If you’ve found your way to this blog post and you don’t know about my own documentary film, Chasing Portraits, make sure to watch the trailer and learn more about my quest for my great-grandfather’s lost art! If you’re looking for other films (or television shows) that address issues of Holocaust Era Looted Art, here are a few ideas:
Documentary Films:
The European Dream (2024) – The film, “deals with the dreams of my grandfather – Julius Klausner and Robert Graetz a German Jews who dreamed for cultural and social integration in pre-World War II Germany, the dream and its shattering. Its protagonists, the grandchildren, are actively involved in the return of works of art stolen from their grandparents by the Nazis, for some paintings their whereabouts are unknown.”
Rape of Europa (2008) – “The Rape of Europa” tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Third Reich at World War II.”
Portrait of Wally (2012) – This documentary “traces the history of this iconic image – from Schiele’s gesture of affection toward his young lover, to the theft of the painting from Lea Bondi, a Jewish art dealer fleeing Vienna for her life, to the post-war confusion and subterfuge that evoke THE THIRD MAN, to the surprise resurfacing of “Wally” on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan in 1997.”
Making a Killing (1998) – “Making a Killing is a compelling detective story about one family’s 50 year quest to recover their missing art collection, set against a background of murder, greed and corruption. In 1943, Friedrich and Louise Gutmann, members of a prominent German-Jewish banking family living in Holland, refused to sign over their valuable collection to the Nazis. They were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, interrogated and murdered. Their house was stripped bare.”
Narrative Films:
Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life (2023) Berlin, 1943. Martha Liebermann could have never imagined being forced to leave her beloved homeland at the age of 85. As a Jewish woman, however, she is faced with the decision of her life: should the bourgeois widow of the world-famous and highly revered painter Max Liebermann continue to hope for an exit permit from the Nazis, or flee to Switzerland with the help of Hanna Solf and her resistance group? Martha knows that her previous fame and fortune will not protect her from deportation to the concentration camp for much longer. With a heavy heart, she decides to leave her beloved homeland illegally and thus leave her deceased husband’s works to the Nazis. While Hanna and her friends are preparing to flee, Gestapo commissioner Rudolf Teubner sets a deceitful trap for the Solf group, which also puts Martha’s housekeeper Luise Wagner in serious danger. In order to save Luise and her other helpers, Martha makes an extremely courageous decision…
Woman On Fire (TBD) is the story of a young, ambitious journalist who becomes embroiled in an international art scandal centered around a Nazi-looted masterpiece. The novel (2022), written by Lisa Barr, was optioned by actress Sharon Stone, inking a deal to produce and star in a film adaptation.
Woman in Gold (2015) – “Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds star in the remarkable true story of one woman’s battle against the establishment to recover her family possessions that had been seized by Nazis during WWII.”
Monuments Men (2014) – “An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners.”
The Train (1964) – “Paris, August 1944. With the Allied army closing in, German commander and art fanatic Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield) steals a vast collection of rare French paintings and loads them onto a train bound for Berlin. But when a beloved French patriot is murdered while trying to sabotage von Waldheim’s scheme, Labiche (Burt Lancaster), a stalwart member of the Resistance, vows to stop the train at any cost.”
The Art Dealer (L’Antiquaire) (2015) – “follows a Jewish woman who embarks on a journey to recover family paintings stolen by the Nazis. During her investigation, she discovers some family secrets are best kept hidden.”
Lyrebird / The Last Vermeer (2019) – “An artist is suspected of selling a valuable painting to the Nazis, but there is more to the story than meets the eye.”
Five Days, Five Nights (1961) – “At the end of World War II, Russian soldiers went on a plunderfest across eastern Germany. Think Sherman’s March to the Sea, but with dividends. Houses were stripped of their valuables, stores were looted, and machinery was taken. Much of this looting was done on a personal level—soldiers helping themselves to the contents of the houses they invaded—and some of this was done as part of the Soviet Union’s campaign to get the maximum financial benefit out of the war.” Many of the city’s paintings were hidden and later uncovered by the Soviet Red Army. The heavily dramatized film tells that story.
Television Shows:
Russian Doll – Season 2 – This Netflix sci-fi drama touches upon the history of Nazi theft of art, silver, and other valuables from Jews. As the Times of Israel put it, “The Budapest storyline centers around the theft of the family’s wealth by the Nazis, and Lyonne’s character, Nadia Vulvokov, finds herself seeking to safeguard valuables that are destined for what came to be known as the Hungarian Gold Train.”
Raging Abe Simpson and His Grumbling Grandson in “The Curse of the Flying Hellfish” “is the 22nd episode of The Simpsons’ seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 28, 1996. In the episode, one of Abraham Simpson’s fellow World War II veterans, Asa Phelps, dies, leaving him and Mr. Burns as the only living members of Grampa’s war squad, the Flying Hellfish. In the final days of the war, the unit had discovered several paintings and agreed on a tontine, placing the paintings in a crate, and the final surviving member would inherit the paintings. As Mr. Burns wants the paintings as soon as possible, he orders Abe’s assassination. To escape death, Abe moves into the Simpsons’ house, where the family lets him live in Bart’s room. Bart eventually joins Grampa in a daring mission to recover the paintings.”
“Noël” is the 10th episode of the second season of The West Wing. “C.J. is told by a reporter that a woman saw a painting on the White House Tour and began screaming. C.J. does some research and finds out with the help of Bernard Thatch, the White House’s snobbish but competent Protocol Chief, that the painting was owned by a Jewish family in Europe, seized by the Nazi collaborationist French Vichy Regime, and eventually given as a gift to the White House by the French government. The woman’s father owned the painting, and C.J. returns it to the grateful woman and her son.
Art for Hogan’s Sake – “An assertive Gen. Burkhalter “requisitions” the famous Édouard Manet painting, “The Fife Player,” from the Louvre museum in Paris to give to Hermann Goering as a birthday present. Undaunted by seemingly impossible logistics, Hogan and LeBeau decide to steal it back.”
James Acaster on Netflix – Episode 3: Reset – Starting at about 19:15, Acaster finds comedy in the story of the British Museum, Elgin Marbles, and issues of cultural property and restitution.
Netflix. C1: E3