Cultural Genocide and Restitution: The Early Wave of Jewish Cultural Restitution in the Aftermath of World War II

Cultural restitution in international law typically aims to restore cultural property to the state of origin. The experience of World War II raised the question of how to adapt this framework to deal with states that persecuted cultural groups within their own borders. Nazi Germany's persecution of Jews and its attempt to destroy their cultural heritage began before the war and was carried out systematically throughout the war in the conquered territories. After the war, the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin advocated for the recognition of the new crime of genocide and, in particular, its cultural dimensions. Jewish organizations also argued that cultural destruction should be seen as an integral component of the crime of genocide and that the remedy of cultural restitution should be part of the effort to rehabilitate the injured group, but their efforts to gain recognition in the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg for the unique harm suffered by the Jews were unsuccessful. This article discusses an innovative approach developed by Jewish jurists and scholars in the late 1940s and 1950s, according to which heirless cultural property was returned to Jewish organizations as trustees for the Jewish people. Though largely forgotten in the annals of law, this approach offers a promising model for international law to overcome its statist bias and recognize the critical importance of cultural heritage for the rehabilitation of (non-state) victim groups.