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 didn't, their families who tried to recoup those bank accounts were told that they couldn't be found. in fact what happened was the accounts were drawn down month after month by charges over 50 years and taken into the profits of the bank. so i got permission from the state department to go to switzerland. i gave them a copy of this wall street journal article and i said, is this true? and i said yes, it is to an extent we have had this and we have found that there are 732 dormant bank accounts what should've been returned and were not. so if we put that up to the days values, that'll be $32 million they got major account information there were 54,000 possible accounts and 21,000 certain accounts and a somewhat was reached $1.25 billion in respect to insurance, companies like this and many others do the following. there were insurance policies on the lives of individuals and what happened after the war is the families of those who were killed, their life insurance policies try to recruit and they were told that the policies have lost because the premiums were not paid while people were poor in auschwitz and so this is something that was part of the insurance claims under the former secretary of state in a consensual way after we got everyone together red so the dimensions of this were like peeling back the layers of an onion bread and one thing led to another. slave labor ended up getting almost a billion dollars and this includes german private companies and for slavery. the majority of that were from non-jewish laborers and it ended up in a million and a half people are compensation as a result of that. so was an extensive effort this was a piece but only a piece. >> thank you. >> speaking about art and going back before entering world war ii, can you tell us what the poppies chuck and what do they do with what they took me back. >> it's interesting that we use the term moxy looting. it gives you a wanton act that people break into this and what we are talking about was much more systemic and beer? and it was from the leadership down and it was targeting certain categories of individuals and countries and it was enacted by various bureaucratic arms of the not the regime and they vary from country to country and it was much more for the taxation offices when they were lost half they had to pay certain taxes it is those working in poland and holland and they were working with the banks that were taking over jewish assets and i think the most well-known organization and that is one that is originally to be confiscated as something that do not these were trying to subdue. it was turned into confiscating this and you can use the term to try to keep in your mind that it is really a bureaucratic effort from the top down. as we all knew that hitler had planned to have the greatest examine the role because he was going to on all of europe. another knotty party leaders were collecting because they thought that it showed to be part of this as well. but like many regimes, the nazis really used it to their advantage. >> debate so are to support the war effort. >> as it was to support the war effort, but it was an interesting thing where they would see the currency. so is used particularly in this fashion. to having an extensive knowledge of the nazi that's the goal art and other properties, in january of 1943 the allies that issued the london declaration declared their intentions to stop nazis from looting and also warning that they deserve the right to not recognize sales property made under duress. at the same time they became increasingly concerned about the damage and the destruction of cultural property. this concern manifested all in a twofold manner. first was the protection of artistic and historic monuments in war times. for short it is called the roberts commission because it was part of this was in the military establishment to deal with cultural property. so robert, can you tell us about the roberts commission and the creation of "the monuments men"? >> yes. >> it is actually a little bit morning because we have some very long name that you have heard. as well as some acronyms. but essentially it really began 34 years earlier. there's a man named george stout the pioneer and the conservation of works of art and we work at the museum at harvard and he had the vision in between the wars and in the ad then that were causing fires and a conviction due to correspondence that he had with friends that worked in german museums and many of them are having to flee germany and go to england to try to get away from the bad times they foresaw. and he was convinced that there is going to be second world war. so matching that with the event he was observing in spain, he saw disaster on the horizon that the united states might become engaged in this war in the process, destroying so much of western civilization that it would be a permanent stain on the american military in the united states area so even before the japanese sneak attack in 1941, he was preparing these templates during and before we were engaged in a war. and following december 7, very much like following september 11 of 2001, there would be an invasion or bombing of the east coast by the japanese and american museum director was asked to convene about the third week in december to discuss initially the protection of the works of art at our main museums including the national gallery of art which largely evacuated some of this in nashville, north carolina. as happened, it became clear quickly that what had happened is all that would happen in the short-term in focus shifted as to how to