Brief Amicus Curiae Filed in Grosz v. The Museum of Modern Art (Moma), 10-257-Cv (2d Cir.), of American Jewish Congress, Commission for Art Recovery, Filippa Marullo Anzalone, Yehuda Bauer, Michael J. Bazyler, Bernard Dov Beliak, Michael Berenbaum, Donald S. Burris, Judy Chicago and Donald Woodman, Talbert D’Alemberte, Marion F. Desmukh, Hedy Epstein, Hector Feliciano, Irving Greenberg, Grace Cohen Grossman, Marcia Sachs Littell, Hubert G. Locke, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Arthur R. Miller, Carol Rittner, John K. Roth, Lucille A. Roussin, William L. Shulman, Stephen D. Smith and Fritz Weinschenk, in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants and Reversal

Abstract:     
Some American museums and others have managed to convince our federal courts that claims to Nazi-looted art are not worthy of treatment on the merits – grossly distorting the historical record and gutting executive policy since 1943 (culminating in the 1998 Washington Principles and 2009 Terezin Declaration, which call for ADR based on the merits, not procedural technicalities) in the process. Some courts seem to have been convinced that enemies of the Third Reich could all freely engage in voluntary property and business transactions up until the passage of the Nuremberg Laws or even as late as 1938. This brief uses irrefutable historical evidence to demonstrate the falsity of this position and that the art world had contemporary knowledge of the massive infection of the art market with “flight art” starting in 1933.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 70

Keywords: Jentsch, Lowry, AAMD, AAM, MoMA, Nazi, Holocaust, Loot, Executive, Separation of Powers, History, Historical, Flight Art, ADR, 408, Flight Art, German, Germany, Austria, Grosz, ALIU, Art Looting Investigation Unit, Red Flag Name, Jew, Nuremberg, Washington Principles, Vilnius, Terezin, Eizenstat

working papers series