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I had posted sometime back about the excellent Smithsonian article concerning the “Monuments Men” of WWII and last night had the chance to see the excellent documentary , “The Rape of Europa” about these wonderful men. It is scheduled to be recast on Nov. 26th at 12:00 am & at 8:30 pm. See here for the PBS page with extra features and links to other sites.
I was always extremely proud of America for doing “our bit” to help stop the horror that was Hitler but watching last’s nights documentary left me feeling something more, something deeper. In the words of one man, badly paraphrased, art is what elevates us from the animals. Now animals are a lovely integral part of our lives, but I mean animal in the tooth and nail sense~ and not one of them has carved “David”.
The stories of the cities of Florence, Pisa, Paris all especially touched me, how the cities all felt “not me, our buildings, our culture, our art are too special to the world” and how ultimately they discovered war respects nothing. Except in the most rare circumstances and  the United States has been and still is a leader in this area. The story of how we bombed with such care only the railroad in Florence~ the single most accurate bombing of the European theatre. The story of Pisa and Camposanto, the monumental cemetery, that was the reason people went to see the Tower before the War, is the stuff to break your heart. To know that the American “Monument Man” who lead the effort to scour the ashes of the bombed out buildings for the bits of the frescoes that covered those wall is entombed there, still overlooking the restoration, makes your heart soar.
For all their vile, the Nazis liked a clean trail~ so they simply declared an owner of what they wanted “criminal”, confiscated their property, declared it ownerless  and took it as their own.
To learn of the mousy little woman, Rose Valland, who miraculously evaded execution, kept her post at the Louver, and kept watch as the Nazis moved 1000’s of pieces of art into their collections. Unbeknownst to then she spoke fluent German, and with an iron memory went home each night recording what family had been robbed of what art piece and where the Germans sent it. That diary enabled many families to reclaim what the Nazis stole.
The story of the Jewish art touches you the most, how as the Army worked desperately to get out of the “art business” and most of the looted art was returned to the correct countries or people~ rooms of menorahs, furniture, canvases,  all with out homes or families added another layer to what exactly happened in Europe. Eventually most of these items were returned to Jewish museums.
The story of what one German man does now, restoring a bit of humanity to an inhumane situation, shows that, as a species we can learn from our mistakes. He restores stolen art to Jewish families. We watch him as he “acquires” a collection of Torah crowns (the silver ornaments that sit a top the posts), scours records, graves and finally finds relatives in America to return them to.
The Hermitage in Saint Petersburg did a heroic attempt to save what they could~ some 40 workers starved in the basement protecting what was left there during the siege of the city ,but ultimately the Nazis looted the building down to the bare wood~ even the Czarina’s famous “Amber Room”. During the wars last days they  took back what was theirs and more. Today the work of restoring what is the rightful property to it’s owners continues.
In 2006 the family of Gustave Kilmet received six of his paintings.
Please explore the many fascinating features at the PBS we page and you will not regret watching “The Rape of Europa”