Nov. 16




USA//TENNESSEE:


Tenn. professor sues Germany for Nazi art seizure

An 82-year-old Holocaust survivor and his family are suing the German
government over an extensive art collection, including paintings by El
Greco and Peter Paul Rubens, seized by the Nazis and sold at auction
during World War II.

The lawsuit is unusual because it is seeking damages for lost art rather
than the return of items that once belonged to Holocaust victims, lawyers
said. The suit estimates the 400 or more works would be worth "tens of
millions" of dollars today.

Retired economics professor Fred Westfield said he was celebrating this
12th birthday when he last saw his uncle, Walter Westfeld, a renowned art
collector. Two days later came Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken
Glass, on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis looted and burned Jewish synagogues and
businesses across Germany and Austria.

The young Westfield fled Germany shortly thereafter as part of a British
refugee program in response to Kristallnacht that brought about 10,000
Jewish children to England. He later moved to the United States with his
parents, when the family anglicized their name by adding an "i".

Walter Westfeld, though, was arrested a few days after Kristallnacht on
currency violation charges for trying to move his art work to the United
States and the Nazis auctioned hundreds of his painting and tapestries to
pay his fine, the lawsuit says.

Among the items were an El Greco that Adolf Hitler wanted for his personal
collection, paintings by Dutch masters Frans Hals and Peter Paul Rubens
and works by French impressionist Camille Pissarro.

Westfeld remained in prison and concentration camps until he was killed in
the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

In 2004, Westfield said he was doing an Internet search for his uncle's
name and learned the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was looking for Walter
Westfeld's descendants.

A museum archivist was trying to find out if the Nazis illegally sold
"Portrait of a Man and a Woman in an Interior" by the 17th Century Dutch
master Eglon van der Neer, he said.

"It was essentially my uncle's money that made it possible for our family
to survive," said Westfield, who retired from Vanderbilt University in
Nashville. "His heirs have a right to what was taken away from them. We
are not trying to recover particular pictures because we really don't have
the resources to find the 400 or more items auctioned off at the demand of
the states attorney in Dusseldorf."

The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, says today's Germany
is responsible for the actions of Hitler's regime and wants a jury to
award an unspecified amount for the loss to Westfield's heirs.

Lempertz auction house in Cologne, Germany, claimed the property was
destroyed during bombing in WWII, but the lawsuit includes a copy of the
December 1939 sale catalog and price list.

"The conversion and sale were part of an integrated policy in which Jews
were deprived of their artwork on fabricated grounds to appear as if the
government was just enforcing laws, the goal being to raise substantial
liquid funds on sale for the government and party officials," the lawsuit
says.

Overton Thompson III of Bass Berry & Sims law firm in Nashville and
Vanderbilt law professor Jeffrey Schoenblum filed the suit Oct. 3.

"Westfeld had much of his entire art collection taken and he was treated
in such a horrific manner before he was exterminated," Schoenblum said.
"Our hope is that the matter can be resolved without pursuing lengthy
litigation. Germany needs to remedy for what was done with respect to this
prominent art dealer and his property."

Schoenblum said the lawsuit is unusual because it seeks payment rather
than the art works. Previous cases, such as a claim against Elizabeth
Taylor for a Vincent van Gogh painting, have sought to have the art
returned from current owners to the family's estate.

For now, Westfield's family and attorneys are waiting to see if the German
government accepts litigation papers. Under the Hague Convention, the
country has three months to accept the lawsuit or reject it on grounds
that it is a sovereign government, Schoenblum said.

Douglas Berry, Germany's honorary consul in Nashville, said he has
knowledge of the lawsuit but no authority to comment on it. He directed
inquires to Germany's Washington, D.C. embassy, which did not return phone
and e-mail requests for a comment.

(source: Associated Press)

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CALIFORNIA:

Swastikas deface S.F. Holocaust Memorial


The Holocaust Memorial in San Francisco's Lincoln Park has been vandalized
for the second time in two months with swastikas penned on the bronze
sculpture in the latest incident that city officials learned of Wednesday.

The San Francisco Arts Commission, which owns and maintains the piece,
assessed the damage at between $5,000 and $6,000. Workers were able to
remove most of the visible damage Wednesday, and a specialized sculpture
conservator will be brought in to fully restore the memorial.

"We will find a way to fix this as quickly as possible," said PJ Johnston,
president of the San Francisco Arts Commission.

"The Holocaust," as the haunting piece by sculptor George Segal is titled,
is made up of 11 life-size figures cast in bronze and then painted white.
The figures are positioned behind a barbed-wire fence. It was installed in
1984, in a grove of trees across from the Legion of Honor, to pay tribute
to the survivors and the millions of people who died at the hands of the
Nazis during the Holocaust and to serve as a long-term reminder of the
atrocity.

A vandal or vandals used a black ink marker to deface one of the figures,
some plaques related to the sculpture and a nearby bench. The markings
were similar, with the swastika drawn inside the Jewish Star of David
symbol.

Last month, a swastika was scratched into the surface of the artwork,
commission officials said. It has been vandalized other times, as well.
Police were alerted to the latest defacement Wednesday morning.

"The fact that there's this level of intolerance and hatred in a city
that's supposed to be so tolerant is very alarming," said Cheryl Feiner,
president of the board of directors of the Jewish Community Relations
Council's Bay Area chapter. "We can't ignore this as just a prank because
that would condone this behavior as something to be tolerated."

