25 October 2006
The Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) has announced that an initial list of art objects likely looted during the Nazi era and now held by Austrian museums and public collections is now accessible in a searchable online database, enabling victims of the Shoah and their heirs to search more easily for artworks stolen during the Holocaust. The database was established by the Austrian National Fund, a state institution that distributes restitution payments to Jewish victims of Nazism and was created as a result of negotiations with the Claims Conference in the 1990s. The German version of The Art Database of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria is available now and an English version is to go online next year. The database contains information on 7,500 objects of art and on objects of cultural value that are located today in museums and in collections in Austria and which, according to current provenance research, are likely to have been expropriated during the Nazi era. Every object is listed with information regarding its restitution status.
To view the German version of the Database click here.
