USA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Steven Schindler, Katherine Wilson-Milne, Thomas Kline, Eden Burgess and Aaron Haines, Schindler Cohen & Hochman LLP
Conclusion Despite the passage of 80 years since World War II, claims to looted art and other objects endure. Many changes have interceded – provenance research, archives, governing laws, international treaties, col - lecting standards – but the issues relating to Nazi-era restitution claims are too complicated to be solved by a single modification. Instead, countries will hopefully continue to make their procedures less burdensome and more equitable.
a big step for Switzerland, which has a mixed record of facing its history of hiding looted assets. Also in Switzerland, the Stiftung Kunstmuseum Bern has just issued updated principles for addressing Nazi-looted art: the Berner Ampel 025 (meaning “Bern Traffic Light”). Fittingly, the principles use a red-yel - low-green system to categorise works by provenance status. In 2023, France passed a law allowing exceptions to the rule of inalienability of public collections. It recently applied the new law to allow restitution of a book the Nazis seized from August Liebmann Mayer, a Jewish art historian who fled Germany in 1936 but was later captured in Nice and murdered at Auschwitz.
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