Looted!: The Nazi Art Plunder of Jewish Families in France

Chronicles four French Jewish families’ art, businesses, and survival during Nazi Occupation of France.

Looted! Is a history of the lives and art collections of four French Jewish families, whose art was looted, and whose businesses were confiscated during the Nazi Occupation of France (1940-44). The story is of their lives, their businesses and art collections, and the journeys of their paintings during wartime and beyond.

The four Protagonist families all made an important cultural and industrial contribution to France. The Bader/Heilbronn/Meyer family were founders of the French department store, Galeries Lafayette. Their entire art collections were looted by the German ERR and processed in Paris in copybook fashion; both Heilbronn and Meyer were significant members of the French wartime Resistance. Pierre Wertheimer founded Parfums Chanel, and he too had to flee from the occupier; a ‘friend’ offered to help save his paintings from plunder but betrayed him. Pierre and Denise Lévy of Troyes were founders of one of the largest Textile businesses in France, and post-war they donated their art collection to the French nation. They managed to seek refuge in the unoccupied south and were fortunate to hide their art from the German occupier. Georges Lévy (Lurcy), an aviation industrialist and banker, made his fortune in France and also invested heavily in art. He sought refuge in the US during the Occupation, successfully smuggling the bulk of his art out of France to the US via Portugal. After his death Lurcy’s art collection was sold as part of what was termed the ‘Greatest Auction’; to this day the proceeds fund continuing educational exchange between France and US . Each story of imagination, resilience and determination, shows a different facet of the Jewish French art collector experience during the Dark Years of Occupation.