Reunion with looted painting is 'second victory against the Nazis'
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Version 0 of 1. Most of David Toren’s family died in the Holocaust and he, then a teenager, only survived because his father got him to safety via the Kindertransport. Now Toren has spoken of the emotion of being reunited with a painting the Nazis seized more than 75 years ago. “I felt the sense of victory – the second victory against the Nazis,” he told the Guardian. Toren, now 90, was 13 when he last saw Two Riders on a Beach, an early 20th-century masterpiece by the German painter Max Liebermann, at the home of his great-uncle, David Friedmann, a passionate art collector, patron and prominent society figure in Breslau. The painting was returned to Friedmann’s heirs this month. Toren, a retired lawyer, is now blind and family members have decided to sell the painting. It is a painful decision, but “there is no other solution”, he said. “You can’t cut up the painting [to share it].” An artist has created a braille version for him. Two Riders on a Beach will be the first painting to be sold from the secret hoard of Cornelius Gurlitt, the reclusive son of one of Adolf Hitler’s art dealers, Sotheby’s has announced. Painted in 1901, it was among more than 1,200 artworks found in Gurlitt’s dilapidated flat in Munich in 2012. They had been hidden from the world for decades and long ago assumed to have been destroyed in the war. The biggest single artistic find of the postwar era was made after tax authorities began investigating Gurlitt. Customs officials, in a routine search, found him carrying a large amount of cash, which led investigators to the treasure trove acquired by his father, Hildebrand Gurlitt. There were lawyers on both sides … His conveyancing lawyer had to be sprung out of the concentration camp Cornelius died last year, having left his estate to the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, acknowledging that any works with proven links to Jewish owners could be returned to their heirs. But a dispute over that estate has kept the collection in storage in Munich. Friedmann, who made part of his fortune in brick production, bought the Liebermann painting after its first exhibition in 1901. Toren remembers Friedmann as an imposing, cultured man who threw lavish parties attended by friends such as the composer Richard Strauss and Hjalmar Schacht, who was to become Hitler’s minister of economics. It was because of such friendships that Toren’s father, a lawyer and poet, found it so hard to understand the increasing persecution of the Jews in the 1930s. Toren said his father wrote to Schacht asking for his help: “I don’t think he ever got an answer.” Related: Cornelius Gurlitt’s haunted treasure trove of art needs to be seen The Nazis forced Friedmann to sell his possessions to them. In 1938, that included passing his country estate to a high-ranking Nazi official, who had also been a family friend. Toren was there, made to wait outside, in a room where the Liebermann hung, as his great uncle signed the legal papers. He found himself captivated by the painting, staring at it. Lucian Simmons, worldwide director of restitution at Sotheby’s, said: “The Nazis were very keen on having a legal veneer over everything. When Friedmann sold off the estate to the Nazi general, it was like any conveyancing transaction. “There were lawyers on both sides … His conveyancing lawyer had to be sprung out of the concentration camp.” The memory is particularly painful for Toren. It was one of the last times he saw his father, who was arrested by the Gestapo the day after Kristallnacht. On discovering that, as Friedmann’s lawyer, Toren’s father was needed to complete the forced sale, the Nazis escorted him to Friedmann’s home before taking him on to Buchenwald concentration camp. Toren, who now lives in New York, and his brother were the only family members to survive the Holocaust. Their parents were later gassed at Auschwitz. Remembering the horror of Kristallnacht, when Jews and their properties were attacked, he said: “[It] is one of [my] big memories. That was my first victory against the Nazis.” He was saved by his Korean karate teacher warning him to hide away that night because he knew that “terrible things will happen to the Jews”. Sotheby’s will auction the painting in London on 24 June. It is estimated to fetch between £350,000 and £550,000. |