New battle over Nazi-looted art: fresh lawsuits in Los Angeles over museum masterpieces

The decades-long battle over art stolen during the Holocaust is reigniting in Los Angeles, where heirs of Jewish victims are seeking the return of works displayed at Southern California museums — two lawsuits were filed this week following changes to federal and California law that strengthen claims for art taken from Jewish families during World War II.

One lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, renews the dispute with the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena over the pair of paintings “Adam and Eve” — life-size oil-on-panel works by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1530. According to the museum, the paintings originally belonged to the noble Russian Stroganov family, before the Soviet Union put them up in an illegal auction in Berlin in 1931, where they were bought by art dealer Jacques Goudstikker; a Stroganov descendant later sold them to the museum, which restored and preserved them. The museum cites the 2018 federal ruling that unanimously confirmed its title of ownership and the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the case in May 2019: “For nearly 50 years they have been displayed at the Norton Simon Museum and will remain accessible to the public.”

The second lawsuit was filed the same day in Los Angeles federal court by the daughters of Dinah Gottliebova Babbitt, the Holocaust survivor and Californian animator imprisoned at Auschwitz. Babbitt was forced to paint watercolors of other prisoners for Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor known as the “Angel of Death” — her daughters are now seeking the return of these works. Neither lawsuit specifies the value of the works at the center of the disputes, while museum representatives say they hold legal title and will continue displaying the works.

The case is part of the broader effort to return Nazi-looted art: from 1933 to 1945 the Nazi regime seized more than 600,000 works of art from Jewish families, collectors and museums across Europe — what has been described as the greatest art theft in history. More than eight decades later, the contested ownership of some of these works fuels legal and ethical battles between Jewish families seeking the return of property taken during the Holocaust and museums defending their title. California lawmakers have changed the law: legislator Jesse Gabriel (D-Woodland Hills) authored bill AB 2867, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2024, which requires the application of California law in lawsuits by state residents or their heirs for the return of works taken during the Holocaust.

Source: New York Post