Oldenburg State Museum restitutes four objects

Oldenburg State Museum has restituted four objects to the descendants of their former owners. Detailed provenance research revealed that the donation and sale of two liqueur glasses and two cups to the State Museum in 1936 resulted from a situation of coercion caused by Nazi persecution.

Two liqueur glasses and a cup with floral decoration entered the collection in 1936 as a donation received from Henny Insel, a 63-year-old resident of Oldenburg at the time. Less than two weeks later, she sold a further porcelain cup and saucer to the museum. The circumstances under which the objects came into the possession of the State Museum were directly linked to the National Socialist persecution of Siegfried and Henny Insel’s family. The family moved from Oldenburg to Hanover only around two weeks after the donation and sale of the objects to the museum, after which they eventually emigrated to Amsterdam: all of this occurred in the context of Nazi persecution. The move to a significantly smaller and more affordable apartment, the sale of Siegfried Insel’s parental home at far below its value, and the forced reduction of the household were direct consequences of the discrimination and disenfranchisement faced by the Insels. The unusually low purchase price of five reichsmarks for the cup illustrates the critical situation in which they found themselves.

Following their arrest and internment, Siegfried and Henny Insel were deported in May 1943 from the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork to the extermination camp Sobibór in Poland, where they were murdered. Their children Grete and Hermann Insel were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942.

“The fact that donations do not necessarily reflect a self-determined decision on the part of the donor is not a new phenomenon, particularly in the field of provenance research,” said Prof. Dr. Marcus Kenzler, provenance researcher at Oldenburg State Museum. Extensive genealogical research established that no living heirs entitled to inherit emerged from the marriage of Siegfried and Henny Insel. However, Siegfried Insel had five brothers and three sisters whose descendants joined together to form a community of heirs.

This group divided the four objects among themselves. While an heir living in the United States waived restitution of the two glasses and donated them to the State Museum, an heir living in Israel accepted the restitution offer of the two cups.