Daily Podcasts Video Research

Nazis stole thousands of pieces of art — but that was only the beginning of the story

JL;DR SUMMARY The Jewish Museum's exhibit, "Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art," unveils the complex journey of cultural artifacts seized by the Nazis during WWII. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

NazisHannah ArendtRestitutionJewish MuseumLooted ArtJewish Cultural Reconstruction Inc.PicassoMatisseCezanneDegenerated Art

Places mentioned

New York, United States
"Afterlives: Recovering the lost stories of looted art runs August 20 January 9 at the Jewish Museum, 109 5th Ave, New York, NY."
Paris, France
"It starts with a room full of recognizable masterpieces by the likes of Picasso and Matisse, explaining how the pieces were stored by the Nazis at the Jeu de Paume, a museum in Paris, where Nazi officials decided which were slated for destruction and which would go to private collections or Hitlers planned Fuhrermuseum."
Vienna, Austria
"Bernardo Strozzis 1600s era Act of Mercy: Giving Drink to the Thirsty was confiscated from Viennese Jewish industrialist Oscar Bondy and earmarked for Hitlers planned Fuhrermuseum."
Israel
"a collage by the Brooklyn-based Lisa Oppenheim using a photograph of a never-found piece of art by Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 59264
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-08-14 05:31:51 UTC
Curated 2025-08-14 08:30:52 UTC