protect things in this country and how do we help with mankind's greatest achievement. so they propose this concept of cultural preservation officers. one charged with saving rather than destroying. and they had envisioned a more elaborate setup of secretaries and vehicles by the time this unfolded and he was very suspicious of museum directors and he was convinced that by the time they got a hold of these ideas they would muck it up so much that it wouldn't end up going anywhere. so within the next year or so he kind of gave up on the idea which in the military was the camouflaging of aircraft. but his great supporter was paul sacks introducing this in the united states known as the museums studies course and it was a farm club for museum directors, curators and the cultural country that we know today. there were some 20 babies that became monuments officers. for those of you who are old enough to see that mission impossible tv series, peter graves would sit down and flipped through his dossier of experts to decide which ones he wanted to have to deal with the challenges of the mission. he on this working for the roberts commission. starting with all the students who graduated since 1920. there were some 20 students there were architects, linguists, most had been educated in europe. and the key factor was who was already in the military because they quickly realized it was going to be much easier to transfer someone in the military than it was to get someone in the wasn't already enough. so this is where this idea comes from. late 1942, the idea comes from a lot of different groups, people at the fray. a lot of those in the roberts commission. but it is the idea of george stout that is largely represented in the represents in late 1942 and in april of 1943. he says pretty simply makes a lot of sense to me, that idea in their often running getting the formalities that up with election of officers don't really began until the summer of 1943, and of course the invasion of sicily at our to have it at this stage. >> that is the interesting exhalation rather than the complicated version. >> it's interesting that this was called monuments and archives. many felt like third class citizens. compared to the fine arts and in any event. besides establishing these monuments men and the roberts commission, part and parcel of this program was intelligence gathering and you have to know what is actually gathering in europe and much of this was accomplished by american diplomats and service operatives in spain and portugal as well as government in exile in london. also gathering intelligence about what the non-jews were doing in terms of alluding cultural properties were individuals like this. played by kate blanchet in the movie and robert, can you tell us a little bit about her enact. >> by my way of thinking she was one of the great heroines of world war ii. for all of you that have put up with the guys are driving you to world war ii movies, this is your film and you have a heroine in this film achieves a remarkable woman. it's hard to believe that she could transform herself in this way, but she doesn't quite sicily. jesus woman part of the dominated and if any of you have been to paris, you have walked past this building and so it became the central headquarters for the nazi looting operation in particular. with tens of thousands of work stolen from the great collectors and friends. someone also dealer families that were brought in and they were often times photographed and this was a particularly evil or pernicious individuals. so rothschild is an example and they were the letter r and then they would have a number. and there could be a 6000 number. many at the officers usually found, which they have done a great job writing about this, a jewelry chest that might have hundreds of objects in them and this includes one who referred to eight-point collection and there were 10,000-point in it. so the numbers get to be pretty staggering very quickly rated roses there with the responsibility and the germans know that they need her there to make sure that the lights are working great but she understands german and they don't notice. her boss is another hero, he is a director of the ranch museum including the louvre, has placed her there and so she is making secret notes and is they ar each of the 20 times they make these exhibits and stewart referenced things. if there is any value to it, there would be champagne and they would have a regard in any one of his 20 michael jackson alfred, whether it is or not. it's amazing the number of photographs that we have, knowing that some of these things were part of what they wanted to have themselves. sometimes she wrote that she was looking for photo negatives and over the course of four years she noticed largely the number of works that have come through and she recognizes me because they are so famous. she knows the location of many that have been taken. it's not really a diary, but an album with all of these different notes and scraps of paper that have been put together we're they are in one place. so at the end of the liberation, she survives this and she's considered a collaborator and she doesn't turn over all the information she had to her boss on her advice because no one knows who to trust. and her loyalties are over and above and she is encouraged to work with an officer who at the time as the curator of the cloister museum goes on to be the next director of the mat after the war. and they did is over six months is to be a dance of courtship. trying to see if he can be trusted with this information. there are two people destiny each holding half of the