A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is trying to make it easier for Jews to regain art looted by the Nazis during World War II.
The lawmakers are trying to fix problems with the original Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, which passed in 2016 and allows Holocaust survivors and heirs to sue for the recovery of the stolen artworks in U.S. courts.
“The artwork wrongfully ripped from Jewish hands during the Holocaust bears witness to a chapter in history when evil persisted and the worst of humanity was on full display,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the bill’s chief sponsor, stated on Tuesday.
The new legislation would eliminate the original bill’s expiration date of Dec. 31, 2026, and make it harder for those in current possession of the artwork to use loopholes and delays to avoid giving it back to the rightful owners.
The original bill imposed a national, six-year statute of limitations that begins when owners discover the location of their artwork, but the senators said that some museums, governments and institutions have chosen to fight and stonewall rather than return the artwork, hoping to run out the clock.
In addition, some judges have offered narrow interpretations of the law, making it harder for claimants to get their property back.
To date, more than 100,000 works of art have yet to be returned, the senators said.
“The theft of art by the Nazi regime was more than a pilfering of property—it was an act of inhumanity,” said the lead Democratic sponsor, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “Our bipartisan effort seeks to strengthen measures to bring long overdue justice to families whose cherished art was brazenly stolen by the Nazis.”
Other sponsors include Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
“Eighty years after the Holocaust, we have a moral responsibility to do right by the victims of these atrocities and their families,” Fetterman stated.
Tillis said the legislation “helps to right a historic wrong committed during one of the darkest chapters in history.”
Joel Greenberg, president of the nonprofit Art Ashes, which helps families recover art looted during the Holocaust, stated that the new legislation “renews and strengthens” the expiring by “closing critical loopholes and addressing key oversights.”
“Any museum that knowingly retains stolen works is complicit in perpetuating the injustice inflicted on Holocaust victims,” he said. “We have both a moral and legal obligation to correct these wrongs and to ensure the crimes of the Holocaust are neither forgiven nor forgotten.”
