12.17-12.18

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/07/25/1581501/mystery-of-familys-art-unraveled.html

A cache of art stolen at the end of World War II is finally back ...

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"It was kind of a family secret," says McFadden, 45, a legal assistant. "We weren't supposed to talk about it."

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And after they died, the artwork went to McFadden's sister in West Windsor, N.J., who kept them in her basement. In November, when the sister was moving, the paintings came to McFadden.
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She didn't know whether they were important. A family friend, Barry Pedersen, and his partner in their Mooresville architectural millwork company, Gary Dunne, both of Davidson, offered to help find out.

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On March 22, 1945, U.S. troops occupied Pirmasens and on Sept. 19 the museum announced that "about 50 paintings which had been stored in the air-raid shelter at Husterhoh School during the war have been lost during the arrival of the American troops."

12.18


For 60 years, the paintings were missing. Then on Oct. 25, 2005, an auction company in Pennsylvania advertised three of them.
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They were told by the woman who was trying to sell them that they were given to her by Gursky's wife, Florence, years ago. That case is still under investigation, the U.S. Attorney's office says.

On McFadden's behalf, Dunne sent an e-mail to Pirmasens' mayor, Bernard Matheis, a few days before Christmas asking whether the city would like the paintings back. At a ceremony at the Goethe-Institut in Manhattan with federal authorities and German Consul General Horst Freitag, the paintings were formally returned.

"It is thanks to your integrity, foresight, your firm belief in justice and your joint effort with ICE that these paintings could be traced and now returned," Freitag told McFadden.

As the Nazis moved across Europe in World War II, they systematically looted an estimated 20 percent of the continent's artwork. German dictator Adolf Hitler chose the best for himself and other high-ranking officials amassed collections as well - Hermann Göring took 594 pieces for himself in Paris alone.

But art thefts by U.S. servicemen were all but unknown. Charles Mo, director of fine arts for the Mint Museum, says he's never heard of a single case, while the plunder of the Nazis was well documented.

Experts estimate the recovered Buerkel paintings are worth $50,000 each. Others in the cache are valued at $4,000 to $10,000.

McFadden says she never had any interest in making money off the works.

"They didn't belong to me and were of sentimental value to someone else. I wouldn't want anyone else to take my stuff."