same key. and she persists with this until 1981 when she dies and never gives up on and becomes a pain in the side to many people that just want this to go away. and so on the other hand he realizes he can play a role in recovering the works of art stolen from france. he is transportation but he doesn't know where to go. so this is the dynamic between the two of them, back and forth and will he really return these things to france. it's a fascinating dynamic and i think it is one of the great parts of the film that the actors have really teased out of the story. >> you mention sicily. in 1943 the allies invaded sicily. and there were very few monuments men and they had some successes and barriers and all of this is a lane and roberts third book, saving italy. but robert, could you briefly talk about this? do they have transportation and do they have mass? >> it was really a pathetic getting. it was president roosevelt that realized they needed to buy time for the army of bureaucracy to be overcome to get some of these guys over there. on his orders, a man -- let me show a number by you showing your hands who has been to harvard -- okay. so from the 1920s to the 1990s when he died with it action of the end he knew that he was that fad so he arrives three weeks after the american invasion and he is flown to all algeria thinking that he is to be in north africa. and then he says i really don't know anything about that area. and he didn't. but he gets there. there's no vehicles or operation. they are just winging it. but the monuments officers at the beginning of combat are about 40 years old and i have really accomplished careers. many have kids. so they were pretty clever and resourceful and trying to figure out how to do things. while they didn't help any, they didn't pay attention to him either. to the extent that they could come up with solutions, they were pretty effective area to the operation on its face over and over again the point that general marshall wrote his protége, general marshall and said you need to be very careful because people here are reading horrible newspaper accounts and damaging italy by by the allies. and they were at the civil affairs division. they had the ability to pay attention. the monuments officers will post the buildings out of bounds american british troops couldn't live in them, damage them, taking. in the army officers of the troops just ignored it. so by the time of november and is number one the operation was clearly failing, the general, general eisenhower changes the face of the war and he issues the directive december 29, 1943. albeit six months after the war and italy have gone. and so if it comes down to the lives of our men or object, the lives of our men count more. however, that will not be tolerated. in this was the change. because the monuments officers never got more help than that. and the senior monuments officer said it was the first solid ground under our feet. and they show this directive and they had currency with them. and by the time of the normandy landings, that same order similarly worded was issued two weeks before the normandy landings. >> we are way behind schedule. so i ask my colleagues to keep their answers short. but once they landed in france, in june of 1944, the germans began hiding their own cultural property in the property that they have looted, primarily in southern germany in salt mines, monasteries, castles, air raid bunkers. some germans at this point, especially in 1944 late in the year, they believe that they would lose the war. the smartest thing to do was to get all this to a safe haven outside of germany. and the united states government initiated something called operation safe haven. to be the intelligence gathering capability of the treasury department, economic administration, to find out where these assets were going. in 1997 and 1998, he oversaw the production of two government report about operation safe haven and monetary gold and victim gold. and these reports were quickly produced and were not well received. so can you tell us what prompted the clinton administration to be produced and what was the outcome of these reports? >> robert has done an enormous service. but i want to try to put it in a broader german context. that is a great tribute to the united states army and the united states of america. contrasting this enormous effort to get it to return to its rightful owners with this coming from the east to berlin. so they were intent on doing just the opposite. stripping germany and its museums of everything that they could do was taking it back to russia as were compensation for their enormous lawsuits. so here we are doing exactly the opposite, trying to preserve it and get it back to its original owners, while they are trying to compensate themselves for the losses in with respect to the reports, we have had lawsuits that were being brought against the hispanics. and we realized that there was a broader story than the amounts put in swiss banks by victims. in that broader story is how did the germans finance a war effort for 12 years? when their currency, the right mark, was not accepted as international currency. and the historian came to me and that we should look into that. we have interagency studies. more than a dozen agencies and the eia and others. and we did a landmark study on what happened to the goal that was dashed gold that was looted by the germans. not private banks. but as the german swept through europe and they stole this out from the jews and primarily in larger amounts from the central banks of the government that they occupy. in order to get this to finance the war, they