Brief Amicus Curiae of B'Nai B'Rith International, Raoul Wallenberg Ctr. for Human Rights, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Amb. Stuart E. Eizenstat, et al. filed in Zuckerman/Leffman v. The Met

Abstract

American judges have not yet developed a record of fair resolution of claims seeking the return of "Flight Art," artworks Nazi persecutees were forced to sell to pay discriminatory taxes, including the infamous Flight Tax, to make use of precious, hard-to-obtain visas to flee the continent. Amici are esteemed historians of modern Germany, groups interested in the rights of Holocaust survivors, and former Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust Issues Stuart E. Eizenstat. Lead Counsel Professor Kreder and amici offer counsel to judges so they can understand that Jews on the run from the Third Reich selling their last assets to art dealers were not engaged in routine commercial transactions. They were victims of a hold up--albeit with a curious "receipt."

Amici: B'Nai B'Rith International, Raoul Wallenberg Ctr. for Human Rights, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Amb. Stuart E. Eizenstat, Omer Bartov, Michael Berenbaum, Richard Falk, Eugene Fisher, Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Peter Hayes, Marcia Sachs Littell, Hubert G. Locke, Wendy Lower, Bruce F. Pauley, Carol Rittner, John K. Roth, Lucille Roussin, William L. Shulman, Stephen Smith, and Alan Steinweis. Filed in Zuckerman in Re Estate of Leffman v. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, No. 18-0634-Cv (2d Cir.), in Support of Plaintiff-Appellant Zuckerman

Keywords: HEAR Act, Art, Nazi, Art Theft, World War II, Flight Art, Flight Tax, Holocaust, Looted Art, Second Circuit, 2d Circuit

JEL Classification: K10, K19, K39