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Holocaust restitution

Illustrative photo of a man holding a Nazi-era German passport that belonged to his grandparent, October 5, 2016. (Frank Augstein/AP)
June 4, 2026, 10:01 am
Number of Nazi victims’ descendants given German citizenship jumped 61% in 2025
Federal authority figures show 12,000 people gained citizenship under restitution laws, though unclear how many were Jews; one in five people naturalized in 2025 was Syrian
By Reuters and ToI Staff
A judge ruled in 2026 that Amedeo Modigliani's "Seated Man with a Cane," shown here in part, must be returned to the family of the man who owned it before the Holocaust. (Courtesy Sotheby's)
April 15, 2026, 12:41 pm
US scraps deadline for Holocaust-looted art claims, paving way for new restitution efforts
Trump signs law expanding 2016 HEAR act, canceling sunset clause and barring artworks’ current owners from using certain legal tactics, such as switching courts
By Jackie Hajdenberg
Workers operates next to a sign of Swiss banking giant UBS on the top of a building in Zurich, on March 4, 2026. (Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)
April 7, 2026, 10:38 pm
US judge rejects bid by Swiss Bank UBS to limit its liability for Nazi-linked crimes
Banking giant had sought to expand $1.25 billion settlement from 1999 to encompass newly discovered ties between Nazi officials and UBS-owned Credit Suisse
By Jonathan Stempel
Andre, played by Alex Lutz, in a still from 'Auction.' (Courtesy)
November 1, 2025, 7:10 am
French film ‘Auction’ revisits thrilling tussle over real-life Nazi-looted masterpiece
In US theaters Oct. 29, Jewish director Pascal Bonitzer’s latest feature centers on a $21 million painting by Egon Schiele that went missing in WWII and turned up on a small town wall
By Rich Tenorio
Stuart E. Eizenstat speaks during the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the US Capitol on April 23, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
October 29, 2025, 4:27 pm
German government pledges record $1 billion in funding for Holocaust survivor home care
The budget reflects the growing needs of an aging survivor population and will now enable all Holocaust survivors on waitlists for home care to receive it
By Grace Gilson
Late president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA (HSF), David Schaecter, looks on during a US Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing on 'Never Again: Addressing the Rise of Antisemitism and Supporting Older Americans,' at Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on April 30, 2025. (Mandel NGAN / AFP via JTA)
September 5, 2025, 10:32 pm
David Schaecter, Holocaust survivor and advocate who founded Miami memorial, dies at 96
Well-known activist lost 105 relatives during the Holocaust and spent his life pushing for restitution, Holocaust education and vigilance against antisemitism
By Grace Gilson
Helen Emily Davy, left, and Katharina Mayrhofer pose with the table taken from the Wertheimer family during the Holocaust. (Courtesy)
August 26, 2025, 8:08 am
In 1938, an Austrian Nazi family looted a Jewish home. Their heirs connect over a table
After a woman unearthed a dark family history while cleaning her attic, she took steps to make things right – highlighting systemic problems with Austria’s Holocaust restitution policies
By Robert Philpot
Rabbi Tanya Segal at 12 Jozefa Street in Krakow, Poland, as she is evicted from her apartment, July 31, 2025. (Courtesy of Marta Kalamar via JTA)
August 23, 2025, 12:32 pm
Rabbi evicted from Krakow home once owned by Jews murdered in Holocaust
Tanya Segal, Poland’s first female rabbi, loses her apartment in building featured in ‘Schindler’s List’ thanks to Poland’s lack of Holocaust restitution laws
By Toby Axelrod
Holocaust survivors look on during the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the US Capitol on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images via JTA)
June 27, 2025, 4:39 pm
Trump’s Social Security Administration cuts hurt US Holocaust survivors, advocates say
Attorneys say DOGE’s slashing of staffers and field offices may make it harder to correct a longtime glitch that can cause survivors in their 80s and 90s to lose their benefits
By Andrew Lapin
Left: “Portrait of Bruno Cassirer” by Max Liebermann. Right: “Bruno Cassirer’s Father on His Deathbed”, by Max Slevogt (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation)
March 3, 2025, 6:02 pm
87 years on, German gallery returns stolen portraits to heirs of Jewish art dealer
Nazis seized Bruno Cassirer’s prestigious publishing house and art gallery in 1938; works by Max Liebermann and Max Slevogt will be displayed in a national museum
By Zev Stub
Prof. Jonathan Petropoulos (left) and Bruno Lohse. (© Living Memory Productions)
February 19, 2025, 6:23 pm
Unrepentant Nazi art thief who stole Jews’ art from ‘still warm walls’ focus of new film
Airing Feb. 19 on PBS, ‘Plunderer’ chronicles the life of Bruno Lohse, who amassed a collection worth millions while looting the homes of Jews for his boss Hermann Goering during WWII
By Rich Tenorio
The Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Block, placed outside Anna Donat’s Berlin home shows when she was deported to Auschwitz. (Courtesy Stolpersteine)
January 1, 2025, 4:24 pm
German woman who lives in home looted from Jews must give it up, judge rules
Capping a decade of legal wrangling, the ruling has exposed the complex stories German families tell themselves about the Holocaust, and societal ambivalence towards the victims
By Toby Axelrod
Amber crucifixes and golden jewelry that were confiscated by Nazi Germans from Stanislawa Wasilewska and returned to relatives in a ceremony in Warsaw, Poland, on September 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
September 12, 2024, 8:27 am
Jewelry seized from Poles in Nazi concentration camps returned to families
Germany’s Arolsen Archives hands over Stanislawa Wasilewska’s bracelet, watch and crucifixes to her grandson and great-granddaughter at an emotional ceremony in Warsaw
By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Illustrative: A picture taken on March 14, 2023 shows "The Boy in the Red Waistcoat" 1888 a masterpiece by Paul Cezanne, part of the Emil Buhrle Collection exhibited at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Kunsthaus Zurich, one of Switzerland's top art museums, launched a new review aimed at clarifying whether any of its artworks might be cultural property looted by the Nazis. (Arnd Wiegmann/AFP)
June 15, 2024, 7:53 am
Swiss museum to remove five paintings linked to Nazi looting
Paintings come from collection of Emil Buhrle, a German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War II; museum working to to trace descendants of rightful owners
By AFP
Illustrative: The flags, from left to right, of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at a ceremony in Riga, Latvia, in 2012. (Pablo Andrés Rivero via JTA)
December 20, 2023, 10:10 am
In shift, Latvia and Lithuania to pay Holocaust survivors, heirs for stolen property
Countries open up limited time slots to apply for restitution, after decades of Soviet rule prevented compensation for Nazi massacres
By Shira Li Bartov
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