Archives abroad: US National Archives launches joint International project on “looted art”

The US National Archives has teamed up with a coalition of documentation preservation groups, including national archives from all over the world, is launching a portal that provides access to records on stolen Nazi-era cultural property.

The database is called to help the owners of stolen artefacts to trace their location, and opens new details on this period in history for researchers.

Nazis confiscated millions of pieces of art, religious treasures and other culturally significant items throughout Europe in the dozen years between Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the end of World War II. Many have never been returned to their rightful owners.

The portal, called “Holocaust International Resources”, will be launched formally May 6. It accesses material in the archives of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Ukraine.

Other participating bodies include the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the Commission for Looted Art in Europe.