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Archival Reports |
The contacts between Russia and the IISH are long-standing. Even during the Cold War, bilateral discussions about book and archive collections and exchanges of recent information took place. Our institute was especially interested in the Central Party Archive, part of the former Institute for Marxism-Leninism (IML). Small wonder, as both institutes manage the papers of Marx and Engels and jointly possess the world´s largest collection on social movements. Although our relationship with the IML was generally rather cool (we did not have access to the inventories), we reached an agreement to exchange documents for publication purposes. During the Perestroika in the second half of the 1980s our ties strengthened. We cautiously talked about exchanging materials on microfilm. Such an arrangement would benefit both institutions, as the transactions would not involve cash payments. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the plans accelerated dramatically. In August and September 1991 Eric Fischer, the IISH director at the time, and Jaap Kloosterman, the institute´s present director, visited Moscow and finalized these plans. By then the Central Party Archive had been renamed the "Rossiiskii Tsentr Chraneniya i Izutchenya Dokumentov Noveizhei Istorii" (RCChIDNI, Russian Centre for Preservation and Research of Modern Historical Documents). In 1993, IISH staff members Leo van Rossum and Götz Langkau drafted a list of priorities for exchanging microfilms based on the discussions conducted two years earlier. The exchange of films was under way. In the years following World War II the IISH began to suspect that materials taken from the institute by the Einsatzstab Rosenberg during the war had reached countries in Eastern Europe and especially the former Soviet republics. This impression was confirmed when the institute received 192 boxes of archives (including the archive of the Dutch Social-Democratic Party) from Poland in 1956. Although no connection exists between our cooperation with Russian archival institutions, such as the RCChIDNI, and the documents that ended up in the Soviet Union after World War II, the institute´s administration believes that the location of the documents should not hamper good relations with Russian institutions. The restitution issue has become a complicated matter that needs to be solved by politicians. Many archival researchers who visited Russian institutions in recent years have discovered that local governments have acquired a taste for Western currency. In principle the IISH does not pay for copies of archives and has never done so in the past. While the institute has provided material support during hard times, this aid was unrelated to the copies. Significantly, the interest of the Russian institutions almost exclusively concerns Russian material in the West. This situation can complicate a quantitative exchange. The most important among the claims of the IISH concerns the papers of Joseph Bloch, in fact the archive of the "Sozialistische Monatshefte" (Socialist Monthly Issues). Cooperation with the Centre for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections ("Centr Chraneniya Istoriko-Dokumental´nych Kollektsii", CChIDK), the former Special Archive ("Osobyj Archiv") in Moscow, recently enabled the IISH to procure microfilms of the Bloch collection. Since 1992, the institute has worked with the Memorial Research and Document Centre in Moscow, which has accumulated a major collection on the victims of state terror in the Soviet Union. The institute donated film equipment to make the project possible. In 1995 we signed an agreement with another organization that works with Gulag victims ("Vozvrashtchenie" (Return) in Moscow) to film an important collection of manuscripts. Another agreement is with the "Moskovskaya Nezavisimaya Obshtchestvennaya Biblioteka" (MNOB) and provides for exchanging literature put out by unofficial publishers and samizdat literature. Thus far we have received 4,000 periodical titles. We are working with the "Rossiiskii Centr" (Russian Center, RCChIDNI) in Moscow to arrange for translation of its printed inventory lists of major archives. The lists are being processed in Moscow and are also available for consultation in Amsterdam. The films we received from this institution include the archives of August Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, Etienne Cabet, Wilhelm Dittmann, Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and the "Internationale Arbeiter Assoziation" (International Working men´s Association). In the near future Götz Langkau will provide more detailed information about the institute´s Russian acquisitions of ´Western´ archives on microform in: Internationale Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, which is published in Berlin. Additional information about acquired collections may be found in the Annual Reports of the IISH. Peter Manasse, Curator, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
With this article on the Hungarian database we start a series of presentation of various databases dealing with the topic of World War II losses.
