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Designed using Google Maps, this interactive map features historic homes, museums, mines, towns, and other locations that served as repositories for art and cultural material during WWII. Each location features a short description of what was kept there and from where, allowing viewers to learn some of the wartime history of both famous and lesser-known places across Europe.
Examples include repositories of looted material, i.e. the Altaussee Salt Mine in Austria, and of collections hidden for safekeeping, i.e. the Castello di Montegufoni in the countryside outside Florence, Italy, featuring locations in six different countries. While not all-encompassing, as there were thousands of repositories across Europe, the map will be able to be updated, allowing for further locations to be added in the future.
This map was created by Foundation junior researcher Maria Ognjanovich as part of a project for her Master’s degree in the Forensic Investigation of Heritage Crime. The project was to create a portfolio of work on one subject related to Heritage Crime, with each piece of work in a different format and for a different audience. This map provides an easy and engaging medium to discover some of the extent of wartime art storage practices, and the different locations used for the safekeeping of Europe’s cultural treasures.