New California Law Helps Holocaust Survivors, Their Families Reclaim Nazi-Looted Art

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Monday legislation that will give Holocaust survivors and their families more opportunities to reclaim art and other personal property looted or stolen by Nazis during the Holocaust.

The signing of Assembly Bill (AB) 2867, introduced by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, took place at the Holocaust Museum LA.

“For survivors of the Holocaust and their families, the fight to take back ownership of art and other personal items stolen by the Nazis continues to traumatize those who have already gone through the unimaginable,” Newsom said in a released statement. “It is both a moral and legal imperative that these valuable and sentimental pieces be returned to their rightful owners, and I am proud to strengthen California’s laws to help secure justice for families.”

Gabriel co-chairs the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. His legislation was inspired by a ruling in January by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed a Spanish museum to maintain possession of a famous 1897 Camille Pissarro oil painting that Nazis stole from a Jewish woman named Lilly Cassirer Neubauer during the Holocaust.

Her family bought the Pissarro painting in 1900 directly from the artist’s main agent and she inherited it in 1926. In 1939, she was forced to sell the painting for $360, which was below its market value, to a Nazi art dealer in order to obtain visas to escape from Germany with her husband, according to court documents. After the war, she attempted to recover the painting in Germany, but its whereabouts were unknown.

The painting changed ownership many times and was sold to the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid in 1993. The Cassirer family has attempted to regain ownership of the painting — titled “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain” — but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the museum is not obligated to return the artwork to Cassirer’s heirs in California, and applied Spanish law to the case as opposed to California law.

The new AB 2867 mandates that California law must apply in lawsuits involving artwork or other personal property that was stolen or looted during the Holocaust due to political persecution, like in the case involving the Cassirer family. The legislation builds on existing California law that aids the state’s residents in recovering stolen property, including property stolen during the Holocaust.

Gabriel said the signing of AB 2867 “is a victory for morality and justice, and will ensure that California continues to stand on the right side of history.”

“For families in California, AB 2867 will go a long way to eliminate the incentive from governments, museums, and collectors to distort and deny the true horrors of the Holocaust in order to hold onto Nazi loot,” said Sam Dubbin, the attorney for the Cassirer family. “This new law is essential for truth, history, and justice — for the Cassirer family and the future cases as well. This law sends a clear message from the people of California to all museums and governments — including the government of Spain — that museums should have no right to hold stolen art.”

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