APPENDIX 47
Memorandum submitted by Lord Janner of
Braunstone QC
I appreciated the invitation to write to the
Culture, Media and Sport Committee concerning its inquiry on "Cultural
Property: Return and Illicit Trade". I do so in two capacities.
First, I am Chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, a charity
that provides educational research and services for the advancement
of knowledge about the Holocaust. Second, I do so in a personal
capacity, as for some years I have been heavily involved in seeking
to secure some measure of restitution for individual victims of
the Nazis and their heirs, robbed of their assets including cultural
property.
First: I salute the work of the National Museum
Directors' Conference in this regard. Over the past year or so,
they have thoroughly researched works in their collections, the
provenance of which was doubtful between the years 1933 and 1946;
they have collated a list of over 300 such works with doubtful
provenance; and they have published it so that it is available
for potential claimants. This effort is almost unique—and
is an example to other public museums and galleries, throughout
the world.
So far, there has only been one claim in respect
of these works. It has been brought by a family who I am helping,
for "View of Hampton Court" by Jan Griffier, in the
Tate Gallery. Happily, they have sufficient proof of their ownership
and the question now is how to get the process moving—not
least because the head of the family is elderly and unwell and
has recently endured a series of heart bypass operations.
This case has been referred by the Tate Gallery
to the Spoliation Advisory Panel, now set up by the Government,
after a long and unworthy delay. Both the Board of Deputies of
British Jews and I are deeply dissatisfied not merely by the delay
but by the lack of prior consultation and by the terms of reference
by which the Panel is to be guided. I should emphasise that the
specific case is my responsibility and not that of the Board—but
I thought it would be helpful to the Committee to have before
it a copy of the most recent letter addressed by the President
of the Board of Deputies, Eldred Tabachnik, QC and myself to Alan
Howarth, the Minister responsible.
Anything that the Committee could do in order
to move the process forward would be very greatly appreciated—both
because of the general importance of the issues concerned and
of the individual case.
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