Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project

22/04/2026

A new online exhibition from our partners at the OFP Project in the Brandenburg State Archives offers an engaging, approachable introduction to the apparatus and impacts of N**i-era looting in and around Berlin.

Available in both English and German, "Besitzen Sie Gemälde...?" ("Do you own paintings...?") presents this history accessibly through clear explanations, an interactive map, a timeline, a glossary, and six biographical case studies profiling the lives and stolen property of Jewish collectors who were persecuted in Berlin. The exhibition draws on the Brandenburg State Archives' collection of approximately 42,000 digitized archival records of the N**i Reich Finance Administration.

Explore the exhibition: https://raub-kunst-verwaltung.de/en/

20/04/2026

The Art Spy: Rose Valland's Resistance at the Jeu de Paume
May 19, 2026 | 18:00–19:00 CET / 12:00–13:00 EDT
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ZWkC3i59RrS0FX00r1bpLw

We invite you to our next presentation of the JDCRP Reading Room, an online conversation series from the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) featuring authors whose works deepen our understanding of looted art and Jewish culture.

In this session, Michelle Young will present her recent book, The Art Spy (2025), which offers enriching insights into the life and espionage of art curator-turned-resistance hero Rose Valland. While working at the Jeu de Paume in occupied Paris, Valland spent years secretly documenting N**i looting, taking immense personal risk to do so.

Young will discuss her research process as well as Valland's life and impact. The presentation will include an opportunity for audience questions. No prior reading is required.

Register now: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ZWkC3i59RrS0FX00r1bpLw

17/04/2026

Next week, Anne Uhrlandt and Deidre Berger will present JDCRP’s digital overview of Jewish collectors in N**i Germany, drawn from data in our list documenting persecuted Jewish collectors.

Their presentation will be part of an afternoon session on April 22 at Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf’s conference, “Dr. Max Stern and his Jewish Customers.” During April 21 and 22, the German-language conference will focus on restitution and questions of justice for looted art, as well as highlighting the case study of Jewish art dealer Max Stern and his circle of collectors.

Join Berger and Uhrlandt on April 22 at 14:00 CET at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf. Attendance is free of charge and no registration is required.

Learn more at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf’s website: https://www.duesseldorf.de/stadtmuseum/veranstaltungen/detail/newsdetail/tagung-dr-max-stern-und-seine-juedischen-kundinnen

Tagung: Dr. Max Stern und seine jüdischen Kund*innen
Restitution von Raubkunst aus jüdischem Besitz – eine bleibende Verpflichtung
📆21. April und 22. April
🔹Ihr seid herzlich willkommen. Der Eintritt ist frei / ohne Anmeldung.


Einige wichtige Aspekte des vielschichtigen Problems der Restitution bilden den ersten Schwerpunkt der Tagung. Wie ist dem vergangenen Unrecht heute rechtlich zu begegnen und wie kann das allmähliche Vergessen verhindert werden? Wie ist der Kreis der Geschädigten zu definieren?

Im zweiten Teil der Tagung geht es um die konkreten Perspektiven der Sammler und der Händler von Kunst. Wie lassen sich heute noch jüdische Sammler und ihre Sammlungen beziehungweise jüdische Kunsthändler und ihre Bestände identifizieren? Welche Handlungsspielräume besaßen sie unter der Diktatur? Dies soll sowohl im Allgemeinen wie, ausgehend von Max Stern und seinem Kundenkreis, an konkreten Beispielen diskutiert werden.

Tagungsprogramm:

🔹Eröffnung und Festvortrag am 21. April
🕖 19 Uhr

Grußworte:
Dr. Susanne Anna, Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf
Dr. Marta Neüff, Kulturattaché der Botschaft Kanadas in Deutschland
Dr. Oded Horowitz, Landesverband der Jüdischen Gemeinden Nordrhein K.d.ö.R.

