Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project

16/06/2026

Uplifting news from Belgium: Félicien Rops’ “The Absinthe Drinker” has been symbolically restituted by the Belgian government to the heirs of Armand Dorville, who was forced to sell the painting in 1942 amid N**i persecution.

Further, the Belgian government has pledged to establish a federal commission for efficient and transparent processing of restitution claims on cultural property looted during the N**i era.

Congratulations to Geert Sels, whose “Art for the Reich” precipitated these developments. An article in The Times of Israel specifically identifies Sels’ pioneering research as a key catalyst for Dorville’s heirs’ 2020 decision to file their restitution claim: https://fr.timesofisrael.com/le-gouvernement-belge-restitue-symboliquement-une-oeuvre-dart-spoliee-en-france-sous-vichy/ (article in French)

The JDCRP’s 2024 “Stolen Jewish Legacies: The Fate of the Andriesse Collection” was the first exhibition on looted art ever presented in Belgium. Revisit the story of Dutch-Belgian philanthropists and art collectors Hugo Daniel and Elisabeth Andriesse: https://jdcrp.org/the-fate-of-the-andriesse-collection/

"La mémoire de cette spoliation ne doit pas s'effacer, elle doit être transmise", a déclaré Vanessa Matz, la ministre belge chargée de la politique scientifique

15/06/2026

Marianne Rosenberg, granddaughter of the prominent French Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg, is featuring an exhibition at her Rosenberg & Co. art gallery in New York that pays tribute to her remarkable family legacy. Paul Rosenberg, who fled France after the N**i invasion, was a friend and pivotal supporter of artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Marianne Rosenberg’s father, Alexandre Rosenberg, famously liberated a train full of looted art the N**is were trying to ship out of France while fighting in the French Resistance.

Until June 27 at Rosenberg & Co., Marianne Rosenberg is presenting “Giacomo Manzù: The Artist and His Dealer,” which presents a collection of Manzù’s sculptures, alongside archival material documenting the artist’s close ties to her father.

Referring to a curatorial collaboration with Manzù’s daughter, Marianne Rosenberg said, “We realized we were both restoring the memories of our fathers through our work and eventually we had the idea for the exhibition.”

JDCRP’s digital archival platform, Legacy Explorer, currently features documentation of 672 objects that were looted from Paul Rosenberg during the N**i era (https://explorer.rjlegacy.org/person/ulan~500372940). Both Paul and Alexandre Rosenberg were discussed in our most recent JDCRP Reading Room as prominent figures in Michelle Young’s The Art Spy (2025; https://youtu.be/L7SF5O_nvrw?si=ZJ5G1omWsa79951).

We were glad to see Marianne Rosenberg’s story and exhibition profiled in The Art Newspaper. Read here: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/06/08/legacy-dealer-marianna-rosenberg-unearths-family-archive-in-new-york-show

Giacomo Manzù: The Artist and his Dealer explores the decades-long relationship between the Italian artist and Rosenberg's father

09/06/2026

The “Jewish Places” platform from Jüdisches Museum Berlin | Jewish Museum Berlin—a growing interactive map documenting European Jewish history—was recently redesigned for easier navigation.

Discover digital tours of historic Jewish neighborhoods and key locations in the lives of over 90 European Jews. While the content largely focuses on German-Jewish history and culture, the map features stories and locations across Europe and beyond. Users can add sites to the map and edit details themselves.

Several individuals on our list of persecuted Jewish collectors are featured among the platform’s “Life Stories,” including Anna Caspari, Helene Hecht, Henri Hinrichson, Georg and Margarethe Mecklenburg, and Walter Bondy.

"Jewish Places" is available in English, German, and Simple German. Explore and contribute: https://www.jewish-places.de/en

Association of European Jewish Museums

01/06/2026

Earlier this year, a Ukrainian PhD student who attended our online seminar series, "How to Research N**i-Looted Art," discovered that a lion statue discussed in the seminar, looted during the N**i occupation of Ukraine, had been stolen again from Ukraine in 2022 by Russian forces. This ongoing story feels all the more urgent today following a large-scale attack on Kyiv on May 24, 2026, which damaged or destroyed over ten cultural heritage sites.