took the gold to the central bank of switzerland. which is exactly what the german central bank did. and they converted that old into swiss francs which the germans used to finance the war effort. and so we disclose this in a report. it caused explosion in switzerland and then we did a follow-up report of what other countries, spain and turkey had done to facilitate a war effort. but to switzerland great credit they ended up taking our report and with anything improving on a committee appointed the professor to do their own report in his report is a landmark in self-examination. as a result of our report we ended up getting 20 countries to set up their own historical commissions to look at their gold during the war. >> we are really running behind at this point. and i knew that every single question would be a one day answer, one book answer. >> we have cut it down. [laughter] >> select skip over -- and you can read this in robert hooks, skip over the whole movement in 1944 and 1945 the greatest treasure hunt in history. we can see the condensed version in the movie. but it was dangerous and hard work and to monuments men officers were killed. and a british major gulf and sos always putting their lives on the line and in some cases some were killed trying to rescue those in harmharms way. the treasure hunt came from all of these different sources. but as the war was ending there were still a lot of questions like where is all the loot and who is involved in taking the loot. things that we know now and at the time we did in. the latter part of the war, the officers of your teaching services created something like the art investigation unit. and it was stopped by monuments men. so michael, can you tell us about this investigation unit and what they did and what they produced? >> i will try it not to do it in a day or a book. [laughter] >> it's interesting as to what is gold to a small group. a professor of williams college and others, and their task was to try to identify with his vast network of hidden asset was on cultural materials, art, archives and libraries. so there was a lot of concern that this material would become fodder for sale and a black and and finance the not the resistance. there was a lot of concern that there would be a knotty resistance after the inevitable defeat. and so during the war the vast counterintelligence effort of the allies -- there are about 2000 individuals that had been marked as people who were involved him how in the market. so they have names and they had an idea of who were the players. from the spring of 1945 onward they went into germany and austria and they basically two things. they did an enormous amount of archival research because they were looking at that and records that were found in munich and they also interrogate the key individuals who are the players in this market. so i think these three were very disappointed. because while rosenberg and others were held accountable, the second-tier actually got away without any indictments or sentences may start a business again. nonetheless they were able to map out where all of this material was and save an enormous amount of time in these materials from being looted by others and being lost. they produced a detailed interrogation report on 12 individuals. also specials of these on the projects of hitler's and on the personal collection and rosenbergs organization. so this very small group of investigators did an enormously critical job at the end of the world. >> identifying what it was, this ended up being part of this and these were operated by monuments men. trying to put humpty dumpty back together again. while i was writing my dissertation, michael had a great sense to write about what were the policies and procedures for returning it. and so michael, can you tell us they handled this giving it back to the rightful owners? [inaudible] >> he had the notion of creating central collection point. about 1300 repositories and most of it in the u.s. zone of occupation. you just can't operate around 1300 apiece. so they set up these operations and the architect was the chief of the monuments activity and operations on the ground and it is amazing that these monuments officers could create this. they don't have a lot of support from the army. but using this collection point with art and much of what needed to be rested tooted land, in two weeks time in the middle of june of 1945, the whole thing is refurbished and the securities to another school for feet, which is absolutely critical. so millions of items float in. they had mostly art from the oppression museums and offenbach was the site for looted jewish possessions, items and libraries and this was critical to ultimate restitution. >> thank you. >> robert reminds us that the issue of this is unfinished. and indeed as the ambassador and others will tell you that the mission is unfinished. one important thing to fill this mission of "the monuments men", the 1998 holocaust conference, that adopted what is called the washington principles. each of you should have a copy of these principles, which were adopted in 1998 and then reaffirmed again in lithuania in 2000 and five and 2009. so how this comes about with various countries are filling this. it's really important to understand there was a huge thing in the basic principle was that the art would be returned to the countries from which it was taken. rather than trying to go through something impossible of finding the individual owners. and so the art was returned, for example, to france and to many other countries on the theory that they would set up their own claims processes to allow claimants to