My client Alexander Khochinsky is safely back in the United States after an eight-month ordeal spurred by Poland’s retaliation for his assertion of restitution for his mother’s property lost in Poland during the Holocaust. The rejection this month by the French courts of Poland’s request to extradite my client for prosecution in the courts of Poland—courts called out as lacking judicial independence by the European Court of Justice—was the second failed attempt by Poland to abuse the international extradition system, and came directly on the heels of being held in default in Khochinsky’s lawsuit here in the United States for damages arising out of Poland’s bad-faith extradition effort that ended in 2015. Khochinsky is represented in France by Jean-Jacques Neuer.
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Topics:
Alexander Khochinsky,
Nazi-looted art,
Red Army,
extradition,
FSIA,
"Girl with Dove",
Antoine Pesne,
Poland,
Przemysl,
USSR,
Belzec,
Lviv,
Uzbekistan,
European Court of Justice,
Paris Charles de Gaulle,
Tashkent,
28 U.S.C. § 1607,
28 U.S.C. § 1605(a),
Paris Court of Appeal
Alexander Khochinsky, the son of a Polish Jew who fled her home just steps ahead of the German invasion in 1941, was detained at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport yesterday. The current detention parallels Poland’s previous failed attempts to extradite Khochinsky from the United States in 2015, a request that was dismissed and which led to his pending lawsuit for that retaliatory extradition attempt. Khochinsky, an art dealer, reached out to Poland about a painting, Girl with Dove, that he had inherited from his parents that looked similar to one that Poland was seeking, and asked to open a dialogue about what had happened to his mother’s home. In response, Poland charged him with a crime and asked the United States to extradite him for prosecution. The U.S. District Court in Manhattan dismissed the request for extradition in 2015, but by then Khochinsky had suffered months of detention and the destruction of his business. Khochinsky—an American citizen—was detained just before boarding his flight to New York on Monday and informed that there was an Interpol or European request for his extradition made by Poland.
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Topics:
Alexander Khochinsky,
Red Army,
"Girl with Dove",
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Poland,
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
Przemysl,
Leningrad,
Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport,
Hague Convention on the Service Abroad,
Jean-Jacques Neuer,
Polish Central Authority,
USSR
(WASHINGTON, D.C.-June 27, 2018) Alexander Khochinsky, the son of a Polish Jew who fled her home just steps ahead of the German invasion in 1941, has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Poland for that country’s efforts to extradite him after he sought restitution of his mother’s property. Khochinsky, an art dealer, reached out to Poland about a painting, Girl with Dove by Antoine Pesne, that he had inherited from his parents and that looked similar to one that Poland was seeking, and asked to open a dialogue about what had happened to his mother’s home. In retaliation, Poland charged him with a crime and asked the United States to extradite him for prosecution. The U.S. District Court in Manhattan dismissed the request for extradition in 2015, but by then Khochinsky had suffered months of detention and the destruction of his business.
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Topics:
Alexander Khochinsky,
Nazi-looted art,
Red Army,
Holocaust,
extradition,
"Girl with Dove",
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
Antoine Pesne,
Poland,
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
Przemysl,
Leningrad
Back in September, we voiced curious skepticism about breathless reports of a buried train near Wrocław, formerly Breslau, in Poland. Rumors of this “Nazi gold train” supposedly concealed at the end of World War II and filled with either gold, art, or both, had an odd mixture of plausibility and absurdity. Yet Polish officials went on record confirming…something. On August 28, 2015, Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski stated at a press conference that he is “99 percent sure” that the government had located the train allegedly loaded with gold, gems, and perhaps artwork that was buried as the Soviet Red Army encircled Breslau in the last months of World War II. “The train is 100 meters long and is protected,” Zuchowski said.
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Topics:
Soviet,
Breslau,
Wrocław,
Piotr Koper,
Red Army,
Nazi Gold Train,
Walbrzych,
Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski,
World War II,
Poland,
Washington Post,
Janusz Madej,
Andreas Richter,
New York Times
After putting on hold its prior recommendation back in March of this year, the United Kingdom Spoliation Advisory Panel has recommended that the Tate Gallery in London should return Beaching a Boat, Brighton by John Constable to heirs of Budapest-based (and Jewish) Baron Ferenc Hatvany. The Art Newspaper reports that the Spoliation Panel concluded that the 1946 export license at issue in the springtime uncertainty (located from the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts) was insufficient to overcome the conclusion that title to the looted painting had not passed lawfully.
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Topics:
John Constable,
Soviet,
Budapest,
Worcestershire,
Hungary,
London,
The Art Newspaper,
Beaching a Boat Brighton,
Nazi-looted art,
Red Army,
Mrs P.M. Rainsford,
Broadway Art Gallery,
Budapest Museum of Fine Arts,
Restitution,
World War II,
Baron Ferenc Hatvany,
Tate Gallery,
Museums,
United Kingdom Spoliation Advisory Panel
I mostly ignored the initial twitterings about a supposedly secret train laden with gold and other Nazi-looted treasures that was buried somewhere near Wrocław, formerly Breslau, in Poland. My reasons were straightforward: just like supposed sightings of the Gardner Museum heist art, or the Amber Room, the story had all the hallmarks of a fable being peddled by someone who, perhaps not coincidentally, was suggesting that they be paid something for their trouble. Whether this is the next Gurlitt saga or just Al Capone’s vault, it’s too early to tell.
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Topics:
the Holy Roman Empire,
Al Capone’s vault,
Soviet,
Gauleiter Karl Hanke,
Königsberg,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Breslau,
Wrocław,
Prussia,
Max Liebermann,
East Prussia,
Red Army,
Nazi Gold Train,
Amber Room,
Bernsteinzimmer,
the Hanseatic League,
Walbrzych,
Restitution,
Deputy Culture Minister Piotr Zuchowski,
World War II,
Markus Stötzel,
Poland,
the Duchy of Silesia,
Bohemia,
Riders on the Beach,
David Friedmann,
the Kingdom of Poland,
Gardner Museum heist,
the German Empire
As if there weren't enough controversy with national advisory commissions' recommendations about Nazi-looted art, the Tate Gallery in London is apparently reconsidering a recommendation last year by the United Kingdom’s Spoliation Advisory Panel that Beaching a Boat, Brighton (1824) by John Constable should be restituted to heirs of Budapest-based Baron Ferenc Hatvany, who was Jewish.
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Topics:
John Constable,
Soviet,
Budapest,
Worcestershire,
London,
The Art Newspaper,
Beaching a Boat Brighton,
Nazi-looted art,
Red Army,
Mrs P.M. Rainsford,
Broadway Art Gallery,
Restitution,
World War II,
Baron Ferenc Hatvany,
Tate Gallery,
Washington Principles,
United Kingdom Spoliation Advisory Panel
Several overlapping issues in recent months have turned what was an awkward elephant in the room into a major issue facing the art world today. Namely: the increasing role that Russia is playing in restitution, loans and exhibition controversies has aggregated to Vladimir Putin an extraordinary amount of influence over these major international legal issues. Combined with the Edward Snowden controversy (and the bizarre story of Putin’s theft of Robert Kraft’s New England Patriots Super Bowl ring), it seems quite clear that Putin enjoys that spotlight. That has not proven to be good news for the art world.
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Topics:
Nazi Germany,
Russia,
Germany,
WWII,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Red Army,
Edward Snowden,
FSIA,
Restitution,
New England Patriots,
Super Bowl,
Vladimir Putin,
Robert Kraft,
Soviet Union
