Works of Art or Human Lives?
Which one is the more important of the above two, especially if both are in danger and one might have to be sacrificed to save the other? The film I just saw, "The Rape of Europa" raises the question and returns to it more than once through its length, but never really posits a definitive answer, leaving it instead to the viewer.
The film was kick started by the award winning book of the same name, written by Lynn Nicholas. It looks in detail at the recovery (sometimes) and repatriation of works of art stolen by Hitler and the Nazis over a period of twelve years. The viewer is informed that when Hitler was poised to invade a country, his habit was to prepare a shopping list of art works that were to make their way to his private collection of to the planned art museum he wanted to construct in Linz. If he regarded the people of that country as sufficiently cultured to be allowed to remain in the world of the Third Reich, he generally regarded their art treasures as worth purloining. This was the case, for instance, in both France and Italy. If he regarded the people as "degenerate" such as the Poles, and the Russians, then their art was to be destroyed the same way as the people themselves were. He did, however, find it possible to make exceptions, personally browsing the collections of many Jewish collectors he had consigned to death camps. Presumably, he was looking for creations attributable to Aryan masters, only.
There is heartbreak in the film. How could there not be? In one scene, a German officer uses what looks like it might be a riding crop to forcibly turn the head of an old woman from side to side, perhaps to better display this living example of a degenerate people. In another part of the film, the viewer meets Jacques Altman, a Parisian Jew who survived the war. He tells the camera about his time spent in Paris in forced labour, sorting through the belongings of other Parisian Jews sent to concentration camps. He says he was one of five brothers, and that he had already lost his parents and all his brothers before his own imprisonment began. Altman tells how he came across his family's belongings one day and how he managed to "steal" some family photos. All were lost to him when he was sent to a camp, himself. You can only try to fathom the grief he went through.
There are stories of triumph told in the film, as well. Maria Altmann, Vienna-born heiress of the Bloch-Bauer family spent long years fighting the government of Austria for the return of the Gustav Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis. They included the portrait of her aunt Adele, perhaps the most famous one. Finally, she was awarded the paintings.
The Louvre presents the film's audience with another tale of triumph and one of a little-known heroine, as well. When the museum's imminent fall to the Nazis loomed large, the staff mobilized an evacuation that saw many of the works of art, including the Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, stored in secret in countryside chateaux. While the Nazis conducted their "shopping" and stealing, one museum curator risked life and limb to record the activity. Described in the film as a "mouse" to whom no-one paid much attention, Rose Valland used the carefully guarded secret of her fluency in German to keep track of who took what; from whom it was taken; and to where it was sent. Her list has helped to repatriate many of the stolen pieces, but it has done nothing to aid in the cases of those pieces bought by the German invaders. The film's narrator, Joan Allen, mentions briefly the fact that many Jews who had possession of any collectible piece sold them in exchange for a life, when possible. Of course, fair prices would never have been paid, but the pieces would never have been sold either, except for the dire circumstances in which the owners found themselves. Nearly 2,000 works of art - including sculptures by Rodin and paintings by Picasso - remain in question.
The film introduces the "Monuments Men" or "Venus Fixers" of the U.S. military, given the task of protecting endangered works of art and architecture from bombings, and returning purloined pieces, when possible. General Eisenhower facilitated their work, when possible, by forbidding looting and destruction, as well as forbidding the billeting of troops in culturally significant structures. Although the assumption might be made that these men worked at one of the war's "safe" tasks, they were at the front lines and in danger. Captain Walter Huchthausen and Major Ronald Edmund Balfour, both Monuments Men, were killed while helping to rescue treasures of the western world's culture.
Scenes of the population of Florence holding a victory parade in 1945 when their treasures were returned by the Monuments Men give the audience a chance to feel better about the fate of the western world's threatened artistic heritage, certainly, but given the Holocaust, perhaps the happiest scene of all comes at the end of the film when we see the return of some rimonim to the Torah scrolls they were meant to adorn. Returned to their rightful place by a German man dedicated to returning these bell-festooned scroll toppers, the rimonim occasion a celebration and dance, in which the German participates. Smile all around.
The question posed at the beginning of this entry, however, is still unanswered when the credits roll. One vet of the war narrates his part in the taking of Montecassino, relating the time spent trying to avoid bombing the centuries-old monastery that perched high above the allies' position. He emphasized the strategic importance of the high ground it occupied and makes it clear that his opinion was the monastery had no importance at all to him when he viewed it as part of the choice between his comrades-in-arms and its continued existence as a heritage site. The film's makers are careful to point out that after the decision to bomb the site was taken, it was discovered that the Germans were not using it as a fighting post, after all. They were sheltered all around it, but not actually in it. I wonder if the film makers' taking care to make that point indicates belief that the answer to the above question is that historical works of art are worth the saving, no matter the cost in human life.
I can not agree. If a piece of cultural heritage must be sacrificed to save a life, so be it. I think that no matter how irreplaceable the perceived masterpiece might be; no matter how much of a cultural treasure it is deemed, it can not be worth more than even one human life. Each and every life is a masterpiece in itself; a true work of art worth more than paint or marble, stone or gold could ever be.
