Heirs of Holocaust victims have filed two separate lawsuits in California seeking the return of works of art they say were taken by the Nazis and are now in museums in Los Angeles and Auschwitz, the Associated Press reports.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles has filed a lawsuit against the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena for the return of the diptych “Adam and Eve“ by Lucas Cranach the Elder, dated 1530. The heirs claim that the works were illegally confiscated during the Nazi regime.
In a separate case, the daughters of Dina Gottliebova-Babbitt - an artist and Holocaust survivor - are demanding the return of watercolors that she was forced to paint in the Auschwitz concentration camp for Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. The works are currently stored in the museum of the former camp.
Both museums say they own the works legally and intend to continue displaying them. The lawsuits do not specify the specific value of the disputed works.
According to the AP, the Nazi regime confiscated more than 600,000 works of art in Europe. A significant number of them are still the subject of ownership disputes between museums, collectors and heirs of previous owners.
The new lawsuits come amid increased legal pressure in the United States to facilitate claims for works looted during the Holocaust, with courts increasingly hearing such cases decades after the end of World War II.