Lost Lives, Lost Art Jewish Collectors, Nazi Art Theft, and the Quest for Justice
Foreword by Ronald S. Lauder
Vendome Press
The legendary names include Rothschild, Mendelssohn, Bloch-Bauer – distinguished bankers, industrialists, diplomats, and art collectors. Their stigma as Jews in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe doomed them to exile or death in Hitler´s concentration camps. In this book, we chronicle the tragic stories of fifteen Jewish collectors, tracing the dispersal of their extraordinary collections and following their fate.
Inevitably, the collections were confiscated by high-ranking German officials (e.g. Jacques Goudstikker), sold by Nazi party member art dealers (in the case of Lilly and Claude Cassirer), or seized for state collections (Adele and Ferdinand Bloch Bauer). After the war, Allied officials made little effort to retrieve these lost works. But the collectors’ heirs pursued the return of their patrimony …
„The story of the clashes between the heirs determined to retrieve their inheritance and the current owners read like a cross between the legal thrillers of Scott Turow and the sensational memoirs of Thomas Hoving.”
Marc Magowan, Vendome Press
„This non-fiction book follows a coffee table format: bigger than a regular book, hardcover, glossy pages and profusely illustrated.”
Marc Balcells