Sunday, May 13, 2001

News from Westside in the Times Community Newspapers

Robert Scheer

     So, the Austrian government may not get to keep the art that the Nazis collected for them after all.

     We previously reported on the effort of Cheviot Hills resident Maria Altmann, 85, to recoup artwork that was looted by the Nazis in 1938 from her family and which the Austrian government insists on retaining.

     Altmann filed suit and, on Monday, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper denied the Austrian government's motion to dismiss the case.

     The art loot, which included two very famous portraits of Altmann's aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer and four other paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, is worth an estimated $150 million. The six paintings are now kept in the Austrian National Museum in Vienna.

     The judge ruled that the plaintiff alleged "a substantial and nonfrivolous claim that a taking in violation of international law occurred on at least two occasions." Namely, when the Nazis took the work and then again when the Austrian government refused to return it.

     Cooper cited the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 to justify her position, saying, "The existing agreements at the time the FSIA was enacted do not require granting immunity to Austria as to plaintiff's claims; in fact, these international agreements placed responsibility on Austria to return property that was improperly seized by the Nazis."

     Just why the Austrian government would like to remind us that it collected art from the Nazis, who perpetrated the greatest tragedy in human history, is beyond me. As Hitler's biographers remind us, the Austrians did a bit more than yodeling during those dark days.

     Someone with public relations smarts in the Austrian government should have figured this out by now and settled the case.

     * * * * ZUADE KAUFMAN contributed to this column. Tips and comments may be sent by e-mail to zkaufman@earthlink.net .