90. In Article 26 of the Multilateral Austrian State Treaty of May 15, 1955, Austria promised:
In so far as such action has not already been taken, Austria undertakes that, in all cases where property, legal rights or interests in Austria have since 13th March, 1938, been subject to forced transfer or measures of sequestration, confiscation or control on account of the racial origin or religion of the owner, the said property shall be returned and the said legal rights and interests shall be restored together with their accessories.
91. Austria has failed to live up to its treaty obligations because it has refused to return the Klimt paintings to Ferdinand’s heirs.
92. In his May 15, 1959 letter regarding the settlement of Article 26 claims for restitution, U.S. Ambassador to Austria H. Freeman Matthews concluded:
My Government has instructed me to advise you that it may approach the Austrian Federal Government in the future in connection with the settlement of individual claims asserted under Article 26 of the State Treaty which are not presently known to my Government and do not fall within the classes and categories of claims enumerated in paragraphs 1 and 2 of Section A of your note [which do not including artworks].
93. In other words, the U.S. reserved the right to assert unknown claims, such as the ones for the Bloch-Bauer's paintings. The fact that the Austrian government had misled the heirs and had falsified the provenance of the paintings was not revealed until last year, so these claims fall within the category of claims “not presently known” in 1959. Therefore, the United States has the ability to enforce ALTMANN’s claims against the AUSTRIAN GALLERY.
94. In 1998, the U.S. Congress enacted and President Clinton signed the Holocaust Victims Redress Act, Pub. L. No. 105-158, 112 Stat. 18 (1998) which provides:
TITLE II--WORKS OF ART SEC. 201. FINDINGS.
Congress finds as follows:
(1) Established pre-World War II principles of international law, as enunciated in Articles 47 and 56 of the Regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, prohibited pillage and the seizure of works of art.
(2) In the years since World War II, international sanctions against confiscation of works of art have been amplified through such conventions as the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, which forbids the illegal export of art work and calls for its earliest possible restitution to its rightful owner.
(3) In defiance of the 1907 Hague Convention, the Nazis extorted and looted art from individuals and institutions in countries it occupied during World War II and used such booty to help finance their war of aggression.
(4) The Nazis' policy of looting art was a critical element and incentive in their campaign of genocide against individuals of Jewish and other religious and cultural heritage and, in this context, the Holocaust, while standing as a civil war against defined individuals and civilized values, must be considered a fundamental aspect of the world war unleashed on the continent.
(5) Hence, the same international legal principles applied among states should be applied to art and other assets stolen from victims of the Holocaust.
(6) In the aftermath of the war, art and other assets were transferred from territory previously controlled by the Nazis to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, much of which has not been returned to rightful owners.
SEC. 202. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING RESTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY, SUCH AS WORKS OF ART.
It is the sense of the Congress that consistent with the 1907 Hague Convention, all governments should undertake good faith efforts to facilitate the return of private and public property, such as works of art, to the rightful owners in cases where assets were confiscated from the claimant during the period of Nazi rule and there is reasonable proof that the claimant is the rightful owner.
