The Dispossession and Theft of Jewish Goods

I have been accused before of focusing on the involvement of the Dutch during the Holocaust too much. But I do believe, if you want to be critical of others, you have to look at your own first.

Like in Germany, the mistreatment and eventual murder of Jews in the Netherlands started as a gradual process and then sprung into an accelerated pace in the Netherlands.

During the Second World War, the Nazis thoroughly and systematically deprived the rights and possessions of the Jewish population in the Netherlands, with the cooperation of parts of the Dutch population. Legally, these steps were laid down in the form of regulations, which had the force of law. It is important to note that these regulations went completely against the Dutch constitution and the 1917 National War Regulations discussed earlier. Below is a timeline of the economic disenfranchisement of Dutch Jews.

May 1940: The German occupation of the Netherlands. From 18 May 1940, the highest administrative authority in the Netherlands rested with the Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who could issue regulations.

October 1940: By regulation VO 189/1940, Jewish companies had to register. About 22,000 companies did so. From March 1941, they fell under the management of the German authorities, after which liquidation followed via a second, later regulation (VO 48/1941).

November 1940: Jewish civil servants were dismissed by decree (VO 137/1940).

January 1941: Every person with at least one Jewish grandparent had to register as a Jew with the population register. Historian Lou de Jong called this regulation of 10 January (VO 6/1941), “one of the most fatal regulations of the occupation years.”

August 1941: The first “Liro Regulation” (VO 148/1941) obliged Jews to transfer their bank accounts to Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co. to transfer.

That same month they had to register their real estate and income from it (VO 154/1941). As a result, the registration of 20,000 and 25,000 properties and approximately 5,600 mortgages took place. These fell under the management of the Niederländische Grundstücksverwaltung (NGV), or the Dutch Administration of Real Estate.

July 1942: The transport to extermination camps for Jews in the Netherlands began on a large scale. The government removed their rights at that time. From that moment on, it was open season for robbery and the sale of Jewish properties. The Hague Estate Agent and NSB member, Dirk Hidde de Vries established the General Dutch Property Management (ANBO) for the sale of looted Jewish properties.

The loss of their property rights meant a complete exclusion of Jews from economic and legal life in the Netherlands. This process went step by step through many different, including Dutch, organizations, but we can summarize it in three phases: registration, management and sales. Management, in this case, meant that the former owners no longer had any control over their property or businesses, nor did they receive any income from it. The appointed administrators only had to follow instructions from the occupier. The proceeds from the sale of the stolen Jewish property went to the German management agency Vermögensverwaltungs- und Rentenanstalt (VVRA), instead of to the rightful claimants. With this income, the occupying power paid, among other things, for the construction of the concentration and transport camps in the Netherlands. The managers and war buyers were not only Germans or members of the N.S.B., Dutch people without National Socialist convictions also participated.

Various organizations carried out the robbery of Jewish property and the sale, which was a culmination of the juridical and economic deprivation of Jews. As mentioned above in the timeline, Jewish land ownership was administered by the Niederländische Grundstückverwaltung (hereinafter referred to as NGV) and its private subcontractors. This management included all legal acts “which entail a proper management of Jewish land ownership” and aimed at selling the properties to ‘Aryan’ Dutchmen. By allowing the Dutch population to participate in the robbery of Jewish possessions, the German occupying forces were able to spread the National Socialist ideology. Part of the Dutch population also gained an interest in preventing the pre-war situation from being restored. The NGV appointed so-called Verwalter (private managers) to carry out these activities. In Schiedam, and also Rotterdam and The Hague, among others, these transactions were carried out by the Algemeen Nederlands Beheer Immovable Property. This organization was set up in 1941 specifically for the management of expropriated Jewish homes by the broker Dirk Hidde de Vries from The Hague, who had the power of substitution for the NGV. After the expropriation of Jewish houses, the managers had themselves registered as such in the land register. Homeowners who lived in their own homes then had to pay the managers rent to continue living in their own homes. When the manager sold Jewish properties, the former owners had to vacate their homes immediately, leaving them suddenly homeless. When Jewish owners were deported to extermination camps, their household effects were inventoried, by the Hausraterfassungstelle, after which the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg often transported furniture to Germany to replace furniture destroyed by bombings.

