NEW YORK (JTA) — Fifty years ago, they graced the parlors of the humble and the libraries and galleries of the well-to-do.
Today, some 8,000 items ripped from the homes of Austrian Jews by Nazi government looters are about to be auctioned, their owners apparently lost in the Holocaust.
The works — including about 1,000 paintings and drawings — will generate money to support needy Holocaust survivors from Austria and to help rebuild the next generations of Austrian Jewry.
During the days before the Mauerbach Benefit Sale, scheduled for Oct. 29 and 30 in Vienna, the works — turned over to the Jewish community by their custodian, the Austrian government — will see the light of day after spending 40 years in a 14th century monastery in the Austrian town of Mauerbach. They will grace the halls of the Austrian Museum of Applied Art, where the auction will take place.
Christie’s auction house will conduct the sale on behalf of the Federation of Austrian Jewish Communities and will make no profit, according to Mark Porter, Christie’s U.S. point man for the event.
The international firm has estimated the auction will raise more than $3.5 million.
Porter said 88 percent of the proceeds will benefit the Jewish communal organization and the remaining 12 percent “goes directly to groups representing nonsectarian victims of the Holocaust,” including all those considered undesirable or dangerous by the Nazis — among them Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents and homosexuals.
“That’s how we felt we could honor the memory” of Austrian Holocaust victims, Porter said.
Robert Liska, vice president of Austria’s Federation of Jewish Communities, called the sale “an extraordinarily important matter for us,” marking Austria’s growing acceptance of its role during World War II.
About 180,000 Jews lived in Austria in 1938, at the time Germany annexed the country. From then until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, 126,445 Austrian Jews fled. Virtually all those who remained were killed. Some 1,747 returned after the war.
Austria’s growing acceptance of its complicity in the fate of its Jews was evidenced more than a year ago, when the government established a National Fund for Victims of National Socialism. The fund’s administrators are seeking Austrian Holocaust survivors worldwide and dispersing $7,000 to each of them.
Around the same time that the victims’ fund was established, the government — which had tried since 1946 to locate owners of the Mauerbach items — transferred ownership of the remaining objects to the Jewish federation.
The two projects reflect “not awareness of collective guilt, but awareness of responsibility,” Liska said.
After the war, Western allies uncovered vast stores of looted art hidden in many locations, from salt mines near Salzburg, Austria, to bank vaults and cattle barns. Those that could be identified were sent to their countries of origin and commissions were set up to determine rightful ownership and return the property.
In Austria, that process began in 1946. In 1969, a list of all works held at the Mauerbach monastery was published. Claims were accepted until Dec. 31, 1972.
A 12-year silence on the matter ensued, broken in 1984 when American journalist Andrew Decker wrote about the unclaimed property for ARTnews magazine. Austria soon published its list of remaining art.
Ingrid Oberleitner of Austria’s Federal Ministry of Finance said claimants have submitted proof in the form of receipts, inventories, descriptions by witnesses and photographs of their family’s property.
As recently as two months ago, a watercolor by Viennese artist Rudolf von Alt went to its previous owner, now living in Israel, she said.
“What was easily returnable was returned,” said Liska, noting that some works had been catalogued by major collectors, such as the Rothschild and Gutman families. Other items were in boxes with the owner’s name written on them.
Last summer the government transferred ownership of the remaining unclaimed “Mauerbach property” to the Jewish federation.
The works to be auctioned — drawings, paintings, prints, tapestries and a small selection of furnishings and musical scores — range in value.
They include works by artists whom Hitler considered degenerate, such as Alexander Archipenko, portraits by well-known 19th century German and Austrian artists Franz von Lenbach and Friedrich von Amerling, and antiquities.
Few are directly Jewish, but they speak of their owners’ lifestyle, taste, cultural breadth and national identity.
Mark Poltimore, Christie’s London-based director of 19th century pictures, who has spent 12 years cataloguing and researching the collection, said he feels “excitement tinged with sadness” as the auction date approaches.
“One wants to know more about the owners — ordinary people, by and large — who probably were incredibly loyal to Austria, probably fought in the first world war,” he said.
By relinquishing its custodianship of the Mauerbach collection, the Austrian government has recognized it has no claim to the objects, Liska added.
An international committee that the Austrian Jewish community set up, co-chaired by Ronald Lauder and Edgar Bronfman, will oversee the sale and help ensure it earns as much as possible for Austrian Jewry.
The auction has sparked “interest from all over the world, from private individuals and institutions,” including museums and synagogues, said Porter.
Anyone who has purchased an auction catalogue ($50, to benefit the Austrian Jewish federation; call (800) 395-6300) may participate from abroad.
The works constitute a sad inheritance, said Liska.
“We all would rather have them hanging where they used to hang, and have people there to enjoy them.”