@kulturgutverluste.de

Da­ta pri­va­cy:
By reg­is­ter­ing and tak­ing part, you grant the or­gan­is­er per­mis­sion to take pho­tographs and make sound and video record­ings dur­ing the event and to use these in con­nec­tion with the event for the pur­pose of pub­lic re­la­tions and doc­u­men­ta­tion, in both ana­logue and dig­i­tal form (ac­cord­ing to § 22 Kun­stUrhG – Artis­tic Copy­right Act). The or­gan­is­er col­lects, pro­cess­es and us­es your per­son­al da­ta in its pur­suit of the statu­to­ry mis­sion of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.