Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Holocaust Survivor’s Kin Must Return Artifact

The family of a deceased Holocaust survivor must return to a German museum a 3,200-year-old artifact that he had brought with him to the United States, a New York state appellate court has ruled.

It is not clear how Riven Flamenbaum gained ownership of the ancient gold Assyrian tablet, but the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin listed it as missing just after World War II, The New York Times reported.

The decision, which overturns a 2010 Nassau County Surrogate Court judge’s ruling, is unusual in that it asks a Holocaust victim’s or survivor’s family to return an item to a museum instead of the reverse.

Flamenbaum, a former Auschwitz prisoner, brought the passport photo-sized relic with him to the United States four years after the war and after spending time in a displaced persons camp, according to the Times.

He died in 2003, which is when his children discovered the item had been stolen at one point from the museum. That institution sued to regain the tablet.

“The principle that property taken unlawfully should be returned is consistent with the rights of Holocaust victims,” Raymond J. Dowd, the attorney who represented the museum and has in the past advocated for families of Holocaust victims seeking to recover lost art, told the Times.

Seth A. Presser, the Flamenbaum’s attorney, told the newspaper that the decision would be appealed.

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.