The NGV registered more than 7,000 transactions of expropriated Jewish property in the Verkaufsbücher. The organization and its trustees seem to have had mixed success selling Jewish homes. Historians differ in opinion about how eagerly the expropriated buildings were accepted by the Dutch population. In general, these house sales stagnated after the German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. Robin te Slaa notes that houses were sold with little success in The Hague, while Hinke Piersma and Jeroen Kemperman note that there was a lively trade in Amsterdam around the buildings. Some Dutch municipalities, such as Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam also purchased expropriated Jewish property themselves.

SOURCES

Rapport Joodse Huiseigenaren en Huurders Gemeente Schiedam

https://denhaag.raadsinformatie.nl/document/4702939/1/RIS295836_bijlage_Rapport_Gemeente_Den_Haag_Joodse_eigenaren_onroerend_goed

Max Heiliger—Laundering Money for the Nazis

Max Heiliger did a lot more than just launder money for the Nazis. Stolen banknotes and jewellery along with Holocaust victims’ dental gold, wedding rings, and even scrap gold melted down from spectacles-frames flooded into the Max Heiliger accounts, filling several bank vaults by 1942.

So who was this Max Heiliger? Basically, he was a nobody, and this is meant literally. He was a nobody, Max Heiliger was a fictional name created during the Nazi era under the authority of Reichsbank president Walther Funk in a secret arrangement with the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.

Using the name “Heiliger” was a cynical Nazi joke, the word means Saint, from the word Heilig. The Nazis often used these cynical or rather sick jokes. For example, the one-way path to the gas chamber at the Sobibor extermination camp was called Himmelstrasse, meaning “Heaven Street.”

The valuables, processed through the Max Heiliger accounts, were stolen from Holocaust victims before and after transportation by train to Nazi concentration camps. The items were carefully weighed, evaluated, and inventoried by SS accountants before transfer to the Reichsbank accounts in Berlin. Furniture and artwork left in vacated apartments and houses were collected in a separate operation and auctioned to the German population, after which the generated funds were transferred to the accounts. What the Nazis considered “degenerate art” was often sent to Geneva for auction, although some art was retained by Hitler’s art dealers, including Hildebrand Gurlitt. Stocks, bonds, and shares were transferred to the state in the same way, and companies were purchased for less than their true worth through Aryanization. The potential for corruption of such assets was substantial and an unknown amount of stolen wealth ended up in private pockets, notably with the Gurlitt Collection. Heiliger accounts were also sometimes used to fence valuables at Berlin’s municipal pawn shops.

All of this was done in secrecy, clearly, that is an indication that the Nazis knew what they were doing was criminal.

sources

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Max_Heiliger

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/max-heiliger-302091

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Stealing from Dutch Jewish Citizens

The Holocaust wasn’t only the mass murder of Jews and others, it was preceded by other crimes. Although many people would not have perceived them as crimes, because they were legalised by Nazi laws.

The rapacity of the Nazis was expressed in a large number of measures, orders and ordinances (VO) with the force of law. Several ordinances were explicitly intended for Jews and pertained to all forms of property.

The most important regulations for Jews were the Liro Regulations of 1941 and 1942. The first Liro Regulation (VO 148/41) was issued on 8 August 1941. The ordinance stipulated, among other things, that Jews had to transfer their cash assets and securities to an account to be opened at the Liro bank in the Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam. On paper, the Liro bank was a branch of the renowned bank Lippmann, Rosenthal and Co. on the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat in Amsterdam. In practice, the Liro bank was a robbery bank that served as a depository and sales office for looted Jewish property. Wealth less than 10,000 guilders and incomes less than 3000 guilders per year were exempt. An amount of 1000 guilders per month was freely disposable per person. In theory, the Jews could dispose of their assets, but in practice regulations and high commissions resulted in them losing their assets.

