The Claims Conference-WJRO has initiated several major projects aimed at researching the looting of Jewish owned cultural and religious property in Hungary.
In February 2025, the Zekelman Holocaust Center and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) announced the launch of a new website featuring 180 digitized, searchable microfilm reels with more than 160,000 frames related to Jews in Hungary during World War II.
Three reels, reel 143, reel 144 and reel 145, are particularly valuable for those pursuing claims related to stolen property, especially artwork.
In May 2025, the Claims Conference-WJRO published a report by Dr. Andrea Dunai on the looting of Hungarian race horses during the German occupation.
In October 2026, the Claims Conference-WJRO published two more articles by Dr. Andrea Dunai:
The report “Book Confiscations during the German Occupation” reconstructs how Jewish-owned books in Hungary were confiscated, destroyed and dispersed after the German occupation of 19 March 1944, by German agencies, Hungarian authorities and the government commissariat.
The report “Cultural Plunder, Ideological Rivalry, and Hungary in 1944” examines the attempt by Alfred Rosenberg’s Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) to extend its looting of Jewish cultural property to Hungary in 1944, and shows how rivalry among competing German agencies undermined its efforts.
Additional information on the looting of Jewish cultural and religious property from Jews in Hungary is also available on the website of the Jewish Digitial Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP), specifically the listing of Hungarian Jewish Persecuted Jewish Collectors. The project currently provides reserch on 332 persecuted Jewish collectors from Hungary drawing from archival records located at, for example, the Hungarian National Archives.
last updated October 2026
Picture credits: (1) Deportation of Hungarian Jews, courtesy: Yad Vashem; (2) Racetrack in Budapest. Copyright: Fortepan /Kölcsey Ferenc Dunakeszi Városi Könyvtár / Petanovits fényképek; (3) Seal of the "Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg" (1941-1944), public domain; (4) Screenshot, JDCRP Persecuted Jewish Collectors Project.