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Nazi-looted painting must be returned to Jewish art dealer’s heir, Argentina court rules
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2026
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Not to be all "Indiana Jones" and shit. But I feel like the idea of inheritance is really fucking dumb sometimes. Like, obviously it shouldn't be in Argentina (really no one should be). But, can we put this shit in a museum somewhere that is relevant to it's history? Like, reimburse them if you want. But, it's silly to me that the family of the son of the original art DEALER (not the artist) gets a say of what to do with any of this. Take it from Argentina, make Germany reimburse the family, but keep the art for history. Not for some private collection that will probably get sold privately to some Nazi anyway.
Edit: It's just a currently rich family using their already existing wealth to recover an art collection that they want to claim. This belongs in a Holocaust museum. Fuck off. Go sue Germany for a settlement if you want. I'm all for that.
I agree with the concept of Germany-suing for financial settlement, but if the dealer was the owner, it would seem odd to recover any possessions for humanity rather than a legal owner. Would it be OK if there was no nazi thefts to take important works from the owners just because it's an important work?
I think you could make a point that it’d be completely ok to disown the people using important cultural artefacts as investment objects, spiriting them away into some safe or a private collection. Art and historical artefacts should be for everyone and the current trend of it being objects of financial speculation is despicable to begin with.
Thanks. Your reply was better than my own. I'm cranky tonight. It's hard to describe to people that inheritance with ownership are just a means of protecting ruling class control of the possession and sale of art that they did nothing to create. People see its possession not as what it really is, that being capital, but as something like their toothbrush, or a quilt their grandma made.
I liked yours too and we’re on the same page about inheritance I think. But IMO sometimes it’s easier to not attack a whole concept from the start with people that aren’t there yet. Better to outline some outrageous examples everyone can agree with to open the doors, instead of coming right out the gate with the anticapitalist guns blazing so to speak.
An important point for this topic for example is that the artists intentions for the use of their art often are completely opposed to what people end up doing with them. Someone like Keith Haring was very focused on making affordable art for everyone. Now his work is at best behind paywalls in museums, at worst in private hands where no one can see them.
I agree. Though sometimes it's late night and you gotta rant out a frustration and write a comment that is more for your own understanding of the idea than the person that responded to you. Lol.
But I agree. I'm much more "gentle" in person. Ranting about frustration with private property and inheritance with a person that identifies with them through a person experience and idea (toothbrush) is not very helpful in educating someone. Though it does help connect with a random online person that understands already.
I think the idea of inheritance and private property is hard for people to imagine a world without.
We are talking about the child of the child of the child of the original art DEALER that is well off financially to pay millions in legal fees to sue an entire state for a piece of art that they have less connection to than the children of the artist that actually created it.
The value of "ownership" takes priority over the value of "creating". And far above the collective ownership of all of the victims of the Nazis. That is who should be paid back. Not some single rich child of one of the victims.
Along with the fact that the only reason that we are talking about this is because the people trying to get the art back are already extremely wealthy and privileged.
There are plenty of children of children of children of Holocaust victims that never got any reparations. I'm not going to pretend some great justice is being done because some rich person was able to track down art they can use for their own profit.
I don’t disagree, but the concept of ownership is still a legal concept in most countries. Erodin git likely leads to more problems than ignoring it. We’ve moved more and more away from ownership, to renting what we need. That hasn’t been to the benefit of most people. The concept of ownership being eroded more doesn’t help that.
I certainly agree that there is something to be said for wealth redistribution over generations. There are also pieces of art or culture or history that are more important than others.
I think you're missing this context for my comment.
The art dealer may enjoy looking at the art and owning it. But, that is not the primary purpose of the ownership of that property. The art dealer owns art to extract a profit from it through sale.
I agree with you. The inheritance of and ownership of personal property is definitely decreasing. But this is not what I am discussing. I'm referring to the inheritance of private property. Private property inheritance is becoming much more concentrated into the ruling capitalist class.
And these things are connected too. The concentration of private property is becoming so bad that a lot of people don't even own their phone these days. It's private property owned by capital that is renting it to extract more profit than they would from selling it to them. The phone that was once sold as private property to an individual who purchases it as personal property; that phone is now a part of a contract that treats the phone as a rent to be extracted and the private property returned to the capitalist for further private property profit after.
You touched on, without realizing it I think, a reason why many people fall for the propaganda against socialism. They get worried when they hear socialist want to "abolish private property". But our society doesn't make this distinction. It's on purpose. The belief that the ownership of private property is something that the average person has or can obtain. The average person does not own any private property and never will.