Museum wins title to ancient gold tablet
Holocaust survivor’s estate loses court fight
New York’s highest court concluded Thursday that an ancient gold tablet must be returned to the German museum that lost it in the Second World War, rejecting any claims to the “spoils of war.”
The Court of Appeals unanimously agreed that Riven Flamenbaum’s estate is not entitled to the 3,000-yearold Assyrian relic, a 9.5-gram tablet nearly the size of a credit card.
“We decline to adopt any doctrine that would establish good title based upon the looting and removal of cultural objects during wartime by a conquering military force,” the court said in a memorandum.
“The ‘spoils of war’ theory proffered by the estate — that the Russian government, when it invaded Germany, gained title to the museum’s property as a spoil of war, and then transferred that title to the decedent — is rejected.”
The tablet, inscribed with an exhortation to honour King TukultiNinurta I, was excavated a century ago by German archeologists from the Ishtar Temple in what’s now northern Iraq. It went on display in 1934 and disappeared after the start of the war.
Flamenbaum, an Auschwitz survivor, brought the tablet to the United States when he settled in New York. Family lore says he got it by trading cigarettes to a Russian soldier.
The New York court also rejected the argument the Vorderasiatisches Museum, part of the renowned Pergamon Museum, waited too long — more than 60 years — before trying to reclaim it.
“New York has really affirmed its moral leadership in protecting true property owners,” said museum attorney Raymond Dowd.
The ruling should ensure the safe return of the tablet, Dowd said. The museum has many other pieces still missing since the war, he said.
Attorney Steven Schlesinger said the family was disappointed and questioned whether the court refused to uphold “title by right of conquest” because it would open the door for those who obtained art looted by Germans during the Holocaust.