A large part of Schiele's work dealt with the representation of the female body, in a way that was highly controversial in the early 20th Century. Through a stylised approach, the artist portrays his wife in an unconventional pose, defying the rules of academic painting.

Chinese Air Force 1st American Volunteer Group Flying Tiger pilots in China India Burma Theater during World War II. Flying Tiger pilots grouped on a field are presented with letters and rank bars which they pin on their shirts. Close-up view of Flying Tigers ace pilot Frank Schiel being recognized. U.S. airplanes parked on an airfield in the background. The Commander of Flying Tigers U.S. Lieutenant General Claire Lee Chennault arrives. The pilots conclude a quick briefing and then scramble and run, rushing to United States Army Air Force P-40 Tomahawk fighter airplanes. The P-40s taxi and take off from the airfield. The aircraft in flight. Location: China-Burma-India Theater. Date: 1942.

02/18/71 C0016245 - COLOR FORT BENNING, GEORGIA DEFENSE PSCHIATRISTS CONTEND CALLEY COULD NOT PREMEDIATE MY LAI KILLINGS. NXC 44146 "CALLEY" SHOWS: COURT BUILDING: BGS LT WILLIAM CALLEY ALONG WALK AND INTO BUILDING: BS DEFENSE ATTORNEY GEORGE LATTIMER SAME: BS SGT KENNETH SCHIEL AND ANOTHER SOLDIER SAME: 2 SHOTS SEARCHING THROUGH BASEMENT WINDOW FOR "BUG" OR BOMB (ROUNTINE): MAN PASSES SOMETHING OUT: 3 MEN EXIT BASEMENT WINDOW: (SHOT 2/18/71 51FT) CALLEY, WILLIAM LATTIMER, GEORGE SCHIEL, KENNETH SECURITY GEORGIA - FT BENNING TRIALS - GEORGIA - FT BENNING SOUTH VIETNAM - SONG MY ATROCITIES XX / 51 FT / 16 POS / COLOR / 150 FT / 16 POS / COLOR / CUTS /

AP-APTN-1830: Austria Painting Monday, 23 August 2010 STORY:Austria Painting- REPLAY Schiele's painting on display, presser, vox pops LENGTH: 03:38 FIRST RUN: 1530 RESTRICTIONS: AP Clients Only TYPE: Natsound SOURCE: AP TELEVISION STORY NUMBER: 655146 DATELINE: 23 August 2010 LENGTH: 03:38 AP TELEVISION - AP CLIENTS ONLY SHOTLIST 1. Wide exterior of Leopold Museum 2. Mid of display board with image of 'Portrait of Wally' by Egon Schiele 3. Close up of detail of poster reading (English) "Welcome Wally!" 4. People waiting in front of the entrance to the museum, poster in the foreground 5. Tilt down from sign on wall reading (German) Egon Schiele genius of WExpressionism to self portrait of Schiele and covered Portrait of Wally 6. Cutaway of media 7. Elisabeth Leopold, daughter of museum founder, the late Rudolf Leopold, unveiling picture 8. Various of Portrait of Wally 9. Close up of woman holding newspaper with headline reading (German): "Wally is back home" 10. Wide of start of news conference 11. SOUNDBITE: (German) Andreas Noedel, lawyer who sits on the Leopold museum's board: "This is an act of fairness, because this painting reflects the history of the horrendous atrocities during the Holocaust. It is therefore the case, that one has to tell the history, something that I support 100 percent, that history has to be told today and forever. In the end, the general public is the winner." 12. Wide of visitors looking at exhibits 13. Zoom out from woman looking at Schiele exhibit 14. Various of photograph of Valerie "Wally" Neuzil 15. SOUNDBITE: (German) Elisabeth Leopold, daughter of museum founder, the late Rudolf Leopold: "It's all Hitler?s fault. All this horrible injustice against people who committed no crime. I see this as the result and I will respect it as well as I can." 16. Close up of newspaper article reading (German) "Austria's Mona Lisa is coming home" 17. Visitor looking at collage of newspaper articles 18. Tilt down from sign reading (English) "Welcome Wally!" to visitors 19. SOUNDBITE: (German) Reiner Hinck, tourist from Germany: "Art theft has existed for the last 2000 years. It started with the Romans up to Napoleon, one of the biggest robbers, and it was the same with the Nazis, also big robbers. And after the war a lot was robbed out of Germany. I think art should accessible for everyone and not be centralised in a single place." 20. SOUNDBITE: (German) Gudrun Rupp, tourist from Germany: "I think that art should be given back, the artefacts should be returned to the place where they were made, where they belong, that's what I think, also in other cases, the artefacts should be given back to the place of their origin." 21. Close up of Portrait of Wally STORYLINE A 12-year battle over the possession of a painting that was stolen from a Jewish Austrian by the Nazis came to a close on Monday when the work by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele was displayed at a Vienna museum. The oil painting was returned over the weekend after the Leopold Museum agreed to pay 19 (m) million US dollars (15 (m) million euros) as part of the settlement to the estate of art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray, the original owner. US authorities had refused to return the painting to the Leopold Museum after it was exhibited in 1998 at the New York Museum of Modern Art because of a claim by her descendants. Bondi Jaray was forced to sell the painting, "Portrait of Wally," at an unrealistically low price in the prelude to World War II as part of a widespread Nazi campaign that stripped Jews in Austria, Germany and later other European countries of their possessions. "Portrait of Wally" - which pictures Valerie "Wally" Neuzil, a woman Schiele knew and used as a model - was among more than 100 works the Leopold Foundation had leant to MoMA. US customs refused to let the work leave the country after Henry Bondi of Princeton, New Jersey, filed a claim that said his late aunt was forced to give up the painting before fleeing Vienna in 1939 to escape to London when Germany annexed Austria. She died in 1969. Henry Bondi has also since died. The controversy over the portrait, which the Leopold Museum acquired after the war, contributed to Austria passing a 1998 law that stipulates the restitution of property taken from the country's Jews by the Nazis. But the restitution law applies to state institutions, not to private museums such as the Leopold Foundation - something that Vienna's Jewish community asserts was exploited by Leopold. The museum was created by the late Rudolf Leopold. He is credited with assembling Austria's largest and most important private art collection, which includes more than 5,000 works by renowned artists such as Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka. According to the Jewish community's website, paintings by Schiele, Klimt and Egger-Lienz that were looted by the Nazis were bought by the Austrian state with public funds and given to the Leopold Foundation. The foundation acknowledges that it is not ruled by the restitution law, but denies any wrongdoing. Andreas Noedl, who sits on the Leopold museum's board, acknowledged the gross injustice done to Austria's Jews, telling reporters on Monday that the portrait "reflects the history of the horrendous atrocities during the Holocaust." Leopold Museum chief Peter Weinhaeupl called the return a "symbolic day" for the museum. Clients are reminded: (i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: infoaparchive.com (ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service (iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory. APTN APEX 08-23-10 1444EDT

LATEST ON THE CLEAN-UP EFFORT AT A SARASOTA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAMAGED BY A TORNADO OVER THE WEEKEND.

