U.S.
WRITER WINS WW.II ART SUIT By SUSANNAH PATTON
Associated Press Writer PARIS
(AP) -- A French
court on Wednesday ruled in favor of an
American writer who suggested that a
prominent French-Jewish art dealer
collaborated with the Nazis. A panel of three judges said in a
written decision that Hector
Feliciano, accused of slandering the
late Georges Wildenstein in his
1997 book "The Lost Museum," had documents
showing the art dealer "had direct and
indirect relations with German authorities
during the Occupation." Feliciano's book suggests that
Wildenstein, who ran the family
business from 1910 until his
death in 1963, maintained
commercial ties with the Nazis
during the Occupation. Wildenstein fled France in
January 1941, and settled in New
York. His son Daniel, grandsons Alec
and Guy, and their New York
gallery, sued Feliciano, an art
historian, for $1 million in
damages, claiming the book
tarnished the family name and
scared away major clients. But the French judges said
that while it wasn't their job to
determine the truthfulness of
Feliciano's book, his work was
"objective and fair." The judges also ordered the
Wildensteins to pay $1,900 to
Feliciano, who had
countersued. |  COMMENTS:
ANY
astute reader of David
Irving's biiography of
Hermann
Göring
(William Morrow, New York,
1989), would have found
massive evidence of the
dealing that went on between
the Nazis and the Paris art
dealing community. There was
money in it for all of them.
In the National Archives
repository at Suitland,
Maryland, are the original
inventories of all the items
purchased by Göring from
those dealers (many of whom
obtained restitution of the
paintings after the war --
and
kept the money they had taken
for selling them!) Nazis
and art dealers: six of one,
half a dozen of the
other.
|
Feliciano said the case, which
spotlighted complex transactions between
Parisian art dealers and the Nazis, has
begun to lift the veil of secrecy on
France's thriving wartime art market. "The courts are now doing what the
administration wouldn't do," Feliciano
said in a telephone interview. "They are
allowing people to gain access to archives
and find out the truth about this period
in history." The Wildensteins can appeal the
decision. Neither family members nor their
lawyer were available for comment
Wednesday. The book,
translated into eight languages,
mentions Wildenstein only in passing.
It focuses primarily on the Nazis'
organized pillaging of thousands of
paintings belonging to wealthy French
Jews. Wartime Paris was an art dealer's
dream. The Nazis flooded the market with
works by artists they considered morally
corrupt -- Picasso, Matisse, Chagall among
them -- trading them or buying classical
art for a museum to glorify Nazi
ideals. Under the measures passed by France's
pro-Nazi Vichy regime banning Jews from
owning businesses, Wildenstein's gallery
was transferred to Roger Dequoy, a
non-Jewish employee who appears to have
done business with the Nazis. Court documents show Wildenstein
remained in contact with Dequoy, who
conducted business with Karl
Haberstock, a Berlin-based dealer and
fervent Nazi who had close contact with
Wildenstein up to 1939. Haberstock was Hitler's private
dealer and later developed the theory of
degenerate or morally corrupt art. The Wildensteins contend that Dequoy,
who worked at the gallery for nine years
after the war, was acting on his own. Copyright
1999 The Associated Press |
write
to David Irving