Summary of the conference "20 years of the Washington Principles: Paths to the Future"
Press release from 11/28/2018
An international conference from 26 to 28 November 2018 in Berlin will be dedicated to the implementation of the Washington Principles on the Handling of Nazi-looted Property since their adoption in 1998. Around 800 participants, including leading experts, organisations, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, will evaluate the implementation of the principles, which play a central role in the restitution of Nazi-looted property worldwide. However, the focus of the conference, which is organised by the German Lost Art Foundation together with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States and sponsored by the Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media, is on looking to the future, further development and improvement.
"Provenance research is an important part of our historical responsibility and should be a natural part of the collection and education work in museums, libraries and archives. In this way, the institutions fulfil their obligation to pass on the reappraisal of Nazi injustice to future generations," Gilbert Lupfer is convinced. He is Scientific Director of the German Lost Art Foundation, the main organiser of the conference.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, emphasises that despite the large number of cases that have been processed over the past 20 years, each one has an individual background: "On the one hand, we have the task of systematically examining our collections. At the same time, we have an obligation to take a close look at each individual case. And we learn from each of these cases: about our history - and this also opens up new approaches for research. But above all, we learn about the fates of the disenfranchised during the time of Nazi terror and about the lives of their descendants. Through every conversation, our understanding of these family fates continues to grow."
Markus Hilgert, Secretary General of the Kulturstiftung der Länder, emphasises: "In order to come to terms with and recognise the injustice suffered by Jewish citizens as a result of the forcible seizure of cultural assets during the National Socialist dictatorship, it is necessary to create transparency with regard to the collection holdings, including their complete digitisation and comprehensive and careful provenance research. This includes a dialogue on an equal footing with the descendants of the victims and a willingness to restitute unlawfully seized cultural assets."
As a result of the conference, the German Lost Art Foundation will provide financial support for the search for the former owners or their heirs in future. In order to make it easier for descendants to search for lost cultural assets, they will be given expert advice and support. The research database of the German Lost Art Foundation will contribute to the required improved documentation of research results. It will also help with the standardisation of terminology (e.g. "Nazi-looted property") and the international networking of provenance research.
Additional efforts, which were called for at the conference, are required to create more permanent positions in cultural heritage institutions. This is the only way to ensure the sustainability of provenance research in museums, libraries and archives. Public institutions should improve transparency and accessibility by fully digitising all collections. All institutions are also called upon to integrate the results of provenance research into the educational work of museums, libraries and archives.
On 28 November, exactly 5 days before the anniversary of the adoption of the Washington Principles in 1998, the specialist conference "20 years of the Washington Principles: Paths to the Future" will come to an end with around 900 participants at the House of Cultures in Berlin.
The entire conference will soon be made available online in the form of a video documentation on the website of the German Lost Art Foundation. Selected interviews with participants are available on the website of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
The entire conference will soon be available online in the form of a video documentation on the website of the German Lost Art Foundation. Selected interviews with participants are available on the website of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Annex: Results of the conference "20 years of the Washington Principles: Paths to the Future"
German Lost Art Foundation
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