Festvortrag:
Prof. Dr. Raphael Gross, Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin)

Anschließend Empfang

🔹Wissenschaftliche Vorträge am 22. April
🕘 Vormittag 9-13 Uhr
Moderation: Prof. Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister (München)
➡️Prof. Dr. Moya Moran (Toronto): Wie kann man Unrecht aus der Vergangenheit mit juristischen Mitteln aufarbeiten?
➡️Dr. Agnes Peresztegi (Budapest): Restitution im europäischen Vergleich
➡️Prof. Dr. Constantin Goschler (Bochum): Probleme des Wiedergutmachungsprozesses in der frühen BRD
➡️Dr. Willi Korte (Washington): Die Stellung von Erst- und Zweitgeschädigten im Prozess der Restitution

🕑 Nachmittag 14-18 Uhr
Moderation: Dr. Willi Korte
➡️Prof. Dr. Bernd Kortländer (Düsseldorf): Jüdische Sammler*innen im Umkreis der Galerie Stern
➡️Dr. Olga Sugrobova-Roth (Düsseldorf): Ein Fallbeispiel
➡️Dr. Stephan Klingen (München): Das Problem der staatlichen Verkäufe von Kunstwerken aus ehemaligem Reichsbesitz nach 1960
➡️Anne Uhrlandt (München), Deidre Berger (Berlin): Das „Jewish Digital Recovery Project“. Ein digitaler Überblick über jüdische Sammler*innen in N**i-Deutschland

🔹Veranstalter
Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf
Landesverband der Jüdischen Gemeinden Nordrhein K.d.ö.R.
Max und Iris Stern Foundation

🔹Mit freundlicher Unterstützung
Freundeskreis Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf e.V.
Embassy of Canada to Germany



ℹ️Weitere Informationen unter: https://www.duesseldorf.de/stadtmuseum/

13/04/2026

Before the N**is rose to power, Eugen Spiro (1874-1972) was one of Berlin's most important artists and president of the Berlin Secession. But because Spiro was Jewish, in 1933 the N**is banned him from practicing hs profession, causing a sharp loss of income for his family—made worse by a corresponding decline in the market price of his paintings.

Despite sporadic postwar periods of attention in the United States and in Germany, Spiro's reputation never fully recovered. Today, his name and work are largely forgotten in public memory.

To help shed light on the stolen legacy of Eugen Spiro, JDCRP Senior Research and Documentation Officer Anne Uhrlandt conducted a two-year provenance investigation into both Spiro's dramatic biography and the objects stolen from him—some which he created, others which he had collected.

Uhrlandt's report is now live on our website. Over the coming weeks, we will share two particular narratives that her research uncovered.

Read the full report: https://jdcrp.org/eugen-spiro-case-study/

09/04/2026

When persecuted Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner fled Paris in 1939, his collection was confiscated and sold. After the war, Stettiner filed a claim for Amedeo Modigliani’s “Seated Man with a Cane” (1918); a French court ruled in his favor, but the painting’s whereabouts were unknown, and it was not returned.

Last Friday—long after the painting resurfaced and eighty years after Stettiner’s claim in France—the New York Supreme Court ruled again that Stettiner’s estate is entitled to the Modigliani, finding it was unlawfully seized from Stettiner during the N**i occupation of France, and that it should be returned to family heirs.

We salute Judge Joel M. Cohen for his decision, in which he wrote that “evidence shows a straightforward and persuasive chain of ownership/right of possession flowing directly from Mr. Stettiner to N**i seizure to a forced sale.”

We hope that "Seated Man with a Cane" will indeed be returned.

Read more via The Art Newspaper:

The case was decided in New York after 11 years of court battles

02/04/2026

The JDCRP is hiring two new Student Reviewers of Digitized Documents!

The remote part-time student role (12-18 hours per week, flexible) works to assist reviewing transcriptions of archival material, evaluating the results, safeguarding completeness and correcting errors—contributing to the ongoing development of our Legacy Explorer digital platform.

Key qualifications include proficiency in basic IT, experience with AI-prompt writing, and strong attention to detail.

Learn more and apply: https://jdcrp.org/jobs

31/03/2026

Chag Pesach Sameach from the JDCRP!

These two paintings depicting pivotal events in the Passover story were looted by N**i officials. After the war, both works were recovered and documented by Allied Forces.

“The Finding of Moses,” by an unknown artist, was photographed by the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section Unit at the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point. The work’s original owner—presumed to have been Jewish—was never identified.

“The Downfall of the Egyptians in the Red Sea,” by Antonio Tempesta, was photographed by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris, where the work was processed as part of a collection they looted from Berta Propper. The painting was restituted to Propper after the war.

Archival documentation of both works is accessible in Legacy Explorer (https://explorer.rjlegacy.org), the JDCRP’s digital research platform that was recently launched in its initial phase.

25/03/2026

In an insightful new video discussion, JDCRP trustee Dr. Zsuzsanna Toronyi and Dr. David Fishman, Professor at The Jewish Theological Seminary - JTS speak to Dr. Gabor Kadar about the great value—and precarity—of local Jewish community archives in Hungary and Ukraine.