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)




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ILLINOIS:

Holocaust museum plans historic opening


Officials with the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center announced
Tuesday the museum will open April 19 to coincide with the anniversary of
the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, considered the largest revolt by Jewish
prisoners against the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Architects, organizers and museum benefactors updated the public on the
facility near the Edens Expressway between Golf and Old Orchard Roads in
Skokie, where construction began in June 2006. The museum will be the
largest of its kind in the Midwest.

"This is likely to be the last major Holocaust museum built in
collaboration with survivors," said Richard Hirschhaut, the museum's
executive director.

The exterior of the 65,000-square-foot facility is largely complete.
Although the interior is mostly exposed concrete and dust, the walls,
lights and staircases are done.

One exhibit is already in place: A wooden, windowless German train car of
the type used for transporting livestock until the Nazis used the cars to
carry thousands of Jews to almost certain death at concentration camps.

Museum officials say incomplete and missing records have made them unable
to say with certainty whether the museum's train car was used to transport
people, but they know it is German-made and was refurbished during the
Holocaust era.

The museum will have some similarities to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, with rare documents, photographs and clothing.

But the Illinois museum also will contain the audio testimony of Holocaust
survivors who relocated to Illinois after World War II, an exhibit on the
neo-Nazi conflict Skokie in 1977, and an educational spotlight on other
genocide, including the massacres in Darfur.

Also under way: An extensive art exhibit showing works of art done in
reaction to genocide worldwide.

An exhibit for preteens will examine issues like bullying and what it
means to be different, with the hopes that the museum will be a catalyst
for discussions on how to prevent the unthinkably cruel actions of a few
from having catastrophic effects on many.

The museum "will teach children . . . about the dangers of overt prejudice
and hate," said Chicago billionaire J.B. Pritzker, who has given more than
$1 million to the project. The museum has raised $36.5 million of its $45
million fundraising goal, officials said.

About 250,000 students are predicted to visit the museum annually. Since
1990, Illinois children have been required to learn about Holocaust.

(source: Chicago Tribune)



AUSTRIA:

Austrian parliamentary leader calls for review of history linked with
Nazis



President of the Austrian parliament Barbara Prammer said Sunday that
Austria should review its history of assisting Nazis in the persecution of
Jews.

During the evening's commemoration of the 70th anniversary of "Crystal
Night" held here, she said when Nazis were persecuting Jews, "many
Austrians not only supported but also actively participated in the
persecution."

Ariel Muzicant, President of the Israelite Cultural Organization of
Vienna, also called on Austrians to "keep their distance from the
right-wing extremists" in his speech.

On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, the Nazis killed at least 90 Jews both
in Germany and Austria on the excuse that a German diplomat had been
murdered by a Jewish refugee, arrested another 30,000, ransacked thousands
of Jewish shops and institutions, and scattered broken glass everywhere.
This bloody night was later called the "Crystal Night".

Since then, Nazis began a large-scale and systematic persecution of Jews
in Europe.

On Sunday evening in Vienna, people paraded with candles spontaneously,
assembling at Judenplatz, a square at the city center, putting their
candles around the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, on which writes in
German, English and Hebrew, "In commemoration of more than 65,000
Austrian Jews, who were killed by the Nazis between 1938-1945."

The participators said that this tragedy should be memorized forever
and must not happen again. They said commemorating the horrible history
was aimed at "not forgetting" it.

(source: Xinhua News, Nov. 9)






CHILE:

Chile to honor victims of Holocaust


Chile is preparing to build a monument to Holocaust victims.

A bill authorizing construction of the monument in Santiago has been
passed by Congress and President Michelle Bachelet is expected to sign it.

Socialist legislator Jaime Naranjo sponsored the measure after he was
inspired by a visit to Israel. A commission will be appointed to oversee
the work, which will be financed through public donations.

No one voted against the monument, but some legislators of Arab ancestry
used the opportunity to criticize Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
Others called the Holocaust a tragedy of humankind that should not be
viewed in "the context of a political problem happening today."

(source: Associated Press)





ITALY:

US actor likens leaders to Nazi regime


Acclaimed American actor Viggo Mortensen has likened Italian premier
Silvio Berlusconi and US President George W. Bush to the leaders of Nazi
Germany, accusing them of exploiting fear and paranoia to strengthen
their power.

Mortensen was speaking on Sunday at the third annual Rome Film Festival
where he was launching a British-Hungarian film entitled, 'Good'.

The film focuses on the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s in
Germany. Mortensen plays a literature professor whose mother suffers from
dementia. His career takes off after he advocates compassionate euthanasia
and he is drawn towards Nazism.

Mortensen said German Nazism, like the dictators of Brazil and Argentina,
eight years of Bush in America and Berlusconi's leadership in Italy, all
reflected power without any restrictions and exploit fear and paranoia.

In the film, directed by Vicente Amorim, Mortensen's character at one
point wears the uniform of the notorious paramilitary SS guards, many of
whom were accused and prosecuted of crimes against humanity after World
War II.

Mortensen said when he wore the uniform for the first time he felt a
"strange sensation" and he thought it was due to the heat in Budapest,
where the film was shot.

But he said he realised it was his reaction to the significance of the
uniform and he sought to portray his character without judging him.

Mortensen said 'Good' was not a film about Hitler, but a family story.

Mortensen, an Academy Award-nominated actor and poet, is perhaps best
known for his role as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He is appearing in 'Appaloosa', an American film screened at the festival.
It focuses on the friendship of two men hired to protect a small town from
a ruthless rancher, a classic western story set in 1882.

(source: AKI)