Stolen Art of the Holocaust

During World War II, the Jewish people of Europe often found themselves forced into hiding or concentration camps. During these hard times, individuals had to find something, or someone, to keep them sane. Holocaust survivor Ava Kadishson Schieber found art.

The word Holocaust refers to the mass murder of 6 million European Jews by the German Nazi regime during World War II. It began in 1933 and ended in 1945. The ruler of Germany during this time was Adolf Hitler. He and the Nazis put the Jew in concentration camps, where thousands were killed everyday. This was one of the worst if not the worst genocides in history. Many books have been written to document survivors’ testimony of this horrific event. Elie Wiesel shares his story and Art Spiegelman shares his father’s story in the books Night and Maus. Comparisons can be drawn between Maus and Night through the author's purpose for writing , the survivor’s experiences, and the author's perspective.

The Holocaust was a terrible time period. Millions and millions of people were killed, beaten, burnrd, and starved. Everyone was suffering. People were being brain washeed to think that whwat was being done was a good thing. We have

The Holocaust happening and the art that came with the horrors, we can use the art for proof and to help us understand. We have many examples of brave men and women showing us in different ways. Yet, we will never know what the prisoners went through and what they felt. With all the art of the Holocaust, we have proof that it did happened and the horrors that the prisoners faced, young to old. With all this knowledge we will never forget about the ones who died and suffered. We have the artist art that shows us their story and what they went

The Holocaust was a devastating time for many people. Eleven million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other non-Aryans were killed. But lives were not the only thing lost during the Holocaust. Hitler and the Nazis stole several million works of art. Five million were tracked down and recovered by the Monument Men. These courageous people helped to find and save the art stolen during the greatest cultural disaster in history.

The Counterfeiters is a 2007 Austrian-German docudrama that focuses on the situation in German concentration camps of the Holocaust. In the case of the movie, it revolved around the Jewish prisoners in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, more specifically with the group of 142 prisoners that had participated in Operation Bernhard. Like several other movies that focused on this subject, the film portrayed the Jews (the main victims of the holocaust) as second class citizens; all of which were systematically discriminated by the Nazi regime. As such, they were portrayed in The Counterfeiters as weak (both physically and mentally).

In the article “Surviving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Postmemory,” Marianne Hirsch discusses generational memory and how second-generation memory operates in relation to catastrophic events such as the Holocaust. Furthermore, Hirsch demonstrates that cultural and generational trauma shape the identity and feelings of those who identify with catastrophe regardless of them actually experiencing tragedy.

So when Hitler seen this he felt this was his chance to capitalize on the idea this being combined with the jealousy. So while the Germans was struggling to make ends meet the Jews were earning money as doctors, lawyers and other skilled positions. It seems that Hitler had rationale on rationale during that period as to why he believed the Jews were worthy of such hate. One reason for sure was that he believed the Germans were a race of Nordic of peoples who were superior in all ways to all non-German people and since the Jews were Non-Nordic he reviled them along with the Romani, Slavs and other ethnic minorities.

Art work has gone missing from as far back as 1930. It really hard to locate something that went missing decades ago. Famous artifacts went missing like 10 pages of Walt Whiteman's papers, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and etc. The GSA and the FBI are working to recover all the art that went missing and having a hard time. They are trying to recover these art work for the public.

In the movie, The Rape of Europa, it discusses the history of Hitler and the Nazi army’s plan to belittle and embarrass Europe. It explains the tragic events during both World Wars, and the art found after the Nazi army lost control. It also gives some history about the artwork that could be identified after being found. It was estimated, that Nazi’s stole about one-fifth of all known artwork in Europe. The decade following the war, a lot of the art was returned, but there is still a large amount of art that has yet to be recovered.

In 1942 the German political party began to deport Jews to concentration camps all around Europe. In this process the germans looted the houses and took anything of value including things like silverware, desks, and even chandeliers. One thing of all else was worth quite a bit of money and still is probably worth more now is art. Art back then was rare and worth an extreme amount of money because of the fact they didn’t know how to replicate them very efficiently or effectively. That is why whenever they saw art in the houses of jews they took it immediately. Although the Nazis had committed genocide, they knew how to keep and preserve art and valuables. All 650,000 pieces of art stolen.

Going into this discussion I had a hard time putting into words how I felt. There were a lot of emotions and conflicting thoughts but I will try to get my point of view across from the research that I have seen. The control of images and types of images helped Hitler by achieving a following in many ways. If something was viewed as "different" from the Nazi's views it was taken away to be burned, buried or put in the Degenerate Art Exhibition. The only types of art, literature, and music left would be what the Nazi's believed would bring obedience to their regime. The Nazi's felt that if only having what they felt was the traditional German culture that others would follow in their beliefs and be faithful to them. I believe the abstract images which Hitler viewed as "degenerate" could have contributed to what would eventually be the Holocaust in thinking, the artists were becoming more creative and less realist and not Hitler’s personal taste aesthetically.

Art, in essence, is one of the most crucial pieces of cultural history. It transcends language, emanates emotion, provokes thought, and stimulates imagination. In other words, art is of monumental value in its scope of what befalls under its umbrella. It was no wonder why during the Nazi regime from 1933 - 1945 that the Nazis would thieve some of Europe’s most treasured works but also those deemed “degenerate.” Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally is a perfect example as to what “degenerate” art would be considered and what the Nazis would have been interested in seizing, but why?

Throughout history, art has caused wars and forged alliances. In modern times, cultural treasures are being sorted into place after much misplacement. Restitution/repatriation, the act of returning cultural treasures to their rightful owners or nation of origin, often ensues difficult legal decisions, but remains a moral necessity. This act of returning cultural treasures, grows more common due to the media’s interest or publicized legal battles. The movie “The Woman in Gold,” involving Gustav Klimt’s painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, is an example of the influence it has on media.

Halt! You are a Jew you can’t be out here this late you are breaking curfew (BANG). In the life of a Jew at a concentration camp of even the beginning of the Holocaust you would have heard this if you were past curfew. In the graphic novel, Maus, Art Spiegelman interviews his father, Vladek Spiegelman, and tells his father's story of surviving Nazi Germany-controlled Poland during the Holocaust. When Vladek talks about him surviving in the Nazi-controlled Germany, he talks about his family with his lovely wife Anja and her family. When they have to experience the Nazis, they were put in the ghetto where they made little bunkers, so they can hide from the Nazis. This novel is a story within a story from the Holocaust and flakes of his present life. In another memoir set in the Holocaust, Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his own story of survival and also loss. When the book starts out, they have the idea of the Nazis, but pay no mind to them because they aren’t hurting them until they start to intrude into their houses and push them out into the ghetto. Then, Elie and his family got onto a train heading to Auschwitz, where they didn’t know what was to come. Elie and his father made a really close bond since they were separated from his mother and his sister, to only find out Eile was the only one to make it out alive. Throughout their Holocaust memoirs, authors Wiesel and Spiegelman both include how the Jewish survivors were emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually