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The Spoils of War (symposium)


The Spoils of War (symposium)

"The Spoils of War—World War II and Its Aftermath: The Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property" was a ground-breaking international symposium held in New York City in 1995 to discuss the artworks, cultural property, and historic sites damaged, lost, and plundered as a result of World War II. The three-day event was sponsored by the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. The conference was organized by Elizabeth Simpson, an archaeologist and professor at the Bard Graduate Center.

Worldwide interest in the subject was generated by announcements in 1991 of the location of objects confiscated by Soviet Trophy Brigades from German territory at the end of the war. The unification of Germany in 1990 and dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 were followed by a number of goodwill agreements between Germany and the countries of the former USSR, as well as the opening of official negotiations on repatriation. It was this spirit of openness and cooperation that made the New York symposium possible. This initial gathering of concerned parties would be followed by a series of conferences, initiatives, agreements, and repatriations that continue into the present.

The program featured 48 notable speakers—government officials, diplomats, journalists, art historians, archaeologists, lawyers, and independent researchers—from Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Australia, England, and the United States. The combined testimony laid bare another horrifying dimension to the anguish of human suffering wrought by the Second World War. The symposium was the first to address the issue in a public forum, and led to numerous initiatives on provenance research by the governments involved as well as museums, libraries, and art dealers internationally. As a result, the art world was changed irrevocably. Acquisitions policies were revised and organizations restructured to facilitate the identification of artistic and cultural objects that had been stolen or transferred illegally during and after the war. Processes were established to allow families to claim their missing property; such claims have resulted in many works being restored to the heirs and descendants of the rightful owners.

The conference proceedings were published in an award-winning volume edited by Elizabeth Simpson (Harry N. Abrams, 1997). The book includes 17 treaties, conventions, and other official documents relating to the protection and return of cultural property. These begin with the "Lieber Code" of 1863 and the "Hague Convention of 1907," and continue with the treaties following World War I, the "Hague Convention and Protocol of 1954" for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict, the "1970 UNESCO Convention" on the prevention of illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property, and the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects of 1995.


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