We interviewed Kateryna Kostiuchenko about how she traced the history of this lion statue, about provenance research in the Ukrainian context, and what this particular case suggests about cultural heritage in times of war.

Read the conversation on our website: https://jdcrp.org/looted-twice-from-ukraine-interview

20/05/2026

Thank you to Michelle Young and everyone who attended yesterday’s JDCRP Reading Room, “The Art Spy: Rose Valland’s Resistance at the Jeu de Paume.”

The full presentation is now available online at the JDCRP website: https://jdcrp.org/videos

In this clip, Young describes some of the espionage activities of Rose Valland (1898-1980), an art curator who secretly documented N**i looting while working at the Jeu de Paume Museum in N**i-occupied Paris. Young also presents some of Valland’s identification cards and shows samples from the notes Valland surreptitiously wrote.

20/05/2026

Reminder: Today, May 20, at 18:00 CET / 12:00 EDT, JDCRP Senior Research and Documentation Officer Anne Uhrlandt will speak online about her research into the biography and looted collection of persecuted Jewish artist and collector Eugen Spiro (1874-1972).

Register here: https://fritzaschersociety.org/exhibition-event/eugen-spiro

Hosted by the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, Inc. No cost to attend.

19/05/2026

Reminder! TODAY at 18:00 CET / 12:00 EDT, we will hold our next JDCRP Reading Room, featuring Michelle Young, author of The Art Spy (2025).

Join us online at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/ZWkC3i59RrS0FX00r1bpLw

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

13/05/2026

Stolen Jewish Legacies: The Fate of Eugen Spiro and His Looted Collection
Online lecture hosted by Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, Inc.
May 20, 2026
18:00-19:00 CET / 12:00-1:00pm EDT
Register: https://fritzaschersociety.org/exhibition-event/eugen-spiro/

JDCRP Senior Research and Documentation Officer Anne Uhrlandt will present the forgotten story of once prominent German Jewish artist and collector Eugen Spiro (April 18, 1874, Wrocław, Poland – September 26, 1972, New York City, USA).

During a two-year research project, Uhrlandt reconstructed Spiro’s biography and the fate of his looted collection by bringing together evidence and sources from numerous international archives. She will introduce two case studies about specific stolen objects that demonstrate the potential of provenance research to piece back together the Jewish contribution to European cultural history before World War II.

Learn more and register: https://fritzaschersociety.org/exhibition-event/eugen-spiro/

12/05/2026

When a descendant of N**i collaborator Hendrik Seyffardt asked his grandmother about a painting in their family’s home, she replied that it was “Jewish looted art, stolen from Goudstikker. It is unsellable. Don’t tell anyone.”

Seyffardt's descendant did the opposite, instead inviting provenance research into the origins of the painting—“Portrait of a Young Girl” by Toon Kelder—which was identified as a work which had been looted from Jacques Goudstikker and subsequently sold in a 1940 auction.

Read more from ARTnews: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/nazi-looted-portrait-home-ss-leader-1234785000/

Visit Legacy Explorer to access archival records related to over 1,300 objects looted from Jacques Goudstikker: https://explorer.rjlegacy.org/person/persecuted-collector_Jacques-Goudstikker

11/05/2026

In coverage about Flanders' new restitution commission for N**i-looted art, a recent piece from The Brussels Times features the JDCRP’s digital archival platform, Legacy Explorer (https://explorer.rjlegacy.org). “If a claimant can identify an artwork in the platform which belonged to their family,” the article explains, "the fact that it was documented by the N**is is evidence that it was looted and therefore should be restored.”

Interviewed for the piece, JDCRP Senior Research and Documentation Officer Anne Uhrlandt outlined our vision for integrating additional archival holdings into the platform and expanding its capacity to support claimants and other researchers.

Read the article from Mose Apelblat here: https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/2110460/looted-art-in-wwii-what-will-be-the-first-tasks-of-the-flemish-restitution-committee