Historian says the removal of Nazi-era art to Switzerland makes restitution unlikely

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: 

The Museum of Fine Arts Bern in Switzerland will accept art collected by a Nazi-era dealer. The institution was named as the sole heir to the collection. The president of the board of trustees of the museum called the decision anything but easy. For more on this, we're going to turn to Jonathan Petropoulos. He's author of the book "Artists Under Hitler: Collaboration And Survival In Nazi Germany." Welcome to the program....

CORNISH: As we mentioned, the head of the board of trustees of the museum calling the decision anything but easy to accept the art. But how is this being viewed? I mean, in this day and age, what's the view of people accepting art from this kind of collector?

PETROPOULOS: Well, it's very controversial, of course. And one of the reasons it's controversial is that the process of investigating the provenance - the history of these artworks - is not yet completed. Thus far, among the 1,300 pictures, we only know that three of them were looted. That's not many of the pictures, and we know that many more of them were looted. And so there's a sense that this bequest to the Bern museum has preempted the process of research and restitution. And we have to hope that the Bern museum officials will continue to allow research and restitution work to continue.

CORNISH: But is that being naive or at worst kind of willfully ignorant? I mean, what obligation does the museum have to find the art's original owners?

PETROPOULOS: You know, historically, when objects go to Switzerland, to Swiss institutions, to Swiss art dealers, the likelihood of restitution is not very high. The Swiss legal system really favors the person holding the artwork. And it's very very difficult for claimants to have success in Switzerland. And for generations, Switzerland has been the place to launder stolen assets, whether it's legally exported antiquities or Nazi-looted art. And so for these works - for, you know, this thousand works to be going to Switzerland is a real cause of concern.