Jan. 17



USA:

Court Awards Nazi-Looted Artworks to L.A. Woman


In a closely watched ruling over ownership of artworks looted by the Nazis,
an Austrian arbitration court has ordered its government to turn over five
multimillion-dollar paintings by Gustav Klimt to a Jewish woman whose
family fled Vienna in 1939.

Maria Altmann, who now lives in Los Angeles, fought a seven-year legal
battle for the paintings, which have an estimated value of $150 million.
The most valuable is the renowned 1907 portrait of Altmann's aunt, Adele
Bloch-Bauer, which one Klimt expert called "the most important painting
that has ever been restituted" in a Nazi art case.

There was no immediate response from the Austrian government, but Wilfried
Seipel, director of Vienna's museum for fine arts, the Kunsthistorisches
Museum, told the Austrian Press Assn. that although "a precious asset of
the Austrian Gallery has been lost," the decision "should be accepted."

Under an agreement between the Austrian government and Altmann, the
arbitration court's decision will be the last word.

"This is really David and Goliath," said Jane Kallir, co-director of the
Galerie St. Etienne in New York, which staged the first U.S. exhibition of
Klimt's work in 1959. She hailed the court ruling against the Austrian
government as a surprising but significant move. "Klimt's paintings are
extraordinarily rare, and most of the major ones are in Austria."

In March, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision gave Altmann the right to sue
Austria in U.S. courts, she and attorneys for the Austrian government agreed
to end the roller-coaster of litigation by submitting the dispute to binding
arbitration in Austria. The court ruling, which became public Monday, says
that Austria is legally obligated to return the artworks, which have been
held by the Austrian National Gallery for more than 50 years. A formal
announcement of the decision is expected today in Austria.

Altmann's attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg, said he learned of the ruling via
a 12:30 a.m. e-mail. "The arbitrators wanted us to keep it confidential, but
the news leaked," Schoenberg said Monday at hastily assembled news
conference at Altmann's Cheviot Hills home.

Altmann, 89, is among the heirs to the art collection of her uncle, sugar
magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, whose wife, Adele, was Klimt's patron - and,
historians have suggested, probably the artist's lover.

The five paintings include three landscapes and two portraits of her aunt,
including "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I," one of the artist's celebrated
"gold paintings," adorned with metallic paint.

Surrounded by family members in her living room Monday, Altmann wore a smile
as bright as her red sweater. "It's about time," she said. "I'm very happy;
I cannot deny that it came to a very happy solution. I sort of expected it -
I'm a very positive person, and I somehow always hoped that it would go that
way. There were setbacks, but I was always hoping."

When asked whether she was pleased to have the matter resolved before her
90th birthday, she wisecracked: "I'd rather be 50 - but it's all right."

Schoenberg said the future of the paintings remained to be determined. "It's
a decision the whole family has to make; there are four other heirs, we
haven't wanted to count the chickens before they hatch," he said. "Let's let
it sink in a little bit. No decision has been made yet."

Despite her attorney's caution about discussing the disposition of the
paintings, Altmann was adamant that they should remain in public
institutions. "I would not want any private person to buy these paintings,"
she said. "It is very meaningful to me that they are seen by anybody who
wants to see them, because that would have been the wish of my aunt."

Altmann said she would not object to any of the artworks remaining at the
Austrian National Gallery, so long as restitution was made. "After the way
they behaved, I have no resentment," she said. "First of all, I'm not a
person who has a lot of resentments to begin with. I was very much hoping
it would never come to all this fighting and arguing."

Although legal experts say it is unlikely that Austria would dispute the
court's ruling, the loss of the paintings could have a profound effect on
the country. For Austrians, even those who believe the court made the right
decision, the paintings' move to the other side of the Atlantic symbolizes a
loss of a piece of national heritage.

Edwin M. Smith, a professor of international law and academic director for
graduate and international programs for the USC law school, said that for
all the decision's importance to Altmann and Austria, it posed no precedent
for any other cases. Arbitration is a popular option, he said, for just
that reason.

"You get the dispute resolved but you don't set any precedent for other
disputes," Smith said. "Arbitrations only occur when the parties agree to
the process of arbitration." But for Altmann and Austria, "this is the end
of the ballgame," he said.

Klimt, born near Vienna in 1862, is known for his decorous murals and
sensuous smaller nudes and portraits, which often provoked controversy but
won him a wide audience. He died in 1918.

Beyond the five paintings covered by this week's ruling, one other Klimt
sought by Altmann, "Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl," will remain at the
Austrian National Gallery because, Schoenberg said, the family of the woman
in the portrait is also claiming ownership.

Although the Altmann case represents the highest-profile example in recent
years, the controversy over Nazi-looted artwork has been heating up for
more than a decade.

In 1998 as a result of a handful of well-publicized claims against museums
by Jewish heirs, the American Assn. of Museum Directors issued guidelines
calling for museums to search their collections for artworks that had been
looted by the Nazis.

This is the second major restitution judgment for Altmann, who last year
shared with her relatives $21 million from the Claims Restitution Tribunal,
a fund established in 1998 in the settlement of class-action lawsuits
brought against Swiss banks.

The suit charged that the Swiss banks collaborated with the Nazis and
withheld from Holocaust survivors and their heirs money deposited for
safekeeping before World War II. A consortium of Swiss financial
institutions agreed to pay $1.25 billion to Holocaust victims.

(source: Los Angeles Times)



USA//VATICAN:

US court won't review Vatican Bank Holocaust suit


The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Holocaust survivors on Tuesday to proceed
with a lawsuit claiming that the Vatican Bank and a Franciscan religious
order profited from property stolen by Croatia's pro-Nazi World War Two
government.

The justices declined to review a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that
reinstated the suit, which claimed the Order of Friars Minor conspired
with the Vatican Bank to facilitate the transfer of gold and other looted
valuable assets.

The Holocaust survivors filed the lawsuit in federal court in San
Francisco in 1999 accusing the defendants of receiving property stolen
from victims of Croatia's brutal Ustasha regime from 1941 to 1945. As many
as 700,000 people, mostly Serbs, were killed at death camps run by the
regime.

The lawsuit claimed that the stolen property was used after the war to
help Nazi war criminals escape from Europe to South America. The
class-action lawsuit seeks compensation for the monetary losses suffered
by Holocaust survivors.

The Vatican Bank, the financial arm of the Roman Catholic Church, and the
religious order founded by St. Francis of Assisi have denied the claims.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2003 on the grounds that the
claims involved questions that should be handled by the executive or
legislative branches of the U.S. government, not by the courts.

But the appeals court disagreed and ruled the case could go forward, even
if the claims involved foreign relations and potentially controversial
issues.

Attorneys for the Order of Friars Minor and Vatican Bank appealed to the
Supreme Court. They argued that resolution of Holocaust-era claims was an
issue of foreign relations constitutionally committed to the political
branches of the U.S. government, not the courts.

The Vatican Bank's attorneys said the appeals court's ruling threatened
"to disrupt the nation's foreign affairs."

Attorneys for the Holocaust survivors replied that the appeals should be
rejected.

They said there were "no compelling reasons or extraordinary
circumstances" warranting high court review of the case. They said
judicial review of wartime property losses does not pose any threat to
U.S. foreign relations.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals without any comment or recorded
dissent.

(source: Reuters)