recover this and that did not happen in part because there were no families. but in part because they simply wanted to keep the art themselves. the yemen our collection, for example, in france. then a major activity added to this. all the attention that have been described focused on this collection and restitution which was properly focus on the new soviet threat. and so from the end of the war, essentially until 1990 evan -- there was almost no attention to this issue. there were a number of scholars and others and michael who wrote about the. they elevated the issue and then what really brought it to the attention was the catalyst that no one would have expected. there was an exchange, a typical exchange that occurred with the museum and ostrich to the u.s. the museum of modern art. and they have forgotten remarkably to go through the very simple process of filling out the form for the state department, which protects these from being seized. and they didn't. and they were claimed by a holocaust family. and a manhattan attorney then subpoenaed this and it sent a shockwave through the american museum community. and that resulted in this under pressure creating a series of guidelines for researching art and publishing potential moxy looted art. and so what we did is we came behind that and we continued with 44 countries. and we were able to get them to agree to a set of principles which was to research to see if any were suspect. establish mechanisms and claims processes and make sure the you establish alternative dispute processes that are based upon decisions on merit and not technical defenses. and there was a great burst of activity in the american community. national gallery returned a piece of art that they found, chicago art institute and others traded but then what happened is after a terrific momentum silly claim it wouldn't have to go to 100 different museums in the united states, they could file when it would go to all 100 museums and all this was done. establish and still have full-time employees look for any such backed and i would say in any given year. it is a shame. is it the momentum was lost in the leadership of the u.s. showed began to be a part of this. in the museum overtimes out of two is dirt technical defenses when claims were made. for example the statue of limitations. they even preemptively and filed his claims before they were made. and so there was no objective measure of that. so then we ended up ironically having started this whole process and falling behind in finding that the dutch and the germans and the austrians and the burnish establish their own commissions and were functioning better than we were. now, for sure those commissions are much criticized. at least they exist. we do not have a commission. partly it is because we have private museums in europe that are public museums. but we can do what was suggested. that we set up the service with no u.s. government money at all so that these disputes could be done without these technical defenses. some sad day and after this passage of 50 years where we then revived it through the principles, that we have really fallen back and stagnated and we really need to get back to the filling what the monuments men dead. that would be attribute. to get back to where we were then. >> what i would like to do now is have nancy talk about what is the community doing and could you make it short. [applause] >> i respectfully disagree. we need a commission in the united states. the commissions are set up or a totally different category of objects that were recovered after the war. known to have some kind of issue and in the custody of those countries. and they need to deal with those. so many are hereby happenstance. what the american museum community has done since 1998 conference which was so instrumental, is to adopt these guidelines or research publications. they are misleadingly simple guidelines. the research, for example, research has always been something in american museums. at this pacific research and world war ii using these records are here at the national archives are very complicated and very different from anything that traditional historians have done. some proud to say that the american museum community has partnered with them many times to do multiple training sessions for curators around the country on how to access these materials. we've done two major conferences in college park. an international conference in 2007 and we did two years ago a two-day international conference on accessing his remarkable resources that are here in our national archives. so coming up in june we have another ownership coming. so i would say that we are trying as hard as we can to research our collections and we are open to anyone with any questions and no american museum wants to have anything on their walls that doesn't belong to them. >> so we need to let the decisions we made and second, josh has adjusted and having the to and trade commission would be a good way of trying to get these out of the courts and out of litigation, getting the lawyers out of the picture and getting technical defenses out of making decisions on this and i agree with him. >> i does have a view questions for robert [inaudible] >> is not my typical role, but we will try it out. i was to ask you how you got interest at. but that is easy enough to find. but did you actually enjoy doing this research and writing? >> it won't come as a surprise interview. i'm guilty as charged. i like to see things happen and make things happen and yet this is a big asterisk. when i'm with one of these veterans and they have a chance that usually only takes me part of