The Lippmann Rosenthal bank was a well-known and originally Jewish bank. It was a reliable and solid company. When the war broke out, the company had been in existence for 81 years and the Nazis made good use of the bank’s good reputation. The idea to use this company as a robbery bank came about because the Nazis thought that the Jews would take their valuables more quickly to a well-known Jewish bank. In addition, in this way, the stolen shares could be offered for sale on the stock market without any problems.

Jews who ended up in Camp Westerbork had to hand over their last money (the 250 guilders they were allowed to keep) to a local branch of the bank. To complete the expropriation, Lippmann and Rosenthal had opened a branch in Camp Westerbork, where everything that people had tried to hide on the body, including expensive coats and shoes, was forcibly taken away.

The money from the Liro bank was used, among other things, for the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands. The bank made 11 million guilders available for the expansion and operation of transit camp Westerbork; 26 million for the construction and operation of the Vught. concentration camp.

The staff of the company Lippmann, Rosenthal and Co in their residential barracks in Westerbork.

The number of staff at the Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co Sarphatistraat bank gives some idea of ​​the scale at which the robbery was carried out. At the time of the 1st LiRo Regulation, the bank had 268 employees, 160 of whom worked in the banking section. The staff doubled in 1942 (510) and fell back to 299 in 1943. The original core of the staff came from the real bank on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. At the end of 1941, this staff was convened and informed by director Fuld that some of them would be transferred to the bank on Sarphati Street. Fuld couldn’t give details at the time because he didn’t know them either. What was certain was that the banking business would be handled on Sarphati Street. Fuld advised the staff to comply with this order because the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat had already been placed under German authority and therefore its continued existence was not certain. The staff who would go to Sarphati Street would at least be sure of their jobs. On August 1, 1941, 27 employees moved from Nieuwe Spiegelstraat to Sarphatistraat.

Dilemmas are often encountered during World War II. People made choices and ended up on the right or wrong side of a dividing line. A line which was often blurred. An example of this was the director of human resources, Kurt Victor Karl Mulisch. He was appointed by the Nazis and collaborated with them. He was divorced from his Jewish wife Alice Schwarz in 1936 and his work at the Lirobank saved her life and that of his son, the writer Harry Mulisch. Alice’s parents and grandparents were murdered in the concentration camps. Kurt Mulisch was convicted of collaboration after the war and was jailed for three years in the Lloyd Hotel, which was used as a detention centre.

It wasn’t only money but art was also taken. In 2015, the provenance investigation of the Royal Collections] revealed that the painting The Hague Forest with a view of Huis ten Bosch Palace by Joris van der Haagen ended up with the Dutch Royal House via the Liro in 1960. Queen Juliana then bought it from an art dealer. She would not have known about the robbery. After the painting’s history became clear, the Royal House contacted the heirs of the original Jewish owner, a pre-war art collector, to return the painting.

sources

http://www.oorlogsgetroffenen.nl/thema/rechtsherstel/01_Roof_ten_tijde_van_de_bezetting

https://www.niod.nl/en/collections/image-bank-ww2

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/Registratie%20van%20Joodse%20bezittingen%20bij%20Lippmann%20Rosenthal%20en%20co.

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Profiting from the Holocaust.

puls

In any war or crisis there are companies that make a profit, To some people this may sound disgusting but unfortunately it is a fact.

Abraham Puls owned a removal company in Amsterdam. He had been a member of of the NSB , the Dutch Nazis, since 1934. His company was responsible for the ransacking of the homes of Jewish families in Amsterdam. In fact it is estimated that 29 000 homes of Jewish citizens were cleaned out by  A. Puls’s company.

A few days after the raids on Jewish homes, truck’s from the Puls company would show up and empty the homes. The goods would then be handed over to the Nazis to Einsatzstab Rosenberg,the Nazi organization assigned to appropriating cultural property during World War II. It was led by  Alfred Rosenberg.