Cyber crime busters help get to the bottom of a murder

AP-APTN-1830 North America Prime News -Final Monday, 23 August 2010 North America Prime News +Philippines Hostages Wrap 05:00 See Script WRAP Commandos storm tourist bus killing gunman ADDS STILL Chile Miners 7 03:24 Part No Chile/Internet WRAP Latest from mine where 33 miners are trapped Pakistan Blast 2 02:31 AP Clients Only WRAP Three bombings in Pakistan's north kill at least 33 Pakistan Floods 5 01:25 AP Clients Only REPLAY Aerials of aid distribution for flood victims, ground shots Iran Boats 01:21 No Access Iran/BBC Persian/VOA Persian REPLAY Iran unveils domestically built rocket-mounted assault boats US Bears 02:08 AP Clients Only REPLAY GRAPHIC Humane Society releases video of bear baying Nlands Anne Frank 01:26 AP Clients Only REPLAY Storm knocks down tree that cheered up Anne Frank Austria Painting 03:38 AP Clients Only REPLAY Schiele's painting on display, presser, vox pops Australia Whale 00:41 No Access Australia REPLAY Humpback whale puts on spectacular show off Queensland's coast B-u-l-l-e-t-i-n begins at 1830 GMT. APEX 08-23-10 1456EDT

TAPE_NUMBER: EF00/0167 IN_TIME: 04:09:21 - 07:30:50 - 10:06:43 LENGTH: 02:47 SOURCES: APTN RESTRICTIONS: FEED: VARIOUS (THE ABOVE TIME-CODE IS TIME-OF-DAY) SCRIPT: English/Nat An international commission will start its long-awaited programme to accept claims from Jewish families still owed money from Nazi-era insurance policies next week. Speaking at a special hearing in Washington D-C, the head of the commission said the claims process would mark the start of a process that would finally reward those who had not seen justice for six decades. Also at the two-day hearing, a top researcher estimated that in the 12 years of Adolf Hitler's rule, the Nazis stole 600-thousand works of art from Jews in Germany and from countries they occupied in the Second World War. The chairman of the International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims on Thursday confirmed that the claims process would finally start next week. Speaking at a hearing before the House Banking Committee, Lawrence Eagleburger said that an agreement had been reached after nearly a year of negotiations. SOUNDBITE: (English) "On 15th of February, we will announce the opening of our claims process and what that means is in effect that through Websites, through publications and newspapers, through cooperation, through various Jewish groups, we will go out to hopefully most places in the world where there may in fact be claimants and tell them: here is how you make your claim." SUPER CAPTION: Lawrence Eagleburger, Chairman International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims The insurance compensation programme is part of the so-called German foundation initiative, a fund not yet established by German government and industry, mainly to pay people forced into labour by the Nazi regime. Eagleburger negotiated the programme with Jewish representatives and five European insurance companies that now have subsidiaries in the United States. But he said he would get "progressively nastier" in his attempts to get other insurers that operated during the Holocaust to join the commission. Eagleburger did welcome the news that Austria would press for compensation for Nazi slave labourers, despite fears that the offer could be used by the new government as a ploy to calm international outrage over the inclusion of the Freedom Party, whose leader in the past praised Hitler's employment policies. SOUNDBITE: (English) "The Austrian Chancellor yesterday indicated that he wanted Austrian insurance companies to participate fully in the process of restitution and I can assure you I will take that word from the Chancellor as controlling, as far as Austrian insurance companies are concerned. We have a number of them on our list of potential members of the commission and we will be approaching those companies soon." SUPER CAPTION: Lawrence Eagleburger, Chairman International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims The House Banking Committee on Thursday also heard that the Nazis stole an estimated 600-thousand works of art from Jews in Germany and from countries they occupied. Jonathan Petropoulos, research director for art on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, testified that 44 countries were taking part in the search for still-missing items. But the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York spoke of the problems when law investigations and the courts get involved in disputed ownership cases. At the end of 1997, his museum received two claims against two different works by the artist Egon Schiele that were on loan from the Leopold Foundation in Vienna. Although the claims were much disputed, a subpoena was issued by the Manhattan District Attorney and the pieces remain locked away. SOUNDBITE: (English) "With the immensely valuable participation of groups, like the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress, we have seen that the most effective means to resolve problems involving the return of Nazi looted art requires good faith, discretion and cooperation between museums and claimants and not the blunt instruments of subpoena power and forfeiture proceedings." SUPER CAPTION: Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York Lowry added that a new way must be found to solve the problem of returning the works of art. SOUNDBITE: (English) "So far other than costing hundreds of thousand of dollars and untold hours of time, the paintings have been locked away in storage, inaccessible to the claimants and inaccessible to the public. And because of this many foreign lenders - both public and private - have raised serious concerns about lending to American art museums, all sobering and unintending consequences of the various legal actions surrounding the case." SUPER CAPTION: Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York Among the new figure of 600-thousand looted art objects were paintings, sculptures, objets d'art, tapestries, but furniture, books, stamps or coins were not included in this total. SHOTLIST: Washington DC, US - February 10, 2000 and File Washington DC - February 10 1. Committee 2. Hearing 3. SOUNDBITE (English) Lawrence Eagleburger, Chairman International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims 4. Audience 5. Panel speaking 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Lawrence Eagleburger, Chairman International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims 7. Hearing 8. Panel FILE - New York, July 14 1998 9. Exterior of Museum of Modern Art 10. Art book photograph of Schiele painting "Portrait of Wally" 11. Detail of paintings 12. Art book, picture of "Dead City 111" 13. Detailed of Schiele's signature Washington DC - February 10 16. SOUNDBITE (English) Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York 17. Photographers 18. SOUNDBITE (English) Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York 19. Audience XFA?

COVER FTG AND INTV FOR MIKE LEE CS ON WORKS OF VIENNA'S NEWEST ABSTRACT ARTIST, 20 YEAR OLD ORANGUTAN NONJA UTAN. 00:00:14 WS PAINTING ON WALL IN MODERN ART MUSEUM. 00:01:13 WS ROOM W/ SCULPTURE IN CENTER. 00:01:52 CU PAINTING SHOWING HEAD OF MAN KISSING HEAD OF WOMAN ON CHEEK, THE KISS BY GUSTAV KLIMT. 00:02:15 CU TILT UP FROM FLOWERED BOTTOM OF PAINTING TO THESE HEADS. 00:04:17 MS SIX IMPRESSIONIST PAINTINGS. 00:05:14 CU PICTURE OF FLOWERS IN SHADES OF BROWN AND TOUCH OF GREEN BY EGON SCHIELE. 00:05:50 CU ARTIST'S SIGNATURE. VS FLOWER PICTURE. 00:07:29 CU PAINTING OF MAN AND WOMAN, DEATH AND THE MAIDEN. ECU'S DIFFERENT PORTIONS OF THIS PICTURE. 00:08:42 CU CUBIST PICTURE OF BUILDINGS BY FERNAND LEGER ENTITLED VILLAGE LANDSCAPE. 00:09:13 TIGHT CU LEGER OIL. 00:09:28 CU TREES AND MOUNTAINS LANDSCAPE PIECE OF ART BY LOVIS CORINTH. 00:10:46 CU'S CORINTH PICTURE. 00:12:07 WS EXT MUSEUM. 00:12:32 MS STATUE OF WINGED PART WOMAN PART ANIMAL. 00:12:52 CU WOMAN'S HEAD ON STATUE. 00:13:10 WS ELABORATE EXT FRONT MUSEUM. 00:14:35 BREAK. 00:14:38 CU INTV W/ ART COLLECTOR HEINZ PRIBIL TALKING ABOUT WHAT FASCINATES HIM ABOUT NONJA'S ART. 00:15:44 PRIBIL GIVES REASONS WHY NONJA'S ART HAS SOLD: PEOPLE INTERESTED IN ABSTRACT ART, RARE WORKS, MONEY WILL HELP ZOO. 00:16:45 PRIBIL COMPARES NONJA'S PAINTINGS W/ WORKS BY OTHER ARTISTS. HE SAYS NONJA HAS A DYNAMIC, FRESH, EXPRESSIVE WAY OF ABSTRACT PAINTING. 00:20:38 PRIBIL / REPORTER TWO SHOT. 00:21:33 CU FRAMED COLOR PHOTOGRAPH OF PRIBIL AND NONJA. 00:22:42 REPORTER SET UP AND SU'S. 00:27:57 WS STATUES OF HORSES IN FRONT OF MUSEUM. 00:28:18 MS STATUE OF HORSE STANDING ON BACK LEGS. 00:28:32 LA CU UPPER PART OF ORNATE EXT MUSEUM. 00:29:13 CU BAS RELIEF MALE FIGURE ADORNING BUILDING. 00:29:32 BREAK.