this. they will talk for hours and hours and i will feel like i have the greatest dog in the world having the chance to listen to what their experiences. so oftentimes in many cases spouses. some of them we have found and in one particular case the woman who got married. we had no idea how to find her. it's a joyous process that has allowed us to tell the story in a way that i don't think a. we're sitting here talking about works of art and this is important. when we say this, library books, jewelry, kasper sees a trend it's a whole spectrum of the other. so why did these women walk away from the established careers and their families and kids and go risk their lives in combat to do something that wasn't necessarily going to benefit the united states at benefits of ordination. we haven't seen anyone do that or. that is the change that we have never done anything like that runs from top to bottom. so it's very important to point out in our military today. those that have the best of intentions. but what we had in world war ii that made it work doing only what leaders could do and that is leading. president roosevelt decided that was an important idea. general eisenhower empowered his men and women to go do their jobs. and we haven't had any leaders do not since world war ii on a public basis and that is what is happening today. so i submit and i agree with things that stewart said and nancy hess said and i think that museums can become easy scapegoats. i spoke to the american association of directors earlier this year. i made the comment that it's not okay to have a 40 or 50 million-dollar easy and budget and then not be able to afford everything oz. on the other hand it's easy to pick on museums and say why haven't you done it faster. the research work is very complicated and there are not millions of workers floating around. many are questions we'll have to debate today that becomes more complicated when you have statute of limitations in various countries that are going to need to be revisited. i submit that the best place to adjudicate this is the court of public opinion. and i can't unless the public opinion with you all know the story. and i am not a trained art historian or writer or anything. but i've been passionate about this for some 15 or 16 years. so i have the chance to know these stories in knowing why they did what they did. why does all important to the treasures that we have today. .. you want to know when you buy your home that you own the clear title to your home. that is what providence is and the work of stewart and his team at the state department and others that has been trying to bring worldwide visibility to this through legislative and the former judicial system but i submit the people that have been left out of the discussion are people like me that don't have any academic training about the history of this said about the legal terms. we just like art and we like great stories and we believe that no passage of time should change the character. something was stolen and we can identify it we should give it back. [applause] >> yes i said before we could spend days talking about the past, present and future of this topic but i would like to thank the panelists for coming out tonight and i would also like to thank our boss the archivist for not only his presence by presenting the records of the monuments men and the work of the monuments men. we are like you to have the interest in something we have an interest in. now i guess i would direct you to the microphones on either side if you have questions. >> yes, you brought out we knew after the second world war murder was a great atrocity of the germans. the first major trial that everybody saw in the world what happens in the nuremberg trials. did anyone discuss these issues at the nuremberg trial aside from the murders? there were people there who certainly gearing and other stole and was that brought out of the world? >> yes it was. the work of investigation unit was critical. actually theater russo-did the buying of gearing's work and interrogated gearing while he was at nuremberg and so a lot of the documents entered into evidence a norm berg related to the art theft and so forth come from the work of this unit and it came from their researches they went through the german files and located documents and have them verified by the various interrogations that they did and they actually even brought some of these second-tier nazis to nuremberg to give testimony about rosenberg and gearing. >> what was most effective was taking the 39 er are albums these photographic albums showing what they had taken and really putting them in front of each of the eight judges and saying here's the evidence. >> it comes from the national archives and you can watch this absolutely riveting. it's all on line. you can have access to it. we have it at the foundation too rated. >> thank you. >> do we have current monuments made for the wars that have gone recently like afghan -- iraq and afghanistan. >> we have well intended people in the archaeological community that have advised the state department and defense department and they did so prior to the american invasion of iraq in 2003 but for a variety of reasons and in my opinion the principle one being that the other half of this diad has to work which is the leadership from the top and in our country it's the ceo. it's the president of the united states and well-intended and i say this a politically. i don't care who the president or the secretary of defense is but there was a monument by edith stanton who in 1947 said it's not enough that we be virtuous. we must also appear so and she