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The plundering of the Jewish home soon became known as “Pulsen” named after Puls.

One of Puls’s trucks also showed up at the annex where Anne Frank had been hiding, after they had been arrested on August 4,1944.

There were reports that some Amsterdam citizens tried to recover prpoerties of their Jewish neighbours,, before Puls would show up, the aim was to return the properties to their Jewish friends but most of the Jews who survived never saw anything belonging to them ever again.

It does sicken me to the corps to know there were companies like that without any scruples or moral compass stealing from fellow citizens and handing it to the enemy, in order to make a profit.

Abraham Puls was sentenced to death on June 4,1947 but his sentence was changed on February 4,1949 to a life sentence . He was released on May 25,1959.

puls a

a puls

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Sources

Abraham Puls; van verhuizer tot rovershoofdman

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/detail/4dcd3d4e-025a-11e7-904b-d89d6717b464/media/cbee5313-fe4b-adad-3a8e-60523adda2f8?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=joden&rows=1&page=345

 

 

The Suitcase

suitcase

A suitcase has a significant meaning , it indicates a change, often temporary and sometimes for an extended time, but no one ever expects the symbol of the end of a life.

Many songs have the word suitcase in their lyrics and it is often in a sad context like in the Beatles son Lady Madonna the line says “Friday night arrives without a suitcase” indicating yet another weekend has come still trying to make ends meet, without getting a break.

But a suitcase can also bring excitement for there is an imminent journey, heading to perhaps exotic places. A break from the daily grind, time to refresh yourself.Or it can signify a new start beginning.

suitcase 2

The Nazi’s had one plan for the Jews and one plan only they referred to it as ‘die Endlösung” or “Final Solution”, the eradication of all Jews.But just killing them wasn’t good enough they also had to be humiliated. They were also given false hope. They were told they were going to be resettled to the east, where they would have a ‘new beginning’.

All they could take though was one suitcase, they were instructed to mark their suitcases for later identification..

I have thought about this , what would I take if I was told I could take only 1 suitcase?. I would pack some clothes but above everything else I would pack things which were dear to me, photographs, keepsakes of family members,heirlooms and in my case also music.

I am sure that most people would pack similar things.Many Jews also believed they would return to their homes after the nightmare which was World War 2 was over, they didn’t know they would end up in an even worse nightmare . the holocaust, and they would never see their belongings or loved ones again for they were murdered often in the most brutal way possible. And even for those who survived their belongings would have been spread all over the world, the Nazis made sure of that.

They had special units who were tasked and specialized in stealing all belongings of the Jews and emptying the homes of Jews. Units like the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce.

seal 2

The stolen art would end up in places like Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris, which was used by the likes of Hermann Göring as an art Supermarket where he could go in and take whatever he fancied, without paying anything for it. He didn’t even mind taking the so called Degenerate art.

Jeu

His henchman ,the art dealer Bruno Lohse, would ensure to get a good price for the stolen goods making himself and Göring wealthy men. Unlike Göring who committed suicide before he could be sentenced, Lohse would live a long and comfortable life, he died in 2007 aged 95. A few weeks after his death in May 2007, the seizure of a secret Zurich bank vault registered to Schönart Anstalt ( which had been under Lohse’s control since 1978) turned up a valuable Camille Pissarro painting stolen by the Gestapo from the Fischer family in 1938 when they fled the Nazis and left Vienna, as well as paintings of uncertain provenance by Monet and Renoir.

pisarro

Still to this day stolen jewelry,art and furniture is showing up and sold on antique markets all over Germany and other European countries.

Even the possibility to pass family belongings to future generations was denied to those who were murdered in the concentration camps and the death camps, often all that remains to remind us that they even existed is a suitcase with a name written on it.

Leon

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In the end Hitler and his mates were pathetic hypocrites.

loot 1

One of the things I can’t comprehend is the fact that no one appeared to be seeing through the lies and hypocrisy of the Nazi regime.