NAME: US EXHIBIT 20070322E TAPE: EF07/0345 IN_TIME: 10:04:08:03 DURATION: 00:02:25:07 SOURCES: AP TELEVISION DATELINE: New York, 21 March 2007 RESTRICTIONS: SHOTLIST: AP Television New York, 21 March 2007 1. Pull out from sign to exterior of Neue Galerie 2. Pan from line of paintings to Vincent Van Gogh's "Self Portrait with Straw Hat" 3. Man looking at two Van Gogh paintings 4. Pull out of Van Gogh's painting entitled "Self Portrait" 5. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jill Lloyd, curator of "Van Gogh and Expressionism" exhibit: "Personally, I think what draws us all to Van Gogh is his humanism, his vulnerability as a person and the extremely sort of powerful sense you have of human life, whether it's a portrait, a landscape. Even in his landscape there's a sense of human emotion human life and I think that's also what the expressionist painters found so powerful in his work." 6. Van Gogh's "Self Portrait" 7. Pull out of Gustav Klimt's painting "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" 8. Tilt up of Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" 9. Museum visitors taking notes about paintings 10. Pull out of Van Gogh's "Garden at Arles" 11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Jill Lloyd, curator of "Van Gogh and Expressionism" exhibit: "In fact it's a painting - very important painting - in the history of Van Gogh's reception because it was the first Van Gogh ever to enter a museum - in Germany in 1902. It's a painting which is very rarely lent at all. To my knowledge it's only been lent twice before since 1902 and so to have it here in New York in this exhibition for the first time is a great triumph for us and we're thrilled." 12. Van Gogh's "Wheat Fields Behind St. Paul's Hospital with a Reaper" 13. Close-up of painted house in Van Gogh's "Wheat Fields Behind St. Paul's Hospital with a Reaper" 14. Pull out from reaper to wide of painting of "Wheat Fields Behind St. Paul's Hospital with a Reaper" by Van Gogh 15. Zoom in to Karl Schmidt-Rottluff's "Self Portrait" 16. Egon Schiele's "Wilted Sunflowers" VAN GOGH PAINTING ON DISPLAY The first Vincent Van Gogh painting to be exhibited in a museum has gone on display at an expressionism exhibit in New York. It is the first time Van Gogh's "Wheat Fields Behind St. Paul's Hospital with a Reaper" will have been exhibited in the US. It is one of Van Gogh's most famous self portraits and landscapes. It joins about 80 other expressionist works in the exhibit, more than a third of which are Van Goghs. Exhibit curator Jill Lloyd said it was "a very important painting, in the history of Van Gogh's reception." "It was the first Van Gogh ever to enter a museum in Germany in 1902. It's a painting which is very rarely lent at all. To my knowledge it's only been lent twice before since 1902 and so to have it here in New York in this exhibition for the first time is a great triumph for us and we're thrilled," Lloyd said. Lloyd said getting "Wheat Fields Behind St. Paul's Hospital with a Reaper" on loan was decided at the last minute, just in time to be shown at the exhibition. "Personally, I think what draws us all to Van Gogh is his humanism," Lloyd said. "His vulnerability as a person and the extremely sort of powerful sense you have of human life whether it's a portrait a landscape even in his landscape there's a sense of human emotion human life and I think that's also what the expressionist painters found so powerful in his work," Lloyd added. Works by other expressionists, including Egon Schiele, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Max Pechstein are also on display at the exhibit, which runs until July 2. Keyword-art

AP-APTN-1830: Austria Naked Thursday, 18 October 2012 STORY:Austria Naked- Explicit poster for nude art exhibition causes uproar LENGTH: 02:45 FIRST RUN: 1630 RESTRICTIONS: AP Clients Only TYPE: German/Nat SOURCE: AP TELEVISION STORY NUMBER: 863376 DATELINE: Vienna - 15/18 Oct 2012 LENGTH: 02:45 SHOTLIST: October 15, 2012 1. Wide of poster showing naked men, genitalia obscured by bicycle handle bar 2. Wide of mother with child walking past poster, child pointing at poster 3. Focus pull of poster 4. Wide of Leopold Museum Director, Tobias Natter standing in front of artwork 5. Close of Natter 6. SOUNDBITE (German) Tobias Natter, director of the Leopold Museum: "By doing that our main message became clear. We want to point out that nobody gets offended by naked women, but with naked men: yes. We're putting this up for discussion. We want to be a museum that defines itself as modern and isn't just talking about things that happened in the past but are about to happen in the future, things that are still evolving." 7. Mid of poster with sign reading (German) "naked men" 8. SOUNDBITE (German) Susanne Eigner, local resident: "I can understand women with children who think that this is too wild, when the kids keep asking questions." 9. SOUNDBITE (German) Wolfgang Burku, local resident: "I don't find this poster offensive at all. First of all it's a bit of a statement that Austria isn't as prudish as it is often portrayed. And by the way, let's be honest, we're all born naked." 10. SOUNDBITE (German) Veronika Kren, local resident: "I like that we get to see naked men for a change. We have to look at naked women all the time and now I find it quite interesting to see something different - and especially the reaction of the men." 11. Wide of Natter organising display 12. Close of Natter 13. Wide of Natter and helper rearranging statue for exhibition 14. SOUNDBITE (German) Tobias Natter, director of the Leopold Museum: "The taping over should be very visible. Everybody should stumble upon it and say 'hey, what happened here?' Some people will say 'What a shame, I want to see what's under that'. Others will say 'Let's go the the museum, there we can see the original.' And some will say 'that's good, I don't want to see that in the public space'. It's about making people aware of this difference. At the same time we're saying the naked man has been the natural basis of the arts. From our point of view the agitation shouldn't be so huge. It has always existed if you look at it." October 18, 2012 15. Wide of taped-over poster 16. Mid of poster 17. Wide of poster with child walking past 18. Close-up of taped-over crotches, pan left 15 October 2012 19. Mid of students sketching with naked man sculpture in background 20. Close of sculpture STORYLINE: A revealing poster advertising an art exhibition called "Naked men" in Vienna's famous Leopold museum has caused a stir across the city. Scenes of embarrassment and approval have been repeating themselves all over the city as the poster features explicit full frontal male nudity. It is based on a picture by French artists Pierre and Gilles called "Vive la France" celebrating the country's successful multicultural soccer team. About 250 of the posters have been posted all over Vienna. But that was apparently too much for some. Anonymous messages directed at the museum called the posters "brainless" and "pornographic." Tobias Natter, director of the museum and curator of this exhibition, however remained steadfast saying that this was was the right way to make people aware of the exhibition. "We want to point out that nobody gets offended by naked women, but with naked men: yes. We're putting this up for discussion. We want to be a museum that defines itself as modern and isn't just talking about things that happened in the past but are about to happen in the future, things that are still evolving," he said. While many have anonymously complained about the posters, people on the street seem more relaxed about the show of nudity. "I don't find this poster offensive at all. First of all it's a bit of a statement that Austria isn't as prudish as it is often portrayed. And by the way, let's be honest, we're all born naked," said local resident, Wolfgang Burku. Similarly, Vienna resident Veronika Kren believes the posters are a refreshing change. "I like that we get to see naked men for a change. We have to look at naked women all the time and now I find it quite interesting to see something different - and especially the reaction of the men," she said. Some however can appreciate the awkward position parents might be put in. "I can understand women with children who think that this is too wild, when the kids keep asking questions," said local Susanne Eigner. While Natter wanted to make a point he also did not want to offend people permanently. Therefore, in order to calm some of the protests, the museum decided it would start to tape over the genitalia on some of the posters. Apparently that decision came too late for some of the offended and under the protection of darkness someone painted over the genitalia on some of the posters. In many parts of the city centre the posters remain unchanged. The exhibition itself will display artwork from a time-span of over 200 years, featuring famous works by artists like Egon Schiele and Bertel Thorvaldsen and is due to open on Friday. Clients are reminded: (i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: infoaparchive.com (ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service (iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory. APTN AP-WF-10-18-12 1853GMT

CS VO ON THE CURRENT PLACEMENT OF ART STOLEN BY THE NAZIS AND WHETHER OR NOT THE ORIGINAL OWNERS WILL BE ABLE TO GET IT BACK SEGMENT [1] 1998/04/28 ************************************************ KEYWORDS: ART; ART DEALERS; AUSTRALIA; AUSTRIA; CHINA; FRANCE; GERMANY; HOLOCAUST, THE; JUDAISM; LOOTING; MUSEUMS; NEW YORK CITY; NIGHTLINE; PAINTING; PARIS; THEFT; TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS; US DOLLAR; WORLD WAR I (1914-18); WORLD WAR II (1939-45) 23:35:00 ANNOUNCER April 28, 1998. LANE FAISON When a country is occupied, all Jewish art is fair game. Just take it. TED KOPPEL, ABC NEWS (VO) Among the Nazi spoils of war -- art, stolen from Jewish families. FRANCIS WARIN, KANN NEPHEW And they took everything, every single thing that was there. EDGAR BRONFMAN A painting is different, say, for a bar of gold. It has a provenance, it had an owner, it was in somebody's home. TED KOPPEL (VO) Art that may have found its way into some of this country's most prominent museums. FRANCIS WARIN What I'm interested in is in getting back the painting. TED KOPPEL (VO) But what should be done with it? HECTOR FELICIANO, AUTHOR, "THE LOST MUSEUM" They were stolen. They will never give it back to the original, to the real owner. So, I believe that they should be given back. TED KOPPEL (VO) Tonight, Nazi loot in American museums. ANNOUNCER From ABC News, this is Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel. TED KOPPEL If you would like even a sense of how complicated this sort of argument can get, you have only to scan any one of the thousands of articles and books that have been written on the subject of the so - called Elgin Marbles. The ancient marble friezes and statues were taken from the Parthenon in Athens with the permission of the administrators of that ancient Greek monument. At the time, 1803, the administrators happened to be Turks who were not particularly sensitive to Greek national pride. Lord Elgin transported all of this priceless Greek art back to London, where he sold it to the British Museum. It sits there to this day. For the better part of 200 years, the Greek government has been trying to get their national treasure back while a succession of British governments, including the current one, has concocted a variety of reasons why that would be a bad idea. The example is cited only as evidence of how complex and tangled and durable such arguments can be. You would think that our story tonight would be much simpler. The Nazis stole or compelled the sale of thousands of art treasures from Jewish families in France, Germany, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Over the years, those treasures have ended up in private collections and museums all over the world, which is where Brian Ross begins tonight's story. BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS (VO) The Minneapolis Institute of Arts now has become the latest American museum embroiled in the hunt for art stolen by the Nazis. In question, a painting estimated to be worth as much as $2 million. It once hung in the home of a prominent Jewish art collector in France. It now can be found on the walls of the museum's collection of 20th - century art, titled "Smoke Over the Roofs" by the French artist Fernand L ger. FRANCIS WARIN The only thing I'm interested is not in blaming anybody, it's in getting back the painting. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So you want them to take that painting off the wall and give it to you? FRANCIS WARIN Is there another way to get them back? BRIAN ROSS (VO) Francis Warin is the nephew of the man who once owned the painting, Alfonse Kann, whose home outside Paris was looted by a specially trained squad of Nazi soldiers in the fall of 1940. FRANCIS WARIN And they took everything, every single thing there was there. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Roman sculpture, old masters, works by Picasso, Degas, Matisse, C zanne, Renoir, an incredible collection of art that the Nazis took as theirs because the owner was Jewish. FRANCIS WARIN And I would say half of it had been given back at the end of the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) And half is still missing? FRANCIS WARIN Half is still missing. BRIAN ROSS (VO) And now, the discovery, being made public for the first time tonight, of what Warin claims is one of those missing paintings, this L ger, has raised a number of questions for the Minneapolis Museum. (on camera) Serious questions that other American museums from Seattle to Chicago to New York already are facing. If the claim is true -- and it is being disputed -- how did a painting stolen by the Nazis end up in a prestigious American museum? Should the museum have known the painting was essentially hot property? And now, 58 years after the crime, is it just too late to start making such claims? EDGAR BRONFMAN I think that the passage of 50 years makes it almost more urgent because if not now, when? BRIAN ROSS (VO) As president of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman now has begun a major effort to reclaim the art that was stolen by the Nazis and never returned to its rightful owners. EDGAR BRONFMAN A painting is different, say, from a bar of gold. It has a provenance, it had an owner, it was in somebody's home. I am determined that the truth be told about these -- where did this piece of work really come from? Who does it really belong to? BRIAN ROSS (VO) The new push to recover the stolen art comes in large part because of the revelations in the groundbreaking book "The Lost Museum" by Hector Feliciano, who used long - forgotten World War II documents to track a number of stolen works to their present - day locations in some of the finest museums and galleries in the world. HECTOR FELICIANO And we have been finding them in private collections, in museums and in museums in the United States all over the land. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In researching his book, the Paris - based Feliciano spent more than seven years focusing in particular on what happened after the war to the estimated 20,000 pieces that were not recovered from Nazi inventories. HECTOR FELICIANO They disappeared during the war, then they sort of went underground somehow and then they came out into the market after the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So this stolen art has gone through the hands of many very prominent people? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah. BRIAN ROSS Very prominent Americans? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah, very prominent Americans and very prominent European and international art dealers, collectors, curators, yes. And very few people have really cared about it. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Most of the paintings now in question are the paintings that Hitler and his generals did not want. As the Nazis carried out their well - organized, systematic looting of art across Europe, Hitler, a failed art student who considered himself a connoisseur, wanted only old masters and Germanic art for a grandiose plan to build the world's greatest art museum. LANE FAISON You had trained art historians that drew up lists, names, as far as I know accompanied the troops if necessary to go in take that, take that, skip this. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Lane Faison, one of the country's leading art scholars, was the American military intelligence officer assigned at the end of the war to investigate Hitler's art looting program. LANE FAISON They're very good at it. That's called the Gestapo. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Faison says Hitler considered the work of modern and impressionist French artists to be degenerate and that art was kept off to the side at the Nazis' central collecting point in Paris. LANE FAISON They had a curtained room, a room curtained off on the side. And behind that curtain, jammed from floor to ceiling, those were all 20th - century works by such artists as Picasso, Matisse, Gogin, Van Gogh, etc. Those were all degenerate. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) Degenerate? LANE FAISON They were all degenerate. BRIAN ROSS So, why did they take them if they thought they were degenerate? LANE FAISON Extremely valuable, sir, and all you've got to do is get them out of the country and sell them. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Which is exactly what happened. The Allies were able to recover about 80 percent of the art stolen by the Nazis after the war, much of it kept carefully preserved by the Nazis in underground salt mines. But the so - called degenerate art was long gone from the Nazi warehouses, sold off through a network of Swiss and French dealers who did business with the Nazis and then discretely moved the art onto the market. HECTOR FELICIANO They go where they can be sold, and the place where they could be sold was New York City. New York came to replace Paris as the center of the art world right after the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) Were people in New York asking the right kind of questions then? HECTOR FELICIANO No, they were not asking the right kind of questions. They were not asking any questions at all. This is why we have so many paintings and so much artwork that's now being found in the US BRIAN ROSS Are you saying now that someone who bought a painting 40 years ago in good faith which turns out to have been stolen by the Nazis should now just have to give it back? HECTOR FELICIANO I do understand that it is very difficult to admit it, but it is true that these are paintings or artwork that were stolen by the Nazis. They were stolen. They were never given back to their original or real owners. So I believe that they should be given back. TED KOPPEL Later in this broadcast, I will be talking to author Hector Feliciano, as well as to the director of one American museum that has works that are in dispute. But when we come back, the fight over ownership of a $2 million work of art. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL At the end of World War II, the US government estimated that the Nazis had seized or coerced the sale of one - fifth of all of the world's Western art. ABC's Brian Ross continues his story now of one family trying to recover what they lost. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In a private meeting videotaped last year by the descendants of Alfonse Kann, an extraordinary thing happened. Embarrassed officials at the Pompidou Art Center in Paris took down and handed over one of their prized paintings, a work by Albert Gleizes, a painting stolen by the Nazis in 1940 which the museum had kept as its own after the war until Hector Feliciano discovered it and reported it really belonged to the Kann family. FRANCIS WARIN I was very happy because symbolically it opened the door. After that, I knew that we could ask for all the paintings that belonged to us. I mean nobody can tell us anymore, you know, it's too late. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In the case of the L ger painting in Minneapolis, Warin claims it was stolen from his uncle by the Nazis in 1940, apparently auctioned off to a Paris art dealer in 1942, and then kept off the market until 1949. A New York gallery bought it in 1951, and then sold it to a wealthy American who, 10 years later, gave it to the Minneapolis Museum. (interviewing) That painting made it all the way from Nazi inventories in Paris to Minneapolis? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah. BRIAN ROSS Undetected somehow? HECTOR FELICIANO Undetected and because no one really checked the whole history of the painting. BRIAN ROSS If the Minneapolis Institute of Art had asked a few questions, what would they have found? HECTOR FELICIANO They would have probably found that this painting had belonged to Alfonse Kann and they would have known that the Alfonse Kann collection had been looted and they would have started having some serious doubts about it and they would have found out, like I did. BRIAN ROSS (VO) But the Minneapolis Institute of Art says while it abhors what the Nazis did, it's not sure about the Kann family's claim. The museum director told Nightline that while Kann once did own the painting, the museum has "uncovered evidence that does not support" what he called "the hearsay allegations" of Francis Warin. Warin says that's like calling his uncle a liar because Alfonse Kann filed an official claim for the painting with the French government right after the war. FRANCIS WARIN And on this list there's the description of the Fernand L ger painting that is "Smoke Over the Roofs". BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So you want that painting back? FRANCIS WARIN Absolutely. BRIAN ROSS And there's no doubt that it was your uncle's? FRANCIS WARIN No doubt. BRIAN ROSS (VO) And the Kann family is now just one of many Jewish families and other victims of the Nazis who are making claims involving prominent American museums for art they say was stolen by the Nazis. In the Seattle Art Museum there's a battle over a Matisse. At the Art Institute of Chicago, a disputed Degas on loan from a prominent collector. At New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art there's a claim by the Belgian government for this 15th - century work that Nazi General Hermann Goering commandeered during the occupation of Brussels, a claim the museum says it is now investigating. And finally, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, two paintings by Egon Schiele, on loan from Austria, have been ordered to be kept in the country by the Manhattan district attorney until their ownership claims can be sorted out. HECTOR FELICIANO Morally and ethically we are close to this period. It is part of our history because we inherited immediately one or two generations after, we inherited. So, in fact, I think it's important for us to clear it up so that we can see in a clear way so that this will never happen again. TED KOPPEL ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross. And I'll be back in just a moment. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL And joining us now from our New York studios, Hector Feliciano spent seven years researching and writing his new book, "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy To Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art." Robert Bergman is the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, a museum with three drawings in its collection which may have been looted by the Nazis. Mr Bergman is also chairman of the board of the American Association of Museums. What kind of evidence will you require before, and I'm assuming that if you got the necessary evidence you would return the drawings. Is that a correct assumption, first of all? ROBERT BERGMAN, THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM (Cleveland) There are three drawings in our collection, part of a group of some 20 or so drawings around the world which I believe were looted from an institute, not from a private family, not from a Jewish family but from a cultural institute in Poland. After the war, these were discovered in one of those salt mines that your reporter just reported on. They were brought to the Munich collecting point run by the allies, primarily the Americans, and, after carefully weighing a request by a descendant of the family that had given these to the cultural institute in Poland, they were returned to this family member. He, in turn, hired two dealers to sell these on the market and they were sold to museums around the world. In the end, Cleveland, in the 50s and 60s, bought three of these drawings. From my point of view, these were drawings that were restituted by a duly constituted body of the Allied government or the Allied forces, I should say, after the war. When we purchased these first in 1952, we, in our own museum bulletin, published the entire story of their looting by the Nazis, their return at the collecting point, etc., and only after understanding their restitution did we purchase them. TED KOPPEL Let me interrupt for a moment and ask Mr Feliciano ... ROBERT BERGMAN Sure. TED KOPPEL First of all, in some of these cases I'm assuming that either private collectors or museums bought some of these works of art with the best of intentions and under the assumption that they were buying it from a respectable art dealer who had acquired these paintings in an appropriate fashion. In those cases, how is restitution made to someone who, let's say 20 or 30 years ago, may have paid a great deal of money, $100,000, let's say, for a painting which he is now being asked to give back? Does he get any money? HECTOR FELICIANO Well, I think that there should be some space for negotiations, but we cannot forget that essentially this art was looted from individuals or from institutions by the Nazis and that it should be somehow given back. I do not -- I mean, there is always space, as I say, for negotiations for settlement. But I believe that we should not forget this. TED KOPPEL I would assume, and I'm not sure which of you would like to answer the question, I'll put it to either one of you, I would assume that half the museums in the world have got some works of art that were at one time or another taken by people who should not have taken them. I would assume that half the collection of pharoahnic material that was taken from the tombs in Luxor has ended up in private collections or museums around the world and was stolen, quite clearly stolen. Should that all be returned? ROBERT BERGMAN Well, if I can just offer some response. Certainly your general characterization is probably true when taken in a deep, deep historical way and I don't think anyone is calling for the return of every work of art that started out its life in one place and wound up, sometimes through complex circumstances, in another. TED KOPPEL But if it was stolen, why shouldn't it be? In other words, what's been going on since the beginning of time is that victorious armies have taken material that didn't belong to it and brought it back to their own home countries. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes, but I do think that there's a subtle difference or a not - so - subtle difference between spoils of war in that general sense and what people are so concerned about now and are concentrating on now. We're not talking about spoils of war being carried off, in many cases, save for the issue of the former Soviet Union. On the contrary, we're talking about works of art that seem to have been taken in the wake of the tragic deaths, deportations and carryings off of individuals during the Holocaust. TED KOPPEL I guess the point that I'm making -- and Mr Feliciano, let me address the question to you -- is there may be other tragedies which in scope were not as great, quite clearly, as the Holocaust, but for the individuals involved in other wars, in other instances throughout the centuries, nevertheless had works of art taken from people who did not want to give it up and whose families were never compensated. In other words, if we looked at the inventory of most of the museums around the world, would we not find tens of thousands of examples of stolen material? HECTOR FELICIANO Yes, you are right, but concerning art that was looted by the Nazis, what is really much more poignant about it is that there are still some people alive today that were affected highly by this looting and this is probably why it is so important, such an important thing. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes, I agree, Hector, that one of the differences in this discussion is that we're not talking about collective issues, we're talking about personal issues, and I think that's a very important distinction to be made between this matter that we're talking about and things that happened in the distant past. TED KOPPEL Let me ask you both just to take a short break. I'll be back with a couple more questions in just a moment. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL And we're back once again with author Hector Feliciano and Cleveland Museum Director Robert Bergman. Mr Feliciano, in the final analysis, which courts are going to have jurisdiction here? HECTOR FELICIANO Well, normally it should be, in the case of art that is found in the US, it should be US laws, American laws, and normally you cannot transfer ownership that you do not own. In fact, there is no statute of limitations for looted objects or looted art in this case. TED KOPPEL But if it's in another part of the world, if it's in Australia, if it's in China -- I mean, these works of art may be all over the world, right? HECTOR FELICIANO Oh, yeah, and I think it works differently. For example, in the case of Japan, the statute of limitations for theft is only two years. So, you know, of course, it changes. It varies in any case. But I just wanted to make a point which I think is important. We can compare the looting of art and its destiny to laundered money. I believe that in laundered money there is always a chain of people that have intervened, but not all of them know that it is laundered money. As far as we know, you or Bob Bergman or myself, we have laundered money in our pockets, but we don't know about it. The same case I think you can say of looted art. TED KOPPEL Mr Bergman, we have only a few seconds left. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes? TED KOPPEL I need a fairly concise answer. Do you think that the museums here in the United States are, in general, going to be cooperative here? ROBERT BERGMAN Not only will they be but they are being. We've already organized a task force among many of our directors to deal in a very forthright way with this problem. We'll be issuing reports sometime in June and we aim to help to adjudicate this problem. TED KOPPEL Even if it means giving all these works of art back and losing potentially millions of dollars? ROBERT BERGMAN The fair, honorable thing to do with regard to the legitimacy of these claims will be done by our museums. TED KOPPEL Even if it costs millions of dollars? ROBERT BERGMAN Even if we have to take actions that are very difficult for us to swallow. TED KOPPEL Mr Bergman, Mr Feliciano, thank you both very much. HECTOR FELICIANO Thank you. TED KOPPEL That's our report for tonight. For the latest overnight developments, watch Good Morning America tomorrow. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.

CS VO ON THE CURRENT PLACEMENT OF ART STOLEN BY THE NAZIS AND WHETHER OR NOT THE ORIGINAL OWNERS WILL BE ABLE TO GET IT BACK SEGMENT [1] 1998/04/28 ************************************************ KEYWORDS: ART; ART DEALERS; AUSTRALIA; AUSTRIA; CHINA; FRANCE; GERMANY; HOLOCAUST, THE; JUDAISM; LOOTING; MUSEUMS; NEW YORK CITY; NIGHTLINE; PAINTING; PARIS; THEFT; TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS; US DOLLAR; WORLD WAR I (1914-18); WORLD WAR II (1939-45) 23:35:00 ANNOUNCER April 28, 1998. LANE FAISON When a country is occupied, all Jewish art is fair game. Just take it. TED KOPPEL, ABC NEWS (VO) Among the Nazi spoils of war -- art, stolen from Jewish families. FRANCIS WARIN, KANN NEPHEW And they took everything, every single thing that was there. EDGAR BRONFMAN A painting is different, say, for a bar of gold. It has a provenance, it had an owner, it was in somebody's home. TED KOPPEL (VO) Art that may have found its way into some of this country's most prominent museums. FRANCIS WARIN What I'm interested in is in getting back the painting. TED KOPPEL (VO) But what should be done with it? HECTOR FELICIANO, AUTHOR, "THE LOST MUSEUM" They were stolen. They will never give it back to the original, to the real owner. So, I believe that they should be given back. TED KOPPEL (VO) Tonight, Nazi loot in American museums. ANNOUNCER From ABC News, this is Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel. TED KOPPEL If you would like even a sense of how complicated this sort of argument can get, you have only to scan any one of the thousands of articles and books that have been written on the subject of the so - called Elgin Marbles. The ancient marble friezes and statues were taken from the Parthenon in Athens with the permission of the administrators of that ancient Greek monument. At the time, 1803, the administrators happened to be Turks who were not particularly sensitive to Greek national pride. Lord Elgin transported all of this priceless Greek art back to London, where he sold it to the British Museum. It sits there to this day. For the better part of 200 years, the Greek government has been trying to get their national treasure back while a succession of British governments, including the current one, has concocted a variety of reasons why that would be a bad idea. The example is cited only as evidence of how complex and tangled and durable such arguments can be. You would think that our story tonight would be much simpler. The Nazis stole or compelled the sale of thousands of art treasures from Jewish families in France, Germany, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Over the years, those treasures have ended up in private collections and museums all over the world, which is where Brian Ross begins tonight's story. BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS (VO) The Minneapolis Institute of Arts now has become the latest American museum embroiled in the hunt for art stolen by the Nazis. In question, a painting estimated to be worth as much as $2 million. It once hung in the home of a prominent Jewish art collector in France. It now can be found on the walls of the museum's collection of 20th - century art, titled "Smoke Over the Roofs" by the French artist Fernand L ger. FRANCIS WARIN The only thing I'm interested is not in blaming anybody, it's in getting back the painting. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So you want them to take that painting off the wall and give it to you? FRANCIS WARIN Is there another way to get them back? BRIAN ROSS (VO) Francis Warin is the nephew of the man who once owned the painting, Alfonse Kann, whose home outside Paris was looted by a specially trained squad of Nazi soldiers in the fall of 1940. FRANCIS WARIN And they took everything, every single thing there was there. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Roman sculpture, old masters, works by Picasso, Degas, Matisse, C zanne, Renoir, an incredible collection of art that the Nazis took as theirs because the owner was Jewish. FRANCIS WARIN And I would say half of it had been given back at the end of the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) And half is still missing? FRANCIS WARIN Half is still missing. BRIAN ROSS (VO) And now, the discovery, being made public for the first time tonight, of what Warin claims is one of those missing paintings, this L ger, has raised a number of questions for the Minneapolis Museum. (on camera) Serious questions that other American museums from Seattle to Chicago to New York already are facing. If the claim is true -- and it is being disputed -- how did a painting stolen by the Nazis end up in a prestigious American museum? Should the museum have known the painting was essentially hot property? And now, 58 years after the crime, is it just too late to start making such claims? EDGAR BRONFMAN I think that the passage of 50 years makes it almost more urgent because if not now, when? BRIAN ROSS (VO) As president of the World Jewish Congress, Edgar Bronfman now has begun a major effort to reclaim the art that was stolen by the Nazis and never returned to its rightful owners. EDGAR BRONFMAN A painting is different, say, from a bar of gold. It has a provenance, it had an owner, it was in somebody's home. I am determined that the truth be told about these -- where did this piece of work really come from? Who does it really belong to? BRIAN ROSS (VO) The new push to recover the stolen art comes in large part because of the revelations in the groundbreaking book "The Lost Museum" by Hector Feliciano, who used long - forgotten World War II documents to track a number of stolen works to their present - day locations in some of the finest museums and galleries in the world. HECTOR FELICIANO And we have been finding them in private collections, in museums and in museums in the United States all over the land. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In researching his book, the Paris - based Feliciano spent more than seven years focusing in particular on what happened after the war to the estimated 20,000 pieces that were not recovered from Nazi inventories. HECTOR FELICIANO They disappeared during the war, then they sort of went underground somehow and then they came out into the market after the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So this stolen art has gone through the hands of many very prominent people? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah. BRIAN ROSS Very prominent Americans? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah, very prominent Americans and very prominent European and international art dealers, collectors, curators, yes. And very few people have really cared about it. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Most of the paintings now in question are the paintings that Hitler and his generals did not want. As the Nazis carried out their well - organized, systematic looting of art across Europe, Hitler, a failed art student who considered himself a connoisseur, wanted only old masters and Germanic art for a grandiose plan to build the world's greatest art museum. LANE FAISON You had trained art historians that drew up lists, names, as far as I know accompanied the troops if necessary to go in take that, take that, skip this. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Lane Faison, one of the country's leading art scholars, was the American military intelligence officer assigned at the end of the war to investigate Hitler's art looting program. LANE FAISON They're very good at it. That's called the Gestapo. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Faison says Hitler considered the work of modern and impressionist French artists to be degenerate and that art was kept off to the side at the Nazis' central collecting point in Paris. LANE FAISON They had a curtained room, a room curtained off on the side. And behind that curtain, jammed from floor to ceiling, those were all 20th - century works by such artists as Picasso, Matisse, Gogin, Van Gogh, etc. Those were all degenerate. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) Degenerate? LANE FAISON They were all degenerate. BRIAN ROSS So, why did they take them if they thought they were degenerate? LANE FAISON Extremely valuable, sir, and all you've got to do is get them out of the country and sell them. BRIAN ROSS (VO) Which is exactly what happened. The Allies were able to recover about 80 percent of the art stolen by the Nazis after the war, much of it kept carefully preserved by the Nazis in underground salt mines. But the so - called degenerate art was long gone from the Nazi warehouses, sold off through a network of Swiss and French dealers who did business with the Nazis and then discretely moved the art onto the market. HECTOR FELICIANO They go where they can be sold, and the place where they could be sold was New York City. New York came to replace Paris as the center of the art world right after the war. BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) Were people in New York asking the right kind of questions then? HECTOR FELICIANO No, they were not asking the right kind of questions. They were not asking any questions at all. This is why we have so many paintings and so much artwork that's now being found in the US BRIAN ROSS Are you saying now that someone who bought a painting 40 years ago in good faith which turns out to have been stolen by the Nazis should now just have to give it back? HECTOR FELICIANO I do understand that it is very difficult to admit it, but it is true that these are paintings or artwork that were stolen by the Nazis. They were stolen. They were never given back to their original or real owners. So I believe that they should be given back. TED KOPPEL Later in this broadcast, I will be talking to author Hector Feliciano, as well as to the director of one American museum that has works that are in dispute. But when we come back, the fight over ownership of a $2 million work of art. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL At the end of World War II, the US government estimated that the Nazis had seized or coerced the sale of one - fifth of all of the world's Western art. ABC's Brian Ross continues his story now of one family trying to recover what they lost. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In a private meeting videotaped last year by the descendants of Alfonse Kann, an extraordinary thing happened. Embarrassed officials at the Pompidou Art Center in Paris took down and handed over one of their prized paintings, a work by Albert Gleizes, a painting stolen by the Nazis in 1940 which the museum had kept as its own after the war until Hector Feliciano discovered it and reported it really belonged to the Kann family. FRANCIS WARIN I was very happy because symbolically it opened the door. After that, I knew that we could ask for all the paintings that belonged to us. I mean nobody can tell us anymore, you know, it's too late. BRIAN ROSS (VO) In the case of the L ger painting in Minneapolis, Warin claims it was stolen from his uncle by the Nazis in 1940, apparently auctioned off to a Paris art dealer in 1942, and then kept off the market until 1949. A New York gallery bought it in 1951, and then sold it to a wealthy American who, 10 years later, gave it to the Minneapolis Museum. (interviewing) That painting made it all the way from Nazi inventories in Paris to Minneapolis? HECTOR FELICIANO Yeah. BRIAN ROSS Undetected somehow? HECTOR FELICIANO Undetected and because no one really checked the whole history of the painting. BRIAN ROSS If the Minneapolis Institute of Art had asked a few questions, what would they have found? HECTOR FELICIANO They would have probably found that this painting had belonged to Alfonse Kann and they would have known that the Alfonse Kann collection had been looted and they would have started having some serious doubts about it and they would have found out, like I did. BRIAN ROSS (VO) But the Minneapolis Institute of Art says while it abhors what the Nazis did, it's not sure about the Kann family's claim. The museum director told Nightline that while Kann once did own the painting, the museum has "uncovered evidence that does not support" what he called "the hearsay allegations" of Francis Warin. Warin says that's like calling his uncle a liar because Alfonse Kann filed an official claim for the painting with the French government right after the war. FRANCIS WARIN And on this list there's the description of the Fernand L ger painting that is "Smoke Over the Roofs". BRIAN ROSS (interviewing) So you want that painting back? FRANCIS WARIN Absolutely. BRIAN ROSS And there's no doubt that it was your uncle's? FRANCIS WARIN No doubt. BRIAN ROSS (VO) And the Kann family is now just one of many Jewish families and other victims of the Nazis who are making claims involving prominent American museums for art they say was stolen by the Nazis. In the Seattle Art Museum there's a battle over a Matisse. At the Art Institute of Chicago, a disputed Degas on loan from a prominent collector. At New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art there's a claim by the Belgian government for this 15th - century work that Nazi General Hermann Goering commandeered during the occupation of Brussels, a claim the museum says it is now investigating. And finally, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, two paintings by Egon Schiele, on loan from Austria, have been ordered to be kept in the country by the Manhattan district attorney until their ownership claims can be sorted out. HECTOR FELICIANO Morally and ethically we are close to this period. It is part of our history because we inherited immediately one or two generations after, we inherited. So, in fact, I think it's important for us to clear it up so that we can see in a clear way so that this will never happen again. TED KOPPEL ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross. And I'll be back in just a moment. