Jewish Museum of Westphalia opens exhibition on provenance research

Since June 2020, the mu­se­um in Dorsten, North Rhine-West­phalia, has been re­search­ing the prove­nance of its Ju­daica ac­quired at auc­tions as part of a project fund­ed by the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion. It is not un­com­mon for the sus­pi­cion to grow that these are ob­jects that were con­fis­cat­ed from their Jew­ish own­ers be­tween 1933 and 1945, forcibly sold, or left be­hind dur­ing de­por­ta­tion.

The ex­hi­bi­tion us­es se­lect­ed cas­es to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion about the ori­gin of in­di­vid­u­al ob­jects in the col­lec­tion. It ad­dress­es the theft of books from per­se­cut­ed per­sons, the de­pri­va­tion of pre­cious Jew­ish rit­u­al ob­jects, the where­abouts of lost col­lec­tions, and resti­tu­tion mea­sures af­ter 1945, and thus aims to con­vey the so­cial rel­e­vance of prove­nance re­search.

The show is on dis­play un­til Au­gust 31, 2021; more in­for­ma­tion about the mu­se­um can be found on its home­page at www.jmw-dorsten.de