Painting looted by Nazis to return to its Jewish owners

AMSTERDAM — A cathedral in Germany has agreed to return a Nazi-looted painting to the heirs of Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus, an Austrian Jewish couple from whom it was stolen in 1941, according to the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which has spent the last eight years negotiating the restitution.

The painting, “View of a Dutch Square,” attributed to the Golden Age painter Jan van der Heyden, was one of about 160 looted from the Kraus family in 1941, retrieved by the Allies after the war and returned to the Bavarian state. But instead of ensuring its restitution to the family from which it was stolen, the Bavarian government sold it back to the heir of the Nazi official who bought it during the war.

“I’m excited and happy that it’s coming to a resolution, but I’m struck both by the weight of my family and the solemnity of the occasion,” John Graykowski, an American great-grandson of the Krauses, said in a telephone interview from Xanten, Germany, where church officials were expected to turn over the painting Thursday.

The Kraus family fled Austria in March 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, leaving their collection behind. Three years later, the Gestapo seized it and sold it; the van der Heyden painting went to Hitler’s friend and photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.

The painting has belonged to the Roman Catholic Xanten Cathedral, also known as St. Victor’s Cathedral in Xanten, since it purchased the work in 1963, without knowing that it had been looted, church officials said. The painting features St. Victor’s in the background.

“I have certain difficulties to speak of a ‘return’ of the painting,” Hans-Wilhelm Barking, the chairman of the cathedral foundation, known as the Dombauverein Xanten, wrote in a statement. “This term may imply that the Dombauverein may not have acquired the painting lawfully and may not have become the lawful owner. I therefore prefer the term ‘surrender,’ which is done voluntarily in recognition of the Nazi injustice.”