THE RAPE OF EUROPA - Safeguarding the treasure

At Schloss Neuschwanstein in southern Bavaria, Captain James Rorimer, who later became the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, supervises the safeguarding of art stolen from French Jews and stored during the war at the castle (April-May, 1945).

Credit: National Archives and Records Administration

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THE RAPE OF EUROPA - A gift for Goering

Adolf Hitler presents Hermann Goering with The Falconer (1880), a painting by the 19th-century Austrian academic painter Hans Makart. Hitler bought the painting legitimately from art dealer Karl Haberstock. The Falconer is now in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

Credit: Source: Lynn Nicholas

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THE RAPE OF EUROPA - Stolen Torah scrolls

U.S. chaplain Samuel Blinder sorts stolen Torah scrolls at the Offenbach Archive Collecting Point.

Credit: Source: Lynn Nicholas

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THE RAPE OF EUROPA - Treasures evacuated

An empty Veronese picture frame after the evacuation of the Louvre in 1939.

Credit: Source: Lynn Nicholas

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THE RAPE OF EUROPA - A da Vinci returned

Polish art historian Karol Estreicher with MFAA officer Lt. Frank P. Albright and two American GIs as they prepare to return Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine to the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow, Poland, from which it had been stolen by the Nazis.

Credit: Source: Lynn Nicholas

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THE RAPE OF EUROPA - Examining the art

Sergeant Kenneth Lindsay with a School of Botticelli portrait at Wiesbaden Collecting Point (1945). Lindsay would later teach art history at the University of Binghamton.

Credit: Archives of the National Gallery of Art

This resource may be reproduced in connection with the print and online promotion of the associated programming. No other uses are authorized without securing prior permission from the copyright owner. All rights reserved.