Footprints of Holocaust in a Battle for Lost Art

Something wonderful happened to Martha Nierenberg in October 2000 when a trial court in Hungary said something very obvious. A fortune in artwork had been stolen from her family at the time of the German invasion of Hungary in 1944, which also ushered in one of the most horrific chapters of the Holocaust. Much of the art was hanging in plain view in the country’s two most prominent museums. It should be given back to her, the court said. The ruling was the second in her favor, and it seemed definitive.

She went to Hungary to see the magnificent paintings by El Greco, Courbet, Van Dyck and others. There were celebrations and grand plans. After decades without hope of recovering the art, after frustrating years of negotiations toward an amicable settlement after the fall of the Soviet Union, it seemed a reminder that justice could be slow, but when it arrived it was a blessed thing.

But, alas, it never arrived. The Hungarian government, eager to keep the art, appealed the ruling. That led to new trials and new arguments, each more legalistic and narrow than the one before.