The European Shoah Legacy Institute whole-heartedly supports the decision of the European Parliament to facilitate the recovery of cultural items unlawfully removed from a member state. This important decision is a step forward in implementing the Terezin Declaration pledges, undertaken by 47 governments in 2009. The Terezin Declaratin calls upon recovering looted during the WWII art and Judaica objects, restitution and compensating confiscated by Nazi regime property, providing adequate social welfare for Holocaust survivors and assuring the remembrance of the Holocaust victims.
Unfortunately, the problem of recovery of looted art remains largely unresolved up to nowadays.
In 2010 a haul of stolen masterpieces worth of approximately € 1 bln euro was discovered on the train crossing German-Swiss border, so called Cornellius Gurlitt collection, which was allegedly stolen. In January 2014 two allegedly looted by Nazi paintings were discovered in Bundestag. Around 100,000 artworks stolen by the Nazis are still missing.
It is one of the key tasks of ESLI to facilitate the recovery of plundered by Nazi art.
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