Wartime Looting
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Recent papers in Wartime Looting
Private restitution of Nazi looted art was until recently an underestimated issue on the agenda of nations and art institutions. The historical and legal context shows clearly that WWII brought the protection of cultural property on the... more
International conventions that criminalize wartime abuse of cultural property and bilateral treaties that target trafficking in antiquities reflect evolving consideration for looted art in foreign policy. Since the poignant plunder of... more
Paper published in the conference publication "Återkopplingar".
What happens to art in time of war? Who should own art, and what is its appropriate context? Should the victorious ever allow the defeated to keep their art? These questions were posed by Cicero in speeches he gave in 70 BCE, when he... more
This paper focuses on the impact of the war and subsequent occupation (2003–2011) on Iraq’s heritage, documenting the most significant and devastating instances of heritage damage and destruction that occurred. Moving forward, this... more
By examining the historically progressive role of cultural property in terrorism and political violence, this paper reveals the evolving significance of art to international security. Over the past two centuries, abuse of antiquities and... more
International conventions that protect cultural property during armed conflict, along with bilateral treaties that target antiquities trafficking, indicate a need for intelligence on foreign cultural patrimony. The 'acquisition' of... more
Reflection on wartime treatment of artworks, historic buildings, and religious monuments since World War I reveals the compounding value of cultural property in foreign affairs. The poignant plunder of artworks during World War II has led... more
Causes for illicit looting and trading and how different legaslatory can affects it
This essay analyzes the long-term effects of looted books through one case: the creation of the Uppsala University library in seventeenth-century Sweden. Without denying the religious controversies of that time, the essay challenges the... more
Materialising the Swedish National Archives: A biography of spoils from Mitau in 1621. The article deals with the meanings and effects of a collection of documents that was taken as spoils of war by the Swedish army in the Livonian town... more
Satellite technologies are increasingly used to track looting in remote and inaccessible archaeological sites and assess damage to heritage. Evidence gathered in our study proves a growing user uptake of these technologies, beyond the... more
In this book chapter I examine case studies of works of art that were offered to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) during and immediately after World War II. Many of the MFA’s postwar acquisitions had been plundered and needed to be... more
The bi-millenary history of the Hebrew Community in Rome is reflected in one of the most ancient libraries in the world. In the 1930s, Isaiah Sonne confirms that the library (over 7000 volumes) was a real treasure. In 2007, Dario... more
The failure to establish a functioning government and put an end to the violence in Somalia over the past 18 years suggests the warring parties do not want to change the status quo and that the international community does not fully... more
Political conflicts, regime change, revolutions and wars make not only people but also their property vulnerable. Plunder and con- fiscation were common ways of dealing with the enemy – either internal or external – in many conflicts,... more
I enjoyed the BBC Radio 4 series ‘The Invention of Germany’, but it got off to a poor start with a seriously misleading portrayal of the 1631 siege of Magdeburg, which formed the main focal point of the first episode (17th October 2011).... more
A few months ago a former British soldier made headlines for trying to sell part of the backside of the Saddam Hussein statue that was famously toppled in 2003. Though Saddam was long gone, the Iraqi government, happy to be rid of him,... more
The essay deals with the history of a bundle of letters looted from the Kamenez-Podol'skij region after the German army had started its invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. An official of the German postal administration in the occupied... more
in «HISTORIA ET IUS», 2014, 3, pp. 1 - 11
The essay discusses one characteristic of colonial archives – how the ruling state plunders/loots the colonized’ archives and treasures and controls them in its colonial archives - erasing them from the public sphere by repressive means,... more
In this review of Adam Raz's Looting of Arab Property during the War of Independence (2020, in Hebrew) Rona Sela critiques the book as dealing with the subject from a Zionist perspective and accepting Ben-Gurion's attitude of reducing... more
The pattern of Israeli seizure and confiscation of Palestinian land in Araqib village, destroyed and rebuilt dozens of times, is a glaring example of the Zionist settler colonial project to dispossess Palestinians of their patrimony.
Political conflicts, regime change, revolutions and wars make not only people but also their property vulnerable. Plunder and confiscation were common ways of dealing with the enemy – either internal or external – in many conflicts,... more
Political conflicts, regime change, revolutions and wars make not only people but also their property vulnerable. Plunder and confiscation were common ways of dealing with the enemy – either internal or external – in many conflicts,... more