The Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) was initiated in 2016 by the Claims Conference and the Commission for Art Recovery (CAR) as part of an ambitious plan to expand and develop the database of objects plundered by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg that transited through the Jeu de Paume in Paris – the ERR Database created by the Claims Conference.
With its expansion, the Database is on track to become the most comprehensive listing of all Jewish-owned cultural objects plundered by the Nazis and their allies, from the time of their spoliation to the present day, pursuant to a resolution of the European Parliament and the 1998 Washington Conference Principles.
The Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Foundation (JDCRP Stiftung) was established under German law to accept funds for the Project. Rüdiger Mahlo, Representative of the Claims Conference in Germany, is Chair of the Board of Trustees, and Wesley Fisher, Director of Research at the Claims Conference and WJRO, represents the Executive Board.
legacy explorer database
On December 17, 2025, the Jewish Digital Recovery Project (JDCRP) launched the Legacy Explorer Database, an online platform designed to digitally unite archival documents that provide evidence of the
Nazi-era theft of Jewish cultural property. Currently, the records are scattered across archives
worldwide.
The Claims Conference was a major funder of the archival platform, as well as the European Union, and the German Federal Commissioner for Cultural and the Media (BKM). The project was additionally sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) and supported by the Foundation “Remembrance,
Responsibility and Future” (EVZ).
Profiles of European Jewish Art Collections and Collectors
On January 27, 2026, Holocaust Memorial Day, the JDCRP launched a new project to highlight the fate of individual collections of art in Nazi-occupied countries that belonged to Jewish collectors.
The first cases studies include the Freud family, the Čelebonović family, Hermann Leopoldi, and Jenő Vida.
Additional case studies are planned for the future.
Documentation of Persecuted Jewish Artists
The project “Documentation of Persecuted Jewish Artists” includes an exploration of the lives of persecuted Jewish visual artists, many of whom made an outsized contribution to artistic milieus throughout Europe during their tragically abbreviated careers. Numerous Jewish artists perished in the Holocaust, while the lives and art of those who survived was ineluctably changed by their traumatic experiences. The project will provide documentation of the life and artistic works of these persecuted Jewish artists, creating a virtual reconstruction of a once vibrant artistic culture. The project builds on existing database and published information, centralizing and collecting information from numerous countries.
Documentation of Persecuted Jewish Collectors
In March 2023, the JDCRP published a first initial list of approximately 2,000 names of persecuted Jewish collectorsfrom various European countries. In April 2025, the JDCRP presented an updated list with initial data on over 3,600 persecuted Jewish collectors.
In January 2026, the JDCRP presented an updated version containing more than 5,600 names. This updated list provides information on persecuted Jewish collectors from 19 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Serbia, and Switzerland.
The JDCRP is developing this initial list of persecuted Jewish collectors further to transform it further into a powerful research tool. A more detail-oriented version of the list is being prepared that will include further information to the greatest extent possible on collectors’ lives, their family and business connections, the types of their collections, and their persecution histories.
In addition, the Persecuted Jewish Collectors project is presenting two case studies:
- Case Study (1): The Salomon Kohn Postkartenverlag
- Case Study (2): The Looting of Albert Einstein’s Cultural Property
Case Study – The Fate of the Eugen Spiro Collection
In December 2025, the JDCRP released a lenghty case study on the Eugen Spiro Collection.
Pilot Project I
The JDCRP Pilot Project entitled The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection, co-funded by the European Union (EU), was completed in July 2021 with the launch of a central database of documentation of cultural objects plundered by the National Socialists, their allies, and their collaborators.
The National Socialists’ systematic art plunder was especially intensified after 1938 when Germany annexed Austria and then invaded most of Europe. Objects of art such as paintings, sculptures, Judaica, and books were forcibly taken from private Jewish collections. The annihilation of Jewish culture and the unprecedented displacement of a vast number of cultural objects during the Nazi era have never been fully documented and the pilot project that concentrated on 333 paintings that were part of the Schloss family’s collection included all the phases of implementation of a comprehensive database, with a smaller volume and thematic scope that allowed for the JDCRP database to be designed and built based on the results.
Pilot Project II
The second part of the JDCRP’s pilot project is to link archival repositories on Nazi-looted cultural property by focusing on populating its emerging cross-searchable digital data platform. This project will consolidate a selected group of digitized archival data on plundered cultural property to enable keyword searches at the document level. Archival material from the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point of the American Allied Forces, as well as from the records of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) Nazi looting agency will be included.
Stolen Jewish Legacies: The Fate of the Andriesse Collection
The exhibition “Stolen Jewish Legacies: The Fate of the Andriesse Collection” traced the lives and cultural impact of Dutch-Belgian philanthropists and art collectors Hugo Daniel Andriesse (1867-1942) and his wife Elisabeth Andriesse (1871-1963), whose significant contributions to European cultural heritage were long neglected.
The exhibition was presented at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels on November 7, 2024. On this occasion, Elisabeth Andriesse’s copy of Armoede, referenced in the exhibition, was presented to her legal heirs by a representative of the FPS Economy (Economy Ministry of Belgium).
The panels of the exhibition can be explored here.
Preliminary List of Educational Material on Looted Cultural Property and Provenance Research.
Contact Information
European Office
Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project
c/o Schwenke Schütz
Bernburger Strasse
10963 Berlin
Email: info@jdcrp.org
last updated January 2026