Specific guidance on Judaica provenance research
Judaica manual now also available in German language
Berlin, 20.03.2019 – The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) are pleased to announce the online publication of the “Handbuch Judaica Provenienz Forschung: Zeremonialobjekte” in German. The handbook is now also available in German:
Handbuch Judaica Provenienz Forschung: Zeremonialobjekte [PDF]
The German translation of the handbook came about thanks to the generous support of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Prof. Monika Grütters. The mother-tongue expert and author Felicitas Jelinek-Heimann signs responsible for the German translation.
“The handbook, written by proven experts, offers provenance researchers a specific guide for researching the provenance of Jewish ceremonial objects stolen from private and synagogal ownership during the Holocaust,” said Ruediger Mahlo, representative of the Claims Conference in Germany. “In the German-speaking world, there has been a lack of a comparable handbook; this gap is now filled by the handbook in German,” Mahlo continued.
Judaica was systematically stolen on a large scale during the Holocaust. What the National Socialists did not melt down was scattered to the winds. The handbook, written by Julie-Marthe Cohen, Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek and Ruth Jolanda Weinberger, also aims to give provenance researchers access to a discipline with which they have had little contact to date.
“The handbook, produced under the Looted Art and Cultural Property Initiative of the Claims Conference and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), with translation assistance from the government of Germany, is a powerful resource for Jewish communities, Holocaust survivors and their families, museums, and other repositories worldwide seeking guidance on Judaica provenance research for cultural goods and ritual items that were wrongfully taken during the Holocaust,” said Wesley Fisher, Director of Research for the Claims Conference and WJRO.
On the occasion of the online publication of the German language version, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Minister of State Prof. Monika Grütter, declared: “With the German edition of this important handbook, we want to place provenance research, especially on Judaica, more in the focus of the reappraisal of the Nazi art theft, because in addition to valuable works of art, ritual objects from synagogues and Jewish households were also the aim of the National Socialist policy of robbery and destruction. In order to make it easier for German-speaking researchers to access scientific sources when investigating Judaica, the Federal Government is keen to support the translation of the handbook.”