California Lawsuits Seek Return Of Nazi-Looted Art

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Two new lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles on Monday, seeking the restitution of Nazi-looted art from prominent museums, the Los Angeles Times reports. These claims, previously unsuccessful, are being renewed following the enactment of new legislation at both the state and federal levels.

Heirs and representatives of Jewish individuals whose artworks were seized during the Holocaust hope that a new California law passed in 2024 and the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2025, signed by President Trump in April, will strengthen their cases. Both laws are intended to facilitate the return of art taken“as a result of political persecution.” Crucially, they prevent cases from being dismissed on technical legal grounds or due to the passage of time. Previously, the laws of the country where the disputed artwork was located superseded California state law, but these new provisions reverse that technicality, allowing California law to apply.

This legislation was inspired by an ongoing dispute between the heirs of Jewish collector Lilly Cassirer Neubauer and Madrid's Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza concerning the rightful ownership of a Camille Pissarro painting looted by Nazis. According to the LA Times, Monday's lawsuits are the first filed in California positioned to benefit from these changed laws aimed at restituting Nazi-looted art.

One lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles federal court by the daughters of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt. It demands that the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland return watercolors Babbitt was forced to paint while imprisoned in the concentration camp. Nazi pseudoscientist Josef Mengele ordered Babbitt to paint people he tortured, and these firsthand accounts of his war crimes are currently displayed in the museum, which has declined to release them. Pawel Sawicki, a spokesperson for the memorial, told the paper:“The watercolors must remain in the Memorial as part of the documentation of the crimes of Mengele.” Sawicki added:“The portraits of Roma victims are the few remaining fragments of the documentation made by Mengele as part of his criminal experiments. Therefore, they should be treated as unique documents related to the history of Auschwitz.”

The second case was filed on the same day in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and Daniel Gryczman. This suit seeks the return of a 16th-century diptych by Lucas Cranach the Elder, titled Adam and Eve, from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The Cranach masterpiece was originally part of a large collection belonging to Dutch Jewish dealer Jacques Goudstikker, which was seized by the Nazis. Allied forces later returned much of the collection to the Dutch government, which sold the diptych to collector Norton Simon, the museum's namesake, in 1971. Goudstikker's surviving heir, Marei von Saher, transferred her rights to the painting to the Jewish Federation and its board chair, Gryczman. Gryczman told the LA Times that if the painting were returned and subsequently sold, the proceeds would support financially struggling Holocaust survivors in the Los Angeles area.

We previously reported:

An Argentine court has ordered the restitution of an 18th-century Nazi-looted painting, valued at €250,000, to the heir of Jacques Goudstikker.

Descendants of a Jewish art dealer who died in Auschwitz claim ownership of a Renoir painting stolen from a French museum, alleging Nazi seizure.

An Argentine judge has ordered the return of an 18th-century Nazi-looted painting found in a real estate ad to the original Jewish owner's heirs.

Source: ARTnews

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