{"id":104808,"date":"2023-06-03T17:05:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T15:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104808"},"modified":"2023-06-03T07:23:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T05:23:29","slug":"10-00-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104808","title":{"rendered":"Tel Aviv museum to host event with auction house profiting from Nazi-looted objects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Tel Aviv museum to host event with auction house profiting from Nazi-looted objects<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

MENACHEM WECKER<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt would be a tremendous shame\u2014and a real disgrace\u2014if the museum went forward with this conference,\u201d said philanthropist Joel Greenberg. \u201cIt would be a stamp of approval.\u201d<\/strong><\/span>
\n.<\/h4>\n

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The Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Credit: sunshinecity from Italy\/Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

(June 1, 2023 \/ JNS)<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n

To mark the 25th anniversary of the\u00a0agreement<\/a>\u00a0that emerged from the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets\u2014a joint U.S. State Department and Holocaust Memorial Museum program\u2014Christie\u2019s launched the event\u00a0series<\/a>\u00a0\u201cReflecting on Restitution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The world\u2019s largest auction house has already convened scholars, legal experts, researchers and others in Amsterdam, Paris and Vienna this year, and it will do so in the coming months in Berlin, London, New York and Tel Aviv, per the Christie\u2019s website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Normally, Israelis could take pride in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art hosting an event with Christie\u2019s, but if the museum goes forward with the event, slated for December, critics say that it would lend credence to the auction house that opted to\u00a0profit<\/a>\u00a0off a collection of jewels with ties to Nazi-looted Jewish business.<\/span><\/p>\n

The collection, which Christie\u2019s sold for $156 million, belonged to the wife of Helmut Horten, a billionaire who made his\u00a0money<\/a>\u00a0in part by taking over former Jewish businesses during World War II.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a tremendous shame\u2014and a real disgrace\u2014if the museum went forward with this conference,\u201d Joel Greenberg, a Pennsylvania-based philanthropist and businessman, whose\u00a0foundation<\/a>\u00a0works closely with Holocaust survivors, told JNS.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art hosting the event with Christie\u2019s would be \u201ca stain on the museum\u2019s reputation,\u201d Greenberg said. \u201cIt would be a stamp of approval.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam Dubbin, lawyer in Coral Gables, Fla., told JNS that Christie\u2019s is \u201cjustifying the accumulation of wealth based upon human-rights violations\u2014the murder and confiscation of Jews\u2019 properties.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tel Aviv Museum of Art shouldn\u2019t touch Christie\u2019s with a 10-foot pole until it does right,\u201d said Dubbin, who works on a pro bono basis with the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA and has represented Holocaust survivors and their families in restitution claims for more than 20 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s auction house on King Street in London. Credit: Christies1766 via Wikimedia Commons.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A \u2018stunning assemblage\u2019 of hate<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Christie\u2019s\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0describes Heidi Horten as \u201can Austrian philanthropist known for her elegance, glamor and fine taste,\u201d who \u201camassed one of the world\u2019s most brilliant jewelry collections as well as a stunning assemblage of decorative arts, and modern and contemporary art, the latter of which is housed in the Heidi Horten Collection museum in Vienna.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The auction house adds that Helmut\u2019s business practices \u201cduring the Nazi era, when he purchased Jewish businesses sold under duress, are well documented.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Horten estate\u2019s proceeds will go to the Heidi Horten Foundation, which supports the Horten collection, \u201cas well as medical research, child welfare and other philanthropic activities that she supported for many decades,\u201d per Christie\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s added that it \u201cwill make a significant contribution from its final proceeds of the auction to organizations that further advance Holocaust research and education,\u201d and \u201cit will be up to these organizations, if they so wish, to communicate about these donations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After Christie\u2019s reportedly approached Yad Vashem to offer a donation, the Israeli Holocaust memorial declined to accept it. According to a letter that was provided to JNS, Dani Dayan, chairman of Yad Vashem, rejected a donation from Christie\u2019s from the sale proceeds from the auction house\u2019s president and director of its Israel operation. (Neither Yad Vashem nor Tel Aviv Museum of Art responded to queries from JNS.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Credit: Pixabay.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Fruit of a poisonous tree\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christie\u2019s should have first compensated the Jewish heirs of those whose property Helmut Horten stole and then it should support Holocaust survivors\u201450,000 of whom are languishing in poverty, according to Greenberg.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a silent crisis,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople who lived through hell, and now they\u2019re wondering where their next meal will come from\u2014having to choose between food and heat. It\u2019s a horrible situation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Greenberg dismissed Christie\u2019s claim that the jewelry was \u201ckosher\u201d to sell because it wasn\u2019t looted, as well as its decision to donate the money to the Horten Foundation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the proceeds used to buy the jewelry were looted. Why should you be able to do indirectly what you cannot do directly?\u201d he told JNS. \u201cWhat\u2019s the difference if you\u2019re brokering the fruit of a poisonous tree or you\u2019re brokering the poisonous tree yourself? It doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Donating some of its earnings to the foundation, which supports a museum in Horten\u2019s name in Vienna, is also unacceptable to Greenberg.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe foundation is supporting a museum that is glorifying the name of someone who was definitely involved in the looting of Jewish businesses, that\u2019s a negative not a positive,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not their money to give away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Has humanity learned nothing?\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Schaecter, 94, is president of Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA. A survivor, Schaecter penned a May 14 letter to Ron Huldai, the mayor of Tel Aviv who is also chairman of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt unquestionably trivializes the Holocaust to justify using money brutally extracted from the Jewish people in order to support\u00a0the profiteer\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0chosen \u2018charitable purposes.\u2019 The money, and those decisions, belong to the victims\u2019 families, period,\u201d Schaecter wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe survivors have seen this infuriating charade too often. Holocaust profiteers are never forced to disgorge their bloody fortunes and are embraced in polite society,\u201d he added. \u201cHas humanity learned nothing?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dubbin, the pro bono attorney to the Holocaust survivors foundation, called Christie\u2019s justifications for the sale \u201cgrotesque rationalizations of not doing the right thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that because the Horten foundation is going to donate money to charities of its choosing that that justifies\u2014it would be like saying, they looted this artwork and they\u2019re going to make a museum so the public can see it, and they\u2019re not going to charge anybody for it,\u201d Dubbin told JNS. \u201cThat\u2019s the same logic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The survivors\u2019 foundation has said that it is unacceptable that the Tel Aviv Museum of Art endorse Christie\u2019s decision to go forward as it did with the sale.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to now celebrate the so-called restitution bona fides of an organization that has gone in the gutter for money when it had the opportunity to make a profound statement?\u201d posed Dubbin.<\/span><\/p>\n

The attorney has \u201chigh hopes\u201d that Israeli Jewish leaders will recognize the offense to survivors and \u201cavoid becoming a party to this kind of disgraceful Holocaust trivialization, which is what the Horten family and Christie\u2019s have done to justify their actions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYad Vashem gets it,\u201d Dubbin said. \u201cI hope the Tel Aviv museum will do the same.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Tel Aviv museum to host event with auction house profiting from Nazi-looted objects MENACHEM WECKER \u201cIt would be a tremendous shame\u2014and a real disgrace\u2014if the museum went forward with this conference,\u201d said philanthropist Joel Greenberg. \u201cIt would be a stamp of approval.\u201d . The Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104808"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104821,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104808\/revisions\/104821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}