Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Berlin Museum Returns Nazi-Looted Sculpture To Jewish Heirs

(JTA) — A Berlin museum said a 15th–century religious sculpture looted by the Nazis was returned to the heirs of its former Jewish owners and then sold back to the museum.

The Bode Museum said Monday that it had reached an agreement with the heirs, The Local reported.

Michael Eissenhauer, the head of Berlin’s public museums, said the agreement was “righting an injustice” and thanked the heirs for their “grand gesture,” which keeps the piece on display.

The carved sculpture circa 1430, which shows three angels floating on clouds and a sleeping infant Jesus, once belonged to the private collection of the Jewish industrialist Ernst Saulmann and his wife, Agathe, one of the few female pilots of her era.

The couple fled Germany in 1935, initially for Italy. The Nazis confiscated their land, business, mechanized cotton mill, private library, art collection and Agathe’s plane. Their more than 100 artworks were sold off at a Munich auction in 1936.

The Saulmanns left fascist Italy for France, but when the Nazis invaded that country, the couple was sent to an internment camp.

The Saulmanns’ descendants hired researchers who managed to locate 11 artworks from their collection, which landed in five German museums and three private collections.

“My family was able to reach different agreements with all these institutions and collectors,” Felix de Marez Oyens, one of the heirs, said at a recent news conference.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.