Their reflections underline the importance of continually expanding the collection of archival sources digitally available through our Legacy Explorer platform (https://explorer.rjlegacy.org).

Watch episode one (“Endangered Jewish Community Archives”) of the “Challenging Conversations” video series from the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe: https://rothschildfoundation.eu/challenging-conversations/

18/03/2026

Provenance Research in Today’s World: The Andriesse Case
Perspectives on N**i-looted art from a JDCRP researcher, a victim family member, and a museum professional

April 14, 2026
6 p.m. CET / 12 p.m. EDT
Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/SSg4V5rUTlG31UvM3H9PIw

During a two-year research project for the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP), Senior Research and Documentation Officer Anne Uhrlandt recovered the long-neglected story of Dutch-Belgian Jewish art collectors Elisabeth (1871-1963) and Hugo Daniel Andriesse (1867-1942) and the fate of their looted collection of art and textiles (https://jdcrp.org/the-fate-of-the-andriesse-collection/).

In this one-hour online conversation for International Provenance Research Day, Uhrlandt and JDCRP Executive Board Chair Deidre Berger will moderate a discussion with Sabra Anckner, Andriesse family member (Washington, D.C.), and Margaret Doyle, Head of Curatorial Records at the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.). They will discuss the impact of provenance research in today’s world and its potential to reconstruct lost family stories.

Free of charge. Please register to attend: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/SSg4V5rUTlG31UvM3H9PIw

16/03/2026

Presenting Legacy Explorer - A New Provenance Research Platform
April 7, 2026
4 p.m. CET / 10 a.m. EDT
Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/P0SyNLugQ-Gj3ixZtYf2qw

Attend this International Provenance Research Day presentation to learn about Legacy Explorer (https://explorer.rjlegacy.org), Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project’s (JDCRP) digital archival platform for accessing documents related to N**i-era looting of cultural property throughout Europe. Legacy Explorer is built to make researching objects, victims, and histories faster and more accessible for scholars, survivor families, art market professionals, and the broader public.

The initial release makes over 56,000 digitized records from multiple archives searchable at a single online address. These include previously unscanned photographs and materials from the Wiesbaden and Marburg Central Collecting Points that are for the first time searchable at the document level.

A recent update added dedicated pages for creators and presumed owners of objects. The platform will continue to expand with additional datasets and functionalities.

In a live online demonstration on April 7, 2026, at 4 p.m. CET / 10 a.m. EDT, JDCRP staff will introduce key features and answer questions. Free of charge.

Please register to attend: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/P0SyNLugQ-Gj3ixZtYf2qw

12/03/2026

While imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp in late 1938, the Viennese composer Hermann Leopoldi wrote the “Buchenwald March” together with lyricist Fritz Löhner-Beda.

SS guards embraced the “Buchenwald March,” ordering the camp orchestra to play it several times a day as prisoners marched to and from forced labor. The guards were seemingly unaware of the hidden message in the song’s final verse:

"O Buchenwald, we do not whimper and complain,
and whatever our fate may be,
we still want to say yes to life,
for one day the day will come: then we shall be free!”

(Translated from German:
O Buchenwald, wir jammern nicht und klagen,
und was auch unser Schicksal sei,
wir wollen trotzdem ja zum Leben sagen,
denn einmal kommt der Tag: dann sind wir frei!)

Before he was deported to Buchenwald, Hermann Leopoldi’s personal belongings—including his precious Bösendorfer piano—were looted. He survived the war, but his restitution claims were unsuccessful.

Visit the JDCRP website to read about Hermann Leopoldi’s dispossession, explore a timeline of his life, and hear a recorded performance of the “Buchenwald March”:
https://jdcrp.org/profile-hermann-leopoldi/ (English)
https://de.jdcrp.org/profil-hermann-leopoldi/ (Deutsch)

05/03/2026

The Dutch platform Oorlogsbronnen (“War Sources”) has just published a powerful new contribution to our understanding of N**i-era looting in the Netherlands.

Drawing on the archival records of the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands), Verloren bezit (“Lost Property”) presents:

- Analysis of the NK Collection (“Dutch Art Property Collection”): over 3,000 looted objects that were returned to the Netherlands but whose rightful owners were never identified, which are currently under renewed investigation
- Quantitative analysis of looted works and restitution claims
- Profiles victims, perpetrators, and collaborators
- Interactive maps tracing the journeys of specific collections

Explore here: https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/kunstroof

The page is presented in Dutch, but is largely accessible via the automatic translation feature available in most web browsers.