Does anyone know?
I'm leaving this public because I'd really like to know if anyone has the answer to this.
I have several people who are more familiar with the art community than I am on my flist...and if you want to repost this on your flist, feel free.
In 1942, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt was sent to the Terezinstadt concentration camp. She *volunteered* to go because her mother had been ordered to go and she didn't want her to go alone.
Anyway, she was an art student and during her time there she painted a mural of Snow White in the children's section of the camp to try and console them. Josef Megnele learned about her paintings and ordered her to paint gypsies that were in the camp. She did so, managing to keep herself and her mother alive during a time when most of the Czech-born Jewish people were murdered in the gas chambers. She lost her father, maternal grandmother and two half-siblings to those chambers.
She survived and relocated to the U.S.
Several years ago, (I've read she's been fighting this fight for almost three decades), she found out that seven of her paintings had surfaced and been acquired by the museum at Auschwitz. She petitioned to have *her* (my emphasis, not hers) property returned to her.
The museum refused. They said that she was basically compelled against her will to paint the paintings and therefore weren't really her property. They also said that the paintings were needed to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust. They have categorically refused to give them back to her. Even though what is actually hanging in the museum for the public is copies, they have the originals under lock and key and contend that they need those originals.
This is a part of an article that I found on the 'Net. "The museum argues they are the cultural heritage of the world and that they don’t “regard these as personal artistic creations but as documentary work done under direct orders from Dr. Mengele and carried out by the artist to ensure her survival.” The museum says the Roma people have a stake in it as well because the images are of them."
Does anyone know if she has gotten her paintings back? Everything I've found on it has been from 2006 at the earliest.
Also, why does the museum need *these* paintings to remind the world of the Holocaust? There are hundreds of pictures and I-don't-know-how-many videos of the camps as they were liberated. There are books written by survivors that tell of the horrors. Why does the museum feel that seven paintings are so important? One article I read says that the museum is afraid that if she is able to reclaim her paintings that other survivors would also come forward to reclaim their belongings, leaving the museum without some of their exhibits.
So what if they do? These people lost everything. Jews, gentiles who protested the slaughter, gypsies, homosexuals, anyone that the Nazi government deemed different (or a threat) and therefore not worthy to live had everything, *everything* stripped from them.
And if a private collector is found to have paintings that were stolen from the Jewish people during this time, they are compelled by international outrage, and sometimes the law, to return them to their rightful owners. And these are paintings that are done by artists and were simply parts of collections.
Why does the museum have the right to keep paintings that this woman did...that she did to keep her and her mother alive? She says that it feels like they are keeping pieces of her in that museum and that they are taking away from her all over again.
*whew* okay, I'll get off of my soapbox, but I am so bloody mad that the Polish government and the Auschwitz museum can do this to this woman. She is 84 years old and she wants these paintings for herself and to give to her children and grandchildren.
Someone on a message board wondered if she just needed the money. She says she wants them to complete herself again. No matter what she does, they are her paintings.
Okay, I'm really getting off the box now. *shoves soapbox as far away as possible*.
So my original question...does anyone know what the status of this is right now?
I have several people who are more familiar with the art community than I am on my flist...and if you want to repost this on your flist, feel free.
In 1942, Dina Gottliebova Babbitt was sent to the Terezinstadt concentration camp. She *volunteered* to go because her mother had been ordered to go and she didn't want her to go alone.
Anyway, she was an art student and during her time there she painted a mural of Snow White in the children's section of the camp to try and console them. Josef Megnele learned about her paintings and ordered her to paint gypsies that were in the camp. She did so, managing to keep herself and her mother alive during a time when most of the Czech-born Jewish people were murdered in the gas chambers. She lost her father, maternal grandmother and two half-siblings to those chambers.
She survived and relocated to the U.S.
Several years ago, (I've read she's been fighting this fight for almost three decades), she found out that seven of her paintings had surfaced and been acquired by the museum at Auschwitz. She petitioned to have *her* (my emphasis, not hers) property returned to her.
The museum refused. They said that she was basically compelled against her will to paint the paintings and therefore weren't really her property. They also said that the paintings were needed to remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust. They have categorically refused to give them back to her. Even though what is actually hanging in the museum for the public is copies, they have the originals under lock and key and contend that they need those originals.
This is a part of an article that I found on the 'Net. "The museum argues they are the cultural heritage of the world and that they don’t “regard these as personal artistic creations but as documentary work done under direct orders from Dr. Mengele and carried out by the artist to ensure her survival.” The museum says the Roma people have a stake in it as well because the images are of them."
Does anyone know if she has gotten her paintings back? Everything I've found on it has been from 2006 at the earliest.
Also, why does the museum need *these* paintings to remind the world of the Holocaust? There are hundreds of pictures and I-don't-know-how-many videos of the camps as they were liberated. There are books written by survivors that tell of the horrors. Why does the museum feel that seven paintings are so important? One article I read says that the museum is afraid that if she is able to reclaim her paintings that other survivors would also come forward to reclaim their belongings, leaving the museum without some of their exhibits.
So what if they do? These people lost everything. Jews, gentiles who protested the slaughter, gypsies, homosexuals, anyone that the Nazi government deemed different (or a threat) and therefore not worthy to live had everything, *everything* stripped from them.
And if a private collector is found to have paintings that were stolen from the Jewish people during this time, they are compelled by international outrage, and sometimes the law, to return them to their rightful owners. And these are paintings that are done by artists and were simply parts of collections.
Why does the museum have the right to keep paintings that this woman did...that she did to keep her and her mother alive? She says that it feels like they are keeping pieces of her in that museum and that they are taking away from her all over again.
*whew* okay, I'll get off of my soapbox, but I am so bloody mad that the Polish government and the Auschwitz museum can do this to this woman. She is 84 years old and she wants these paintings for herself and to give to her children and grandchildren.
Someone on a message board wondered if she just needed the money. She says she wants them to complete herself again. No matter what she does, they are her paintings.
Okay, I'm really getting off the box now. *shoves soapbox as far away as possible*.
So my original question...does anyone know what the status of this is right now?