They saw they Jews as vermin and filth. And everything Jewish was forbidden, Jewish books were burned, Jewish music was banned. Basically in the eyes of Hitler and his cronies the Jews were a contaminated and tainted race.

Here is the thing if I find something tainted and contaminated I want nothing to do with it, and want to stay as far away from it and everything it came in contact with.

That is also the message the Nazi spread. However they were not afraid the steal art and valuables belonging to Jews. They even would go as far as taking the gold teeth or gold dental caps of those they had murdered in the gas chambers, to remelt the gold and use it again.

dental caps

They had an organisation dedicated to steeling art and valuables. The ‘Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg’ or Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce, were tasked to to confiscate:

  • precious manuscripts and books from national libraries and archives;
  • important artifacts of ecclesiastical authorities and Masonic lodges;
  • all valuable cultural property belonging to Jews.ERR_Seal

They must have been one of the busiest Nazi task force  by their own estimates until 17 October 1944, they transitioned, 1,418,000 railway wagons containing books and works of art as well as 427,000 tonnes by ship.Neuschwanstein Castle was the ERR’s principal storage facility, but they also used salt mines and other places.

castle

Some of the art was only found decades after the war and some was never found. Below are and valuables  just some impressions of the are recovered by the allied troops. The first picture is a famous picture and although it is not graphic it is nonetheless harrowing for it is a picture of gold rings, of victims of concentration camps.

Rings

Loot 2

loot 3

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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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The effects of Operation Market Garden are still being felt today.

Garden

Operation Market Garden started on September 17 1944. It was supposed to end the war in the Netherlands.But the operation failed, as a result the war was prolonged for several months,compounded with one of the severest winters on record it resulted in a famine for the northern provinces.

POW

But there was more,as a form of reprisal the Germans started stealing everything valuable they could find. although Market Garden failed the Germans knew the war was coming to an end and they would be on the losing side.

Dr J.H. Smidt van Gelder, the director of the children’s hospital in Arnhem, stored 6 works of art in a bank vault for safekeeping during the Second World War.

Dr

One of the pieces was a painting called The Oyster Meal by Jacob Ochtervelt The paintings were looted in January 1945, when the Nazis plundered the town.Although the instructions were given not to loot the banks a German officer called Temmler paid no attention to those instructions.

Even Himmler had warned about Temmler, he said he would bring disrespect to the Nazi party, killing millions was okay, but stealing art was disrespectful.

The painting then made a bit of a mysterious journey. In 1971 was acquired by the property  Harold Samuel,  it had  painting reappeared on the Swiss art market ,a few decades after the war, where Harold Samuel bought it

Harold Samuel  bequeathed the painting to the City of London Corporation in 1987, on condition that they be shown permanently in Mansion House.

The Commission for Looted Art in Europe uncovered the history of the painting and discovered the rightful owners. Samuel’s daughters agreed to waive the condition so that The Oyster Meal could be returned to Charlotte Bischoff van Heemskerck, the daughter of Dr van Gelder,she is now aged 97.

It was returned to her in November 2017.

The painting went  on auction at Sotheby’s in July 2018, and was sold for estimated value 1.6 Million Pounds Sterling.

oyster meal

 

 

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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you. To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.

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Sources

BBC

Sotheby’s

Nazi Thievery

831

There are so many analysis done about the Nazis and their psyche etc. But if you strip it down to basics all they were was a bunch of vile criminals with a warped ideology and sense of self importance, led by a delusional failed artist.

Even at the end they still worshiped this little man who actually wasn’t even born in Germany.

With a torn picture of his führer beside his clenched fist, a dead general of the Volkssturm lies on the floor of city hall, Leipzig, Germany. He committed suicide rather than face U.S. Army troops who captured the city on April 19. 1945.

ww2-187

Aside from being thugs and murderers they were also thieves. Unfortunately a lot of their stolen goods was never recovered, but below are pictures of stolen goods which the Nazis weren’t able to keep hidden.

