Looting of Poland in World War II
The looting of Polish cultural artifacts and industrial infrastructure during World War II was carried out by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union simultaneously after the invasion of Poland of 1939.
A significant portion of Poland's cultural heritage, estimated at half a million art objects, was plundered by the occupying powers.
Priceless items of art still considered missing or found in other museums include works by Bernardo Bellotto, Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, Józef Brandt, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucas Cranach the Younger, Albrecht Dürer, Anthony van Dyck, Hans Holbein the Younger, Jacob Jordaens, Frans Luycx, Jacek Malczewski, Raphael, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Henryk Siemiradzki, Veit Stoss, Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, Leon Wyczółkowski, Jan Matejko, Henri Gervex, Ludwig Buchhorn, Józef Simmler, Henri-Pierre Danloux, Jan Miense Molenaer and many others.
[1] As part of its efforts to locate and retrieve the missing items of art, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage established a Database of War Losses.
[2] The list, published by the Ministry is submitted to the National Institute of Museology and Collections Protection, to Polish embassies, and the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945 (lootedart.com).
[2][3] At the beginning of the 1939 invasion of Poland, the Polish interwar government attempted to conceal the nation's most valued cultural heritage such as the royal treasures of the Wawel Castle in Kraków.
Göring, having stripped almost all of occupied Poland of its artworks within six months of Germany's invasion, ultimately grew a collection valued at over 50 million Reichsmarks.
[8] In 1940, Hitler received a "gift" from Hans Frank, governor of occupied Poland - a collection, prepared by Mühlmann, of 521 items of the most valuable art.
[18] During the genocidal campaign against Polish Jews, culminating in the operation known as Aktion Reinhard of 1942, general extortion and mass looting became part of the Nazi German economic plan.
For instance, during the liquidation of the Poland's Lwów Historical Museum early in 1940, its holdings were taken to the basement of the Black House (Polish: Czarna Kamienica), away from public scrutiny, and systematically destroyed there.
[9][22][23] Soviet forces engaged in particularly extensive plunder in the former eastern territories of Germany that were later to be transferred to Poland, stripping them of any piece of equipment left behind by the fleeing/deported population.
Blachownia Śląska [pl] lost a large, German-built installation producing synthetic fuel, transported to the USSR in 10,000 train carriages.
Smaller industries were also confiscated in Sosnowiec, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Częstochowa, Zgoda, Chorzów, Siemianowice, Poznań, Bydgoszcz, Grudziądz, Toruń, Inowrocław, Włocławek, Chojnice, Łódź, Dziedzice and Oświęcim.
The result was widespread looting of private homes taking valuables, including food, clothes, shoes, radios, jewellery, utensils, bicycles, and even ceramic toilet bowls.
The unprecedented scale of individualised looting can be estimated from the example of the Russian town of Kursk, which received just 300 personal parcels from soldiers in January 1945 but in May their number had reached 87,000.
[32] In 1991, a new body was formed for that purpose, the Bureau of the Government Representative for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad (Biuro Pełnomocnika Rządu ds.
[34] Among the recovered art is Aleksander Gierymski's painting of the Jewish Woman, found unexpectedly at the Eva Aldag auction house in Buxtehude in November 2010.
