HAMBURG.- Since 1960, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg has had in its holdings some 3,000 silver objects that entered its collection as a consequence of a confiscation operation carried out during the Nazi period. Hamburg has reached an agreement with the “Jewish Trust Corporation” on the payment of a compensatory sum for the remaining silver that could not be returned to its onetime owners or their heirs. A matter still undecided, however, is the nature of the museological work with cultural assets that are so directly linked to the Holocaust and that at the same time obligate the museums to return them any time claims may be asserted. Since October 2014, within the framework of its exhibition Looted Art? Provenance Research on the Collections of the MKG, the museum has been addressing itself to the history of its silver holdings for the first time. On 4 and 5 February, in cooperation with the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius, the MKG invited scholars from museums and historical research institutes as well as representatives of Jewish institutions to a symposium with the aim of discussing an appropriate way of dealing with these silver holdings. One key conclusion of this conference is that it is fundamentally the moral responsibility of the respective museums to sensitize the public to the topic again and again, and to make its handling of the objects transparent. Important prerequisites for well-founded research are the accessibility of relevant documents, the ongoing exchange of information, and interdisciplinary dialogue. Based on the example of the abundant silver holdings, the museums moreover have the obligation to show how the history of dispossession under National Socialism permeated all layers of the population. To that end, suitable exhibition forms and educational formats will have to be developed.

In research on the subject, it is imperative to exploit all available possibilities. In order to carry out a basic stocktaking, the museums’ archival holdings must be accessible and must be digitalized. Image data on the silver objects should be made accessible to the victims and their heirs, for example on the online portal www.lostart.de. It is likewise indispensable to make databases permanently available in libraries and archives, and to place research results at the disposal of the public. To ensure that well-founded provenance research is carried out as soon as possible, the cultural institutions must also be furnished with sufficient human and financial resources. One central responsibility of the provenance researchers is intensive exchange with economic, legal, and contemporary historians. Important impulses are also provided by provenance researchers in the ethnological disciplines, who have been gathering valuable experience in the reassessment of European colonial history for thirty years.

The silver holdings formerly in the possession of Jews offer the museums an opportunity to talk about a phenomenon of dispossession history that has hitherto hardly been heeded by the public. The confiscation and forced sales of original paintings or entire art collections mirror the embroilment of the middle classes in National Socialism. The mass of silver objects is moreover telling of the fact that innumerable everyday items such as tableware, silver or furniture were also seized from the households of the Jewish middle and working classes, for example through the confiscation of removal goods or the distribution of household effects to persons who had been bombed out of their homes. In addition to the annotation of exhibits formerly belonging to Jews in the presentations of their collections, it is also the museums’ responsibility to stage special exhibitions telling the history of the dispossession carried out in their respective cities and regions. Hamburg has a special obligation to re-examine and reassess its role. As a harbour and emigrants’ town, the Hanseatic city effectuated many dispossessions and forced auctions. In this context, it is important for the museums to think about what presentation and museum education forms are suitable for reaching young generations as well.

Information on the symposium programme and guest speakers is available here.