Two lawsuits in California seek to recover Nazi-looted art from museums

Two lawsuits have been filed in California this week seeking to recover art allegedly stolen by Nazis. The Jewish Federation Los Angeles filed a suit against the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, to reclaim two Lucas Cranach the Elder oil paintings. These paintings were reportedly stolen from the Dutch Jewish collector Jacques Goudstikker's family after they fled the Nazis. The Federation, to whom Goudstikker's heir assigned the claim, plans to donate proceeds to impoverished Holocaust survivors, stating, "We are seeking to reverse a great injustice perpetrated by the Nazi theft of a Jewish family’s property." This suit leverages California's AB 2867 and the federal Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act.

• The second lawsuit, filed by the daughters of Holocaust survivor Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, targets the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland.
• It alleges the museum wrongly holds watercolor paintings Babbitt was forced to create for Dr. Josef Mengele while imprisoned in Auschwitz.
• The museum acknowledges Babbitt as the creator but maintains the paintings should remain as "unique documents and material evidence" of the crimes committed at Auschwitz, according to Paweł Sawicki, deputy spokesman.