Considering that systematic research in this field has not yet been conducted in Hungary since most archives were previously (and some still are) inaccessible, the computer processing seemed the single practicable solution in order to gain fairly swift results. As a first step, two major databases had to be assembled:
The estimated number of references is about 3 million, of which 170,000 have already been entered into the database. The program used is a DOS based software developed in Hungary (Ariadne). The search through the currently entered 170,000 references lasts for about 5 minutes; however, this time will not increase even after more references are entered. Image processing is done by scanning and with an insert video camera. A total of 7,000 paintings have been entered into the database. Some of these include up to 50-60 smaller details. Due to financial restrictions and our own limited technical expertise, only IBM compatible computers assembled in Hungary are used. We started out using Windows 3.1 and 3.11, and we are now switching to Windows 95. Word processing is done with Winword 6.0, image processing with Photo Styler 2.0, Corel 5.0, Photoshop 3.0, while the camera is handled by Screen Machine. Scanning is done with Recognita Plus. The data are stored on CDs: a black-and-white image takes up about 10-30 Mbytes, color images about 10-50 Mbytes. Images recorded using the camera take up less space. Computers PC: 128 Mbytes memory, 10 Gbyte winchester, Pentium
It is quite obvious from the above that we would need more professional equipment. The currently used PC environment often breaks down, calling an unwelcome halt to the work. Owing to the general financial restrictions we have accepted that we will have to work with the above, rather amateur equipment. The financial resources for this research were adequate between 1992 and 1994, but grants have become irregular since 1995, and this year about 57 per cent of the annual grant (as defined in 1992!) has been withheld, the result being that successful work is now rather illusory. Another serious obstacle to our research is that in the decades before 1990, all the documents proving the seizure of artworks by the Soviet Union were removed from the archives of Hungarian financial institutions (over 90 per cent of the relevant documents). These still exist, but are inaccessible to research since they are not under the authority of the Ministry of Culture. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to locate the documents which would prove the fact that these artworks were seized and shipped out of Hungary. We could positively identify about one half of the 150 artworks that were part of the Soviet war booty and which we could examine personally. This fairly good ratio will undoubtedly deteriorate if we are also given the possibility to examine goldsmiths´ works. About 98-99 per cent of the artworks that were taken out of Hungary were parts of private collections, and most of these were deposited in bank vaults between 1942 and 1945.
Laszlo Mrávik, Art Historian, Hungarian National Gallery,
AMERICAN RESTITUTIONS TO THE SOVIET UNION
AFTER
The Research Project "Fate of the Treasures of Art Removed from the Soviet Union during World War II" at the Forschungsstelle Osteuropa at the University of Bremen edited a Database available on CD-ROM with the title: Property Cards, Claims and Shipments. American Restitutions of Soviet Cultural Treasures to the Soviet Union after World War II. With an Introduction.
Included is a specialized bibliography about the fate of Soviet cultural losses, Nazi art looting in the Soviet Union and repatriations as far as they are known. The Database gives an overview about all restitutions to the former Soviet Union through the Office of Military Government in the U.S. Zone Germany (OMGUS), especially during 1945-1948.
It is organized in four sections according to the type of document:
But what do these documents mean? What are they about? The historical background is described in the introduction ("Begleitheft") of the CD-ROM.
Enormous amounts of Soviet cultural treasures looted by various Nazi organizations had been hidden in depots. The Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives Branch (MFA&A) of the Property Division of OMGUS found the treasures in a castle near Höchstädt/Donau, the castle of Colmberg in Franken and the monasteries Cartause Buxheim and Banz near Staffelstein. The MFA&A officers recovered archeological and other scientific collections, libraries, archives, furniture from the 17th and 18th centuries, paintings, icons and many other art objects in the NS depositories. The so-called "monuments men" established Central Collecting Points in Munich, Wiesbaden and Offenbach where they tried to identify the recovered art from occupied countries all over Europe. Hundreds of Nazi-depots were evacuated to these Collecting Points. The staff tried to find the owner of each of the millions of items stored there during the years 1945-1948.
They described each identifiable art work, sometimes crates on the so-called Property Cards. These cards provide in different categories information about Title, Author, Subject, Presumed Owner, Inventory Number, History and Ownership, No. of Document and others of every art object. All the information is transferred to Section 1 of the Database (PCAs). In response to the allied agreement ahead of restitution, Soviet missions had to claim their missed cultural objects (Section 2, Claims). After the claiming process, the American and Soviet missions had to sign a receipt for the cultural treasures they received. Together with the receipt the Soviet missions got a list with all objects which were handed over, the so-called Shipmentlist (Section 3, Shipments). The handover process was carried out in different "shipments". If there was no doubt about the ownership, cultural objects were also given back directly from the Collecting Point. Restitutions were made only to nations, not to private people, in this case to the government to the USSR. After the beginning of the difficulties in the allied reparation proceedings, the government of the US Zone decided to exclude from restitution to the Soviet Union government the property of Jewish culture, people living in exile and property of the Baltic States. The representatives from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany took over 534,120 "items" in 13 shipments from October 1945 to September 1948. So far, these proceedings are described in the documents, which have also been transferred to CD-ROM. The main fund of documents is in the National Archives, Washington, D.C. and the "Bundesarchiv Koblenz" (Federal Archives Koblenz).
The CD-ROM is available for scientific and public institutions to prime cost directly from the editor.
Ulrike Hartung, Research Unit Eastern Europe, University of Bremen
Eichwede, Wolfgang, Ulrike Hartung: Property Cards Art, Claims und Shipments. Amerikanische Rückführungen sowjetischer Kulturgüter an die UdSSR nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. CD-ROM. Redaktion und Dokumentation: Ulrike Hartung, Wolfram. v. Rotberg. Bremen 1997. Im Selbstverlag.
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