Photo: Tomas Eidsvold | Unsplash
New York museums must now acknowledge artworks that were stolen from Jews by the Nazis, including forced sales of art. Some 600,000 paintings were looted from Jews during World War II. "The looting was not only designed to enrich the Third Reich but also integral to the Holocaust's goal of eliminating all vestiges of Jewish identity and culture," says the new law. Currently, New York state law requires that works created before 1945 which changed ownership in Europe during the Nazi era must be registered in the Art Loss Register. In several high-profile cases, heirs have unsuccessfully sued to obtain artworks from New York museums that they said once belonged to their families. Two other laws were passed, allowing the State Education Department to survey which schools are teaching the required Holocaust history, and requiring publication of a list of banks that waive fees on reparations payments.
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