Floor Statement of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte H.R. 6130, the “Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act”

Chairman Goodlatte: From 1933, when Hitler took power in Germany, until 1945, when the Allied Forces liberated Europe, the Nazis and their collaborators stole countless works of art and cultural objects from museums and private collections throughout Europe. Indeed, according to the American Alliance of Museums, “the Nazi regime orchestrated a system of theft, confiscation, coercive transfer, looting, pillage, and destruction of objects of art and other cultural property in Europe on a massive and unprecedented scale.  Millions of such objects were unlawfully and often forcibly taken from their rightful owners.” This systematic looting and confiscation of the cultural property of the Jews and other persecuted groups has been described as the “greatest displacement of art in human history.” In order to provide the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs a fair opportunity in our courts to recover artwork confiscated or misappropriated by the Nazis, Representative Nadler and I, along with several other bi-partisan co-sponsors, introduced the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act).  Companion legislation has been introduced by Senators Cornyn and Schumer in the Senate. Since World War II ended, the United States has pursued policies to help Holocaust victims reclaim artwork and other cultural property that was unlawfully taken. In recent years, the United States has joined with other nations to declare the importance of restoring Nazi-looted and confiscated art to its rightful owners. For instance, in the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, the United States and 43 other nations declared that Holocaust victims and their heirs “should be encouraged to come forward and make known their claims to art that was confiscated by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted” and that “steps should be taken expeditiously to achieve a just and fair solution” to such claims.  And, in 2009, we joined with 48 other countries in declaring that governments should “ensure that their legal systems . . . facilitate just and fair solutions with regard to Nazi-confiscated and looted art, and make certain that claims to recover such art are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of the claims.” Enactment of the HEAR Act is an important step in following through on these principles. The vast majority of victims whose property was misappropriated during the Holocaust simply lacked the information, resources, and sometimes wherewithal to pursue litigation to recover their property.  Even for those with the resources, locating and proving ownership of Nazi-looted art proved to be extremely difficult.  Moreover, the psychological trauma of the Holocaust often prevented victims from pursuing lost property. Those who have seen the recent movie, “Woman in Gold”—which tells the story of Maria Altmann’s arduous legal battle to recover her family’s possessions that were seized by the Nazis, including the famous portrait of her aunt by Gustave Klimt—can understand just how difficult litigation to reclaim Nazi-confiscated art can be. Ms. Altmann was in litigation for many years before her family’s artwork was recovered from the Austrian government in 2006. At least in Ms. Altmann’s case litigation was successful. However, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has observed, “[m]any obstacles face those who attempt to recover Holocaust-era art through lawsuits,” including “procedural hurdles such as statutes of limitations” that prevent the merits of claims from ever being adjudicated. Given the unique and horrific circumstances of World War II and the Holocaust, statutes of limitations can be an unfair impediment to the victims and their heirs, and contrary to the stated policy of the United States. Accordingly, the HEAR Act’s uniform, six-year federal limitations period is needed to ensure that the United States fulfills its promises to “facilitate just and fair solutions with regard to Nazi-confiscated and looted art” and to “make certain that claims to recover such art are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of the claims.” I urge my colleagues to support this legislation so that cases involving Nazi-confiscated artwork are resolved in our courts in a just and fair manner on the merits of those claims. ###