Manet s Wintergarden A painting by the french impressionist Edouard Manet, titled Wintergarden , discovered in the vault at Merkers

111-SC-203453-5-xl

Generals Eisenhower and Bradley General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, and General Omar N. Bradley, CG, 12th Army Group, examine a suitcase of silverware, part of German loot stored in a salt mine at Merkers.

111-SC-204515-xl

Looted Art Treasures General Dwight D Eisenhower, Supreme Allied commander, inspects art treasures looted by the Germans and stored away in the Merkers salt mine. Behind GEN Eisenhower are General Omar N. Bradley (left), CG of the 12th Army Group, and (right) LT Gen George S. Patton, Jr

111-SC-204516-xl

Troops find loot hidden in church German loot stored in church at Ellingen, Germany found by troops of the U.S. Third Army

RG-111-SC-204899.tif

Durer Engraving M. SGT Harold Maus of Scranton, PA is pictured with the Durer engraving, found among other art treasures at Merker

Durer Collection 111-SC-374661

Rembrant Painting An unknown Rembrant recovered safe in Munich

ERR Rembrandt 111-SC-374664

The Graces in the Gardens of the Hesperides A Rubens painting The Graces in the Gardens of the Hesperides taken by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg

ERR Looted painting 111-SC-374665

Saphor Torahs Chaplain Samuel Blinder examines one of the hundreds of Saphor Torahs (sacred scrolls) part of a cache of Hebrew and Jewish books that were stolen and collected from every occupied country in Europe.

Saphor Torahs 111-SC-209154

 

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Kühne & Nagel moving Jewish possessions for the Nazi’s

kuehne-nagel-in-greenford

The world’s leading transport and logistics company Kühne + Nagel is portrayed in a new study as the removal firm of choice for the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Under the code name “Furniture Action” or also “M-Action” (abbreviation for “Möbel-Aktion”), the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” looted approximately 70,000 homes since early 1942 of French, Belgian, and Dutch Jews who had either fled or had been deported. The objects of art from these homes were inventoried separately,

Alfred Rosenbergphotographed, and transported to Germany. Alfred Rosenberg, who also became “Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories” as of July 1941, wanted to furnish German administrative offices in the East with the confiscated furniture and other items. In fact, bombed-out families in Germany mainly profited from the looted furniture.In Paris alone, the “Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg” combed through 38,000 homes. A Parisian department store served as an interim storage space before the looted furniture was transported to Germany.

K+N played a key role in the so-called ‘M Action’ – plundering the homes of western Jews who had been deported.

Furniture, clothing and possessions were stored in vast warehouses and either sold at knock-down prices or distributed to Germans who lost everything in Allied bombing raids.

31D193A500000578-3475131-image-a-32_1457024765449

The first cargo ship from Amsterdam arrived in December 1942 in Bremen. On board were 220 armchairs, 105 beds, 363 tables, 598 chairs, 126 wall units, 35 sofas, 307 boxes containing glassware, 110 mirrors, 158 lamps, 32 watches, a gramophone and two baby strollers.

That cargo ship full of goods stolen from Jews who were sent off to concentration camps was chartered by K+N.

“This is a form of corpse robbing,” said Frank Bajohr of the Munich Centre for Holocaust studies.

“The genocide of the Nazis was a bureaucratically organized process of individuals, institutions and companies. And Kühne + Nagel was involved in this process. I see the company in the relative proximity to mass murder.” he added

He  also added that although no company representative stood at the edge of death pits or in extermination camps, the company bears corporate responsibility for its role in the Holocaust.

For its part, the company said: ‘Kühne + Nagel is aware of the shameful incidents during the period of the Third Reich and regrets very much the fact that it has exercised its activities in part on behalf of the Nazi regime.’

Historian Jaromír Balcar, who carried out the research with Beerman, said many other companies in Nazi German acted as accomplices in the robbery of the doomed Jews.

Furniture.jpg.CROP.original-original