A US court is being called on to deal with a Czech Holocaust restitution claim for the first time, in what has been described as a landmark case.
A Czech descendent of a Jewish family who perished in the Holocaust during WWII has lodged a complaint in a US court against the Czech state for the return of an art collection that was confiscated by the Nazis — and some of which is now in the hands of the Czech National Gallery.
The legal case calling for the return of the Popper art collection was lodged with the district court of Fort Lauderdale, South Florida, on April 19, by Michal Klepetář, the grand-nephew of Richard Popper, an art collector and patron who lived in the second city of Brno. He was deported with his wife and daughter to the Łódź ghetto in 1941 and they are thought to have been killed there in 1942. The case is the first of its kind where a US court has been asked to intervene in a Czech restitution issue.
Klepetář has taken the step of seeking justice from a US court, along with American Jewish restitution campaigner Ed Fagan, because he says his attempts to get justice from the Czech system have been blocked and legal proceedings in the Czech courts run their course. …
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