Hessian Museums Association launches First Check at four museums

The mu­se­um col­lec­tions in Bad Wildun­gen, Es­chwege, Ful­da and Rein­heim will be ex­am­ined to see whether they once be­longed to Jew­ish cit­i­zens per­se­cut­ed dur­ing the Nazi era. The six-month project is be­ing fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion.

The First Check is a proven method of prove­nance re­search to de­ter­mine whether there are any po­ten­tial cas­es of sus­pi­cious prove­nance in the col­lec­tions at all and clar­i­fy any need for more in-depth re­search. The First Check is fo­cused on mu­se­ums that ex­pand­ed their col­lec­tions dur­ing the Nazi era and re­ceived nu­mer­ous items in the pe­ri­od from 1933 to 1945. The mu­se­ums are Stadt­mu­se­um Bad Wildun­gen, Stadt­mu­se­um Es­chwege, Von­der­au Mu­se­um in Ful­da and Heimat­mu­se­um Rein­heim.

One pri­or­i­ty of the First Check is to search for ob­jects that be­longed to Jew­ish cit­i­zens, but at­ten­tion will al­so be fo­cused on oth­er groups of vic­tims of the Nazi regime such as Freema­sons, forced labour­ers and po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

HMV will be co­or­di­nat­ing and or­ga­niz­ing the First Check. This is the first time the As­so­ci­a­tion has run its own prove­nance re­search project and it is the first time a First Check has been car­ried out in Hesse.