The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis
Simon Goodman
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN: 1451697643
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“An extraordinary piece of history...a fresh and lively read” (The Christian Science Monitor)—the passionate, gripping, true story of one man’s single-minded quest to reclaim his family’s art collection, stolen by the Nazis in World War II.
Simon Goodman’s grandparents came from German-Jewish banking dynasties and perished in concentration camps. And that’s almost all he knew about them—his father rarely spoke of their family history or heritage. But when his father passed away, and Simon received his old papers, a story began to emerge.
The Gutmanns, as they were known then, rose from a small Bohemian hamlet to become one of Germany’s most powerful banking families. They also amassed a magnificent, world-class art collection that included works by Degas, Renoir, Botticelli, Guardi, and many, many more. But the Nazi regime snatched from them everything they had worked to build: their remarkable art, their immense wealth, their prominent social standing, and their very lives. Only after his father’s death did Simon begin to piece together the clues about the Gutmanns’ stolen legacy and the Nazi looting machine. With painstaking detective work across two continents, Simon has been able to prove that many works belonged to his family and successfully secure their return.
“Fascinating...splendid and tragic” (The Wall Street Journal), “Goodman’s story is alternately wrenching and inspiring...An emotional tale of unspeakable horrors, family devotion, and art as a symbol of hope” (Kirkus Reviews). It is not only the account of a twenty-year detective hunt for family treasure, but an unforgettable tale of redemption and restoration.
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Jews were next forbidden to travel, except to Amsterdam and the ghetto, which left Fritz and Louise confined to Bosbeek in a form of house arrest. Life descended into genteel shabbiness. Fritz’s old friend Franz Koenigs recalled going to dinner at Bosbeek at the end of April in 1941. The Gutmanns had secured a rare Dutch delicacy, the last of that season’s kievit eggs—which Fritz, luckily, had found on the estate. Just one week later, Koenigs was in Cologne, where, in mysterious circumstances, he
wanted and be ready to leave at 5:00 p.m. He would return with an extra car (for the bags) and take them to The Hague. There Fritz and Louise would board the D train to Berlin, departing at 6:45 p.m. They would have first-class tickets and a sleeping-car compartment. Werner posted an armed soldier at the front door and drove off, leaving Fritz and Louise in an agony of doubt, tempered by hope. It seemed as if this might actually be the beginning of their salvation. But as always there was the
regiment, as part of the British Expeditionary Force, was fighting a valiant rearguard action before evacuating from Dunkirk in the spring of 1940. Tragically, this was the same German offensive that trapped Fritz and Louise in Holland. My father had been eager to fight the Nazis. In January 1941, while on a training mission near the South Coast, he and some of his chums cadged weekend passes into town and checked into a hotel in Portsmouth. That night more than a hundred German bombers attacked
pieces—paintings, sculptures, antiquities—were stolen outright or “purchased” under duress and usually transported back to Germany, not only by top Nazis such as Hitler and Göring but by all levels of Nazi officials and military men. From France alone, thirty complete train convoys packed full with masterworks (approximately 140 wagons with over twelve hundred crates) left Paris for Germany between the end of 1940 and July 1944. As the war neared its end, the bombing of Germany increased and the
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (ICN) in Rijswijk, just outside The Hague. The ICN, as we learned, administered a collection of over one hundred thousand pieces, half of which were in their enormous facility; the rest were scattered throughout various Dutch museums, government ministries, and even foreign embassies. The Gutmann Collectie was similarly dispersed. The pair of Angela Schuszler paintings had to be recalled from the Paushuize in Utrecht. Chicken with Hens by Aelbert Cuyp,