French Senate votes to restore Nazi-pillaged cultural goods of Jewish community

By Nur Asena Erturk

ANKARA (AA) – French Senate voted in favor of restoring the Nazi-pillaged cultural goods of the Jewish community that were despoiled during WWII, according to local media.

The Senate on Tuesday examined and voted in favor of a draft framework law to restore goods, including paintings, cultural artifacts, and books, despoiled between Jan. 30, 1933, and May 8, 1945, the daily Le Figaro said.

The draft law will be brought to the parliament.

According to the French Culture Ministry, approximately 100,000 artworks must have been confiscated during World War II.

And 60,000 of them were found in Germany and sent back to France, and of those 45,000 were returned to their owners or beneficiaries.

However, 2,200 of those pieces were given to national museums, and the rest, around 13,000 pieces, were sold in the early 1950s, and can still be found on the market.