The film was kick started by the award winning book of the same name, written by Lynn Nicholas. It looks in detail at the recovery (sometimes) and repatriation of works of art stolen by Hitler and the Nazis over a period of twelve years. The viewer is informed that when Hitler was poised to invade a country, his habit was to prepare a shopping list of art works that were to make their way to his private collection of to the planned art museum he wanted to construct in Linz. If he regarded the people of that country as sufficiently cultured to be allowed to remain in the world of the Third Reich, he generally regarded their art treasures as worth purloining. This was the case, for instance, in both France and Italy. If he regarded the people as "degenerate" such as the Poles, and the Russians, then their art was to be destroyed the same way as the people themselves were. He did, however, find it possible to make exceptions, personally browsing the collections of many Jewish collectors he had consigned to death camps. Presumably, he was looking for creations attributable to Aryan masters, only.
There is heartbreak in the film. How could there not be? In one scene, a German officer uses what looks like it might be a riding crop to forcibly turn the head of an old woman from side to side, perhaps to better display this living example of a degenerate people. In another part of the film, the viewer meets Jacques Altman, a Parisian Jew who survived the war. He tells the camera about his time spent in Paris in forced labour, sorting through the belongings of other Parisian Jews sent to concentration camps. He says he was one of five brothers, and that he had already lost his parents and all his brothers before his own imprisonment began. Altman tells how he came across his family's belongings one day and how he managed to "steal" some family photos. All were lost to him when he was sent to a camp, himself. You can only try to fathom the grief he went through.
There are stories of triumph told in the film, as well. Maria Altmann, Vienna-born heiress of the Bloch-Bauer family spent long years fighting the government of Austria for the return of the Gustav Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis. They included the portrait of her aunt Adele, perhaps the most famous one. Finally, she was awarded the paintings.
The Louvre presents the film's audience with another tale of triumph and one of a little-known heroine, as well. When the museum's imminent fall to the Nazis loomed large, the staff mobilized an evacuation that saw many of the works of art, including the Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa, stored in secret in countryside chateaux. While the Nazis conducted their "shopping" and stealing, one museum curator risked life and limb to record the activity. Described in the film as a "mouse" to whom no-one paid much attention, Rose Valland used the carefully guarded secret of her fluency in German to keep track of who took what; from whom it was taken; and to where it was sent. Her list has helped to repatriate many of the stolen pieces, but it has done nothing to aid in the cases of those pieces bought by the German invaders. The film's narrator, Joan Allen, mentions briefly the fact that many Jews who had possession of any collectible piece sold them in exchange for a life, when possible. Of course, fair prices would never have been paid, but the pieces would never have been sold either, except for the dire circumstances in which the owners found themselves. Nearly 2,000 works of art - including sculptures by Rodin and paintings by Picasso - remain in question.
The film introduces the "Monuments Men" or "Venus Fixers" of the U.S. military, given the task of protecting endangered works of art and architecture from bombings, and returning purloined pieces, when possible. General Eisenhower facilitated their work, when possible, by forbidding looting and destruction, as well as forbidding the billeting of troops in culturally significant structures. Although the assumption might be made that these men worked at one of the war's "safe" tasks, they were at the front lines and in danger. Captain Walter Huchthausen and Major Ronald Edmund Balfour, both Monuments Men, were killed while helping to rescue treasures of the western world's culture.
Scenes of the population of Florence holding a victory parade in 1945 when their treasures were returned by the Monuments Men give the audience a chance to feel better about the fate of the western world's threatened artistic heritage, certainly, but given the Holocaust, perhaps the happiest scene of all comes at the end of the film when we see the return of some rimonim to the Torah scrolls they were meant to adorn. Returned to their rightful place by a German man dedicated to returning these bell-festooned scroll toppers, the rimonim occasion a celebration and dance, in which the German participates. Smile all around.
The question posed at the beginning of this entry, however, is still unanswered when the credits roll. One vet of the war narrates his part in the taking of Montecassino, relating the time spent trying to avoid bombing the centuries-old monastery that perched high above the allies' position. He emphasized the strategic importance of the high ground it occupied and makes it clear that his opinion was the monastery had no importance at all to him when he viewed it as part of the choice between his comrades-in-arms and its continued existence as a heritage site. The film's makers are careful to point out that after the decision to bomb the site was taken, it was discovered that the Germans were not using it as a fighting post, after all. They were sheltered all around it, but not actually in it. I wonder if the film makers' taking care to make that point indicates belief that the answer to the above question is that historical works of art are worth the saving, no matter the cost in human life.
I can not agree. If a piece of cultural heritage must be sacrificed to save a life, so be it. I think that no matter how irreplaceable the perceived masterpiece might be; no matter how much of a cultural treasure it is deemed, it can not be worth more than even one human life. Each and every life is a masterpiece in itself; a true work of art worth more than paint or marble, stone or gold could ever be.
posted by aka.alias @ 3:01 PM 1 Comments 
1 Comments:
The Maria Altmann story was a touching one -- as are the others you touched on ... but this one for tells a deeper story. The Jews who were loyal to their country ... what betrayal by their nation that decided one day to start hating them and take away their citizenship. Gives you a sense of how fragile our belonging to a nation really is. There are examples like this throughout time, and around the world.
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