OPINION:
In 1944, Hungarian officials catalogued in chilling detail the theft of Jewish cultural property. Torah scrolls, coins, scientific instruments, children’s toys, family photographs and entire libraries were seized and redistributed to state institutions. Newly digitized records show that the beneficiaries were not shadowy dealers, but some of Europe’s most celebrated cultural landmarks — many of them today UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
One of these, Benedictine monastery Pannonhalma Abbey, was used to store looted Jewish property. The Hungarian National Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, pillars of national identity, were listed as recipients of stolen works.
This was not limited to present-day Hungary. Records also implicate museums in Transylvania and in Uzhhorod, now part of Ukraine, where local authorities inventoried Jewish-owned manuscripts and artworks under state control. After the war, many of these collections were absorbed into national holdings. To this day, they remain hidden or mislabeled — sometimes under the false guise of “unknown provenance.”
And yet, UNESCO continues to celebrate these sites without requiring accountability. Hungary spends millions on new art acquisitions while leaving looted Jewish collections unreturned. Ukraine, rightly a recipient of Western solidarity against Russian aggression, has not offered guarantees of transparency regarding Holocaust-era holdings in its museums.
This is where American policy matters. The U.S. recently announced it will withdraw from UNESCO again by 2026. Before even considering rejoining — or continuing vast cultural and reconstruction aid to Ukraine and Hungary — Congress must set clear conditions: Open the archives, publish inventories and begin restitution.
Otherwise, American taxpayers risk underwriting institutions that profited from genocide and still deny their role in it. Survivors like Clara Garbon-Radnoti, who uncovered these records in Detroit after a lifetime of searching, are nearly 100 years old. Time is running out.
The Holocaust was not only a genocide of people, but a systematic looting of culture. UNESCO sites and national museums implicated in that crime must come clean before they can be treated as guardians of world heritage. And American aid should not flow freely until they do.
JONATHAN H. SCHWARTZ
Co-founder, Holocaust Art Recovery Initiative
Detroit, Michigan
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