Unresolved Claim: The Collection of Fritz and Thea Goldschmidt

When the 1933 German census was conducted, Breslau (today, Wrocław, Poland) had the third largest Jewish population of Germany's major cities. Until World War II, its Jewish community prospered, with affluent members who were dedicated to their city's social causes and notable patrons of the arts, Fritz (1871–1944) and Thea (1888-1944) Goldschmidt were important members of this community.

Fritz was a successful entrepreneur, confounding the grain firm Koppenheim & Goldschmidt in 1898 and later pursuing business opportunities in real estate and finance. He was also a civil servant, serving in respected positions such as regional commercial judge and the president of the Breslau Product Exchange (Breslauer Produktenbörse). Fritz married Thea Cohn in 1910 and they had three sons: Helmut, Gunter, and Gebhard. The Goldschmidts contributed greatly to their community– Fritz providing substantial funding for the erection of a Jewish hospital and museum and Thea fundraising for a local Jewish school, among their many causes.

Portraits of Fritz and Thea Goldschmidt. Courtesy of the Goldschmidt family.

The family resided at Villa Kommendeweg, an opulent residence that housed their extensive collection of European Impressionist and Expressionist works of art, paintings, and some sculptures, which the couple would often loan for exhibitions throughout Germany.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany. The Nazi Party soon consolidated power and effected numerous discriminatory measures against its Jewish citizenry in its determination to racially purify the Reich. Legislative actions systematically began to remove Jews from participation in all facets of German society.

Fritz was soon forced to resign from his presidency at the Schlesische Getreide-Kreditbank AG, the bank he had founded just over a decade prior. Like many German-Jewish entrepreneurs, he was eventually forced to sell his business assets as the Nazi's "Aryanized" Jewish businesses in the coming years, transferring Jewish-owned companies to non-Jewish, or Aryan, ownership, often at substantial loss and hardship to the original Jewish owner.

Villa Kommendeweg. Courtesy of the Goldschmidt family.

The Goldschmidts' financial situation worsened as the antisemitic discrimination progressed. Lacking income, in June 1936, Thea sold nine sculptures from Auguste Gaul's series The Little Animal Park through the Auktionshaus Paul Graupe in Berlin. A small group of paintings were sent abroad with their sons-who settled in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mandatory Palestine–and friends who were also fleeing the country, but much of their collection remained in Breslau along with their other property and was subjected to continual dispossession. In 1937, the Goldschmidt were forced to abandon their beloved residence and move into smaller accommodations at Kaiser-Willhelm-Strasse 186. They retained many of their belongings when they moved but were forced to sell portions at very low prices, including furniture and their luxury car.

Thea's remembrance card from Yad Vashem. Courtesy of the Goldschmidt family.

In 1938, the racial persecution escalated, becoming more inherently violent and the compliance compulsory– albeit the voluntary compliance to that point had been anything but voluntary in its nature. Fritz was arrested by the Gestapo on the night of Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, but was released the next day, most likely due to his high societal status in Breslau. But his local reputation could no longer protect him and Thea from further persecution. The Nazi authorities were closely involved with gentile members of the art community and shipping agencies in targeting the abundant Jewish art collectors in the city. By this time, Nazi laws required German Jews to register their property with the Reich and further possessions were expropriated from the Goldschmidts through predatory taxation, including gold coins, Thea's large jewelry collection, and a myriad of other personal valuables appraised at five thousand Reichsmark.

Gebhard, Helmut, and Gunter Goldschmidt in the 1960s. Courtesy of the Goldschmidt family.

The children of Gunter Goldschmidt: Hanna, Jona, and Gila. Courtesy of the Goldschmidt family.

From correspondence the couple wrote at the time to family and friends, they expressed fear that they would be forced to move again, and if so, would have to sell the remainder of their art collection. The couple's fears became reality when in 1940 they were forced to move a second time, to an even smaller apartment at Tauenzienplatz 1b, formerly Fritz's office. By that year, Fritz and Thea no longer owned most of their collection and were selling the remaining works, often below fair market prices, to survive. Even through the persistent persecution, the Goldschmidts still held out hope that the situation in Germany would normalize. They visited one of their sons abroad in Mandatory Palestine soon after his emigration but told him they weren't ready to leave their home country. Tragically, Fritz and Thea were sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto in June 1943, before being transferred to Auschwitz in October 1944, where they were murdered. Postcards from Thea to relatives revealed that they could only take with them to the ghetto what they could carry and that the most valuable works had already been sold. Everything else was left behind in the small apartment and was seized by the Nazis.

The Goldschmidt sons survived the war and initiated a financial restitution claim against the German state for their parents' property in the 1950s, drafting a room-by-room inventory of the Villa Kommendeweg, but these efforts yielded no results. In 1961, aware that one of their parents' paintings by Lovis Corinth had sold at Lempertz four years prior, one of the sons approached the auction house for information but was rejected.

The next generation of Goldschmidt heirs, the grandchildren of Fritz and Thea, have continued their parents' efforts, hoping that their advocacy for their grandparents and their collection will yield the return of one of the Goldschmidt works. To date, the Goldschmidt heirs have never received compensation for, nor restitution of, any work lost from the collection as a result of Nazi persecution.

The Goldschmidts' Most Wanted

Tyrolean with Cat by Lovis Corinth was purchased by the Goldschmidts a decade later after its creation in 1923. It was not among the select works taken abroad and would have been either sold under duress during Fritz and Thea's years of persecution or seized after their deportation.

Tyrolean with Cat most likely remained in Germany until 1950, when it appeared in the Graphic Arts Cabinet, Bremen (Graphisches Kabinett). It was sold on November 21, 1957, at the Math. Lempertz auction house in Cologne. For decades the painting remained concealed in a private collection. A sale was attempted at Villa Grisebach Auktionen, Berlin, in November 2004, but the work did not sell. It did sell on November 29, 2006, again at Lempertz, to another private collector in the Rhineland. Its most recent sale was at Auktionshaus im Kinsky in Vienna on June 17, 2008. Given the complexities of privileged information and legalities of restitution, the Goldschmidt heirs and the Viennese auction house have been locked in a dispute ever since, with unacceptable terms presented by Im Kinsky, according to family representative and president of Veritas Fine Art Appraisals & Consulting, Carrie Laverick:

After presenting the family's official claim to Dr. Ploil and after multiple discussions via email, phone, and in person, an outlandish offer disguised as a 'deal' was made by Ploil and Im Kinsky to auction the painting only to have the family receive a portion of the sales price with Im Kinsky keeping a percentage of the profits. The family of course did not accept this offer.

Their [the heirs] goal is to restitute the painting that was stolen from their grandparents, not play into a one-sided deal. In addition, Ploil has claimed that he has made the current owner of the painting aware of the claim against it, however we have our doubts that this was actually done. No proof of correspondence has been provided.

The Foundation wishes to thank the Goldschmidt heirs and their representative, Carrie Laverick, for their contributions to this piece.

Goldschmidt Most Wanted: Corinth