And today we look forward to exploring a relatively little known aspect of the olmsteds. They are Critical Role in the creation of Americas National parks. This simple film is part of olmstead 200, the national and local celebration throughout 2022 of the bicentennial of the birth of frederick law, olmstead, visionary reformer and founder of the profession of Landscape Architecture, the National Association for Olmstead Parks is pleased to sponsor this program and honored to be the managing partner of the bicentennial. Working with nine other Stellar National partners, we invite everyone to join us. We have a national website. Olmstead 200. Borg. And a National Calendar of events. We have a monthly newsletter and a lively blog. We have also released a special online exhibit, frederick law olmstead landscapes for the public good in partnership with the oak Spring Garden foundation. You can see some of the extraordinary panels today here in this room. This program is just one of hundreds
Specifically the art museum in berlin which is one of the areas things to go through in the world room by room. There is no provenance attached to any of those works of art. It is just artists, title, thats it. You dont know if it came from prussian state. You dont know which state or municipal gallery it came from. You dont know anything then thats the principle artist. Museum of germany. It is very very weird. Comments . Let me just contrast that with france. France had this socalled Art Collection which was essentially jewish art that they made minimal efforts to locate the owners but to their credit much more recently and after the Washington Trust what they did with their art is face and its and in fact it was the question whether the Jewish Community should claim that art and have a museum of their own and they said no it belongs to the french state but what we want and what we got was some history of what happened. It may save from an unknown jewish family that at least someone
In 1997 and 1998, he oversaw the production of two government report about Operation Safe haven and these reports were quickly produced ae not well received in some places. So, ambassador, can you tell us what prompted the Clinton Administration to want to have these reports produced, and what was the outcome of these reports . Well, first, robert has dope an enormous has done an enormous service through his book. But i want to try to put it in an even broader context, and that is its a great tribute not only to the Monuments Men, but to the United States army and the United States of america. Contrast this enormous effort to save Cultural Property, to get it returned to its rightful owners with the action of the soviet union coming from the east to berlin. Ask they were intent on doing just the opposite, stripping germany, stripping its museums of everything that they could that was movable, taking it back to russia as war Company Sauce for their enormous compensation for their enormo
Romans and the insignia that we see in rome and the mona lisa in the loop taken on one of napoleons ventures. What established it was a sufficiency and organization. With respect to artwork, it is estimated that 600,000 pieces of art were stolen and 8000 of which are personally selected by adolf hitler for a museum that he planned after the war in his hometown. But artwork was only a part of it. So for example homes and businesses, jewelry, insurance policies and Bank Accounts. Let me just mention these and we will come back to these a little bit later it will be found for an article in the wall street journal is a front page article and it said that there were doormen swifts Bank Accounts that had been set up during a war primarily by jews trying to show their money in the safest thing system in europe by the on lot of the third reich. And that after the war those who survived and if they didnt, their families who tried to recoup those Bank Accounts were told that they couldnt be foun
Most families, many have kids. And they used to do big jobs with big resource i didnt find it intimidating. And were pretty clever and resourceful i and trying to fige how to do things. While the army didnt help them, they didnt pay much attention to them either. To the extent they could come up with solutions, are pretty effective. At the beginning for the first five months the operation felt on its face over and over and over again to the point that general marshall wrote his protege, general eisenhower, in october of 1943 and said, you need to be very careful because people here are reading horrible newspaper accounts of damage in italy, by us, by the allies. And perceived proceed cautiously. General eisenhower didnt leave any special orders were necessary. He thought these men and women are part of a Civil Affairs division, and they have a job to do, military structure will work and people will Pay Attention to them. Time and time again it was a working. The monuments officers woul