World War II

Debates begin over supposed Nazi treasure train

In the past week, the media has been abuzz with news of the German train supposedly discovered in a tunnel near Walbrzych, Poland, and the ground-penetrating radar images that appear to confirm the potentially invaluable find. Local legend has it that at the end of World War II, an armored train car...

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Woman in Gold: Altmann v. Republic of Austria and some documentation concerning the Bloch-Bauer collection

The story of Maria Altmann’s legal battle with the Austrian government over paintings that had been seized from her family by the Nazis is coming to the big screen this week in the film Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren as Altmann.  The story is well-known and compelling: the Nazis confiscated...

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Some thoughts on “The Monuments Men”

I found The Monuments Men to be enjoyable enough.  Of course, I was going to see the movie no matter how bad the reviews were.  Certainly the movie introduced the story of the post-war efforts to recover art looted by the Nazis to a wider audience, and that’s a good thing.  But the end product...

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