New online resource debuts for Nazi-era looted art

[October 18, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors and their relatives can now search a free online database of more than 20,000 art objects stolen from Jews by the Nazis in Germany-occupied France and Belgium from 1940 to 1944.

The database is a joint project of the New York-based Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.

The groups say the database is unusual because it's built around Nazi-era records that were digitized and rendered searchable and shows what was seized and from whom.

The Nazis stripped hundreds of thousands of artworks from Jews during World War II in one of the most biggest cultural raids in history.

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Online:

Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume: http://www.errproject.org/jeudepaume/

[Associated Press; By CRISTIAN SALAZAR and RANDY HERSCHAFT]

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