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL And joining us now from our New York studios, Hector Feliciano spent seven years researching and writing his new book, "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy To Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art." Robert Bergman is the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, a museum with three drawings in its collection which may have been looted by the Nazis. Mr Bergman is also chairman of the board of the American Association of Museums. What kind of evidence will you require before, and I'm assuming that if you got the necessary evidence you would return the drawings. Is that a correct assumption, first of all? ROBERT BERGMAN, THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM (Cleveland) There are three drawings in our collection, part of a group of some 20 or so drawings around the world which I believe were looted from an institute, not from a private family, not from a Jewish family but from a cultural institute in Poland. After the war, these were discovered in one of those salt mines that your reporter just reported on. They were brought to the Munich collecting point run by the allies, primarily the Americans, and, after carefully weighing a request by a descendant of the family that had given these to the cultural institute in Poland, they were returned to this family member. He, in turn, hired two dealers to sell these on the market and they were sold to museums around the world. In the end, Cleveland, in the 50s and 60s, bought three of these drawings. From my point of view, these were drawings that were restituted by a duly constituted body of the Allied government or the Allied forces, I should say, after the war. When we purchased these first in 1952, we, in our own museum bulletin, published the entire story of their looting by the Nazis, their return at the collecting point, etc., and only after understanding their restitution did we purchase them. TED KOPPEL Let me interrupt for a moment and ask Mr Feliciano ... ROBERT BERGMAN Sure. TED KOPPEL First of all, in some of these cases I'm assuming that either private collectors or museums bought some of these works of art with the best of intentions and under the assumption that they were buying it from a respectable art dealer who had acquired these paintings in an appropriate fashion. In those cases, how is restitution made to someone who, let's say 20 or 30 years ago, may have paid a great deal of money, $100,000, let's say, for a painting which he is now being asked to give back? Does he get any money? HECTOR FELICIANO Well, I think that there should be some space for negotiations, but we cannot forget that essentially this art was looted from individuals or from institutions by the Nazis and that it should be somehow given back. I do not -- I mean, there is always space, as I say, for negotiations for settlement. But I believe that we should not forget this. TED KOPPEL I would assume, and I'm not sure which of you would like to answer the question, I'll put it to either one of you, I would assume that half the museums in the world have got some works of art that were at one time or another taken by people who should not have taken them. I would assume that half the collection of pharoahnic material that was taken from the tombs in Luxor has ended up in private collections or museums around the world and was stolen, quite clearly stolen. Should that all be returned? ROBERT BERGMAN Well, if I can just offer some response. Certainly your general characterization is probably true when taken in a deep, deep historical way and I don't think anyone is calling for the return of every work of art that started out its life in one place and wound up, sometimes through complex circumstances, in another. TED KOPPEL But if it was stolen, why shouldn't it be? In other words, what's been going on since the beginning of time is that victorious armies have taken material that didn't belong to it and brought it back to their own home countries. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes, but I do think that there's a subtle difference or a not - so - subtle difference between spoils of war in that general sense and what people are so concerned about now and are concentrating on now. We're not talking about spoils of war being carried off, in many cases, save for the issue of the former Soviet Union. On the contrary, we're talking about works of art that seem to have been taken in the wake of the tragic deaths, deportations and carryings off of individuals during the Holocaust. TED KOPPEL I guess the point that I'm making -- and Mr Feliciano, let me address the question to you -- is there may be other tragedies which in scope were not as great, quite clearly, as the Holocaust, but for the individuals involved in other wars, in other instances throughout the centuries, nevertheless had works of art taken from people who did not want to give it up and whose families were never compensated. In other words, if we looked at the inventory of most of the museums around the world, would we not find tens of thousands of examples of stolen material? HECTOR FELICIANO Yes, you are right, but concerning art that was looted by the Nazis, what is really much more poignant about it is that there are still some people alive today that were affected highly by this looting and this is probably why it is so important, such an important thing. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes, I agree, Hector, that one of the differences in this discussion is that we're not talking about collective issues, we're talking about personal issues, and I think that's a very important distinction to be made between this matter that we're talking about and things that happened in the distant past. TED KOPPEL Let me ask you both just to take a short break. I'll be back with a couple more questions in just a moment. (Commercial Break) TED KOPPEL And we're back once again with author Hector Feliciano and Cleveland Museum Director Robert Bergman. Mr Feliciano, in the final analysis, which courts are going to have jurisdiction here? HECTOR FELICIANO Well, normally it should be, in the case of art that is found in the US, it should be US laws, American laws, and normally you cannot transfer ownership that you do not own. In fact, there is no statute of limitations for looted objects or looted art in this case. TED KOPPEL But if it's in another part of the world, if it's in Australia, if it's in China -- I mean, these works of art may be all over the world, right? HECTOR FELICIANO Oh, yeah, and I think it works differently. For example, in the case of Japan, the statute of limitations for theft is only two years. So, you know, of course, it changes. It varies in any case. But I just wanted to make a point which I think is important. We can compare the looting of art and its destiny to laundered money. I believe that in laundered money there is always a chain of people that have intervened, but not all of them know that it is laundered money. As far as we know, you or Bob Bergman or myself, we have laundered money in our pockets, but we don't know about it. The same case I think you can say of looted art. TED KOPPEL Mr Bergman, we have only a few seconds left. ROBERT BERGMAN Yes? TED KOPPEL I need a fairly concise answer. Do you think that the museums here in the United States are, in general, going to be cooperative here? ROBERT BERGMAN Not only will they be but they are being. We've already organized a task force among many of our directors to deal in a very forthright way with this problem. We'll be issuing reports sometime in June and we aim to help to adjudicate this problem. TED KOPPEL Even if it means giving all these works of art back and losing potentially millions of dollars? ROBERT BERGMAN The fair, honorable thing to do with regard to the legitimacy of these claims will be done by our museums. TED KOPPEL Even if it costs millions of dollars? ROBERT BERGMAN Even if we have to take actions that are very difficult for us to swallow. TED KOPPEL Mr Bergman, Mr Feliciano, thank you both very much. HECTOR FELICIANO Thank you. TED KOPPEL That's our report for tonight. For the latest overnight developments, watch Good Morning America tomorrow. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington. For all of us here at ABC News, good night.