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November 6, 2013

Gurlitt Art Collection: BBC Newshour Interviews Marc Masurovsky of the Holocaust Art Restitution Project and Clarence Epstein of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project

Marc Masurovsky of the Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP) and Clarence Epstein of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project were interviewed http://soundcloud.com/dina-newman/looted yesterday by BBC Newshour as to his reaction to the headlines out of Germany about the exclusive released by Focus magazine that Bavarian customs officials had discovered a hoard of suspected Nazi-era looted art belonging to Cornelius Gurlitt. Here's an excerpt:
Interviewer: How significant do you think it is? 
Marc Masurovsky: Well, it's always significant in terms of the numbers, but it's also one of those I told you so moments where everybody loves to believe that everything was destroyed so that we don't have to deal with it, but unfortunately there were enough dealers and collectors who profited from the Holocaust and Nazi plunder that they basically stashed the works away. What I'm curious about is how many did Mr. Cornelius Gurlitt sell before he was nabbed? So that's another question that doesn't seem to get asked.
Here's a link to "Plundered Cultures, Stolen Heritagethe conference at Concordia University in Montreal opening tomorrow that will gather "leading experts on the experiences of cultural destruction and mass atrocities suffered by the First Nations, Armenian and Jewish peoples are assembling to discuss the motives of the perpetrators of these assaults, their impact, and the significance these attacks pose for restitution and reconciliation today." Mr. Masurovsky will be one of the speakers.

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