understood that power of appearance. first appearances matter so we didn't have these monuments there because the prioritization of protecting cultural treasures wasn't there. we protected the oil installations and that was a smart thing to do. we protected the electrical grids but we didn't protect the museum and the national archives in iraq the national library which the jobs over there trying to destroy flood, damage and whose problems is that he come? it becomes the american army. i think what we have got to have today we certainly need to be training people and we are doing that and people like karen wegner and lori russia and others do a tremendous job and in the absence of a the president of the united states restating my opinion the words of roosevelt and general eisenhower that the united states will of expects the cultural treasures of other countries and if he comes down to the lives of our men and women in the lives of our men and women count more but if that doesn't happen the best efforts are going to work their way through the bureaucracy had at some point stall and fail. we had people that went over there in 2004 to fix the problems and they did a tremendous job. but what does everybody remember? they remember what happened in 2003 not what we did in 2004 because first impressions matter so the rob him in the challenge here before us and is a huge part again of our effort the monuments foundation that we make sure all the voters around the country know about this. i dare say no political leader is going to go into combat again and not say a do we have monuments officer's? >> i was out of office because of the work i had done. when we bombed the defense ministry in damascus, excuse me in baghdad. i would you -- i wish it would have been in damascus. [laughter] when we did that the pipes burst and when our troops came in they found jewish treasures, archival treasures going back hundreds and hundreds of years and they called me and said given your experience what should we do and i said three things. get it out of the water, get it to the national archives where it can be curated properly and never returned it. two of the three things were done. an agreement was reached with the iraqi government to return this jewish cultural property which itself was looted in my opinion from the jewish community that left in the 50s after the formation of israel. what robert has exposed is very much a current issue. >> i would like to point out that my wife doris hamburg went over there and helped bring the stuff back and have overseen it ever since. mary lynn is my wife's mother. i would say compared to the beltway she is probably safer there than here. yes maam. >> ambassador's you know in germany is considering changing their 30-year stature in light of the case of the man with a priceless art from his father and it looks like he will be able to legally keep it but there may be a change. do you think 69 years after the end of the war that there will be a way for these countries that have these statutes of limitations to end those statutes of limitations? >> that's a great question let me just say this. first of all the disagreement about whether there should be a commissioned the amount of looted nazi art in units sites is -- united states is minimum. the greater amounts are in europe germany in particular and russia which has the greatest treasure trove of looted nazi art. they passed a law after the washington principle which said we are going to keep our so-called trophy art to pay for and effects the war loss contrary to our policy but we are willing with the washington principles to return that art which the red army took and in turn which have been taken by the nazis. they have never implemented it so the real focus is to be on europe. on the question you asked on the girl in case it's an incredible case. here a guy goes from switzerland to munich, comes to the border. he is asked if he has anything to declare. he said well i have 9500 euros in cash and i say where did you get 9500 euros in cash? he said i sold a piece of art. they look in his apartment and there are 1200 pieces of art with some having empty cases that indicated he had sold it in to make a long story short it turns out that a lot of it was in fact nazi art. so initially the germans were treating it as a tax evasion case. the guy sold it and didn't report it to taxes. we the state department intervened based on the washington principles based again on what you have done as well and what michael has done and what nancy has done and we said no this is not just a tax evasion case. look at the washington principles and publish the art which initially they wouldn't do but now to their great credit about 450 pieces have been published on the internet so claims can be made. then the issue is the question is of the statute of limitations. i can't guarantee this is going to happen but we urge again the technical defense not be used and that is why i feel so strongly and they are seriously considering an effect creating of a new law that would waive the statute of limitations as to the art that is in the curling department. whether they will do it or not remains to be seen but they publicly indicated they are looking at it and it would certainly be a wonderful thing and it would be consonant with the washington principles. this story just never ends. it never ends. >> let me say about this. i hate to predict the future. its apparel is thing to do but i believe we will see changes and i believe that the principle reason is that the public, the court of public opinion is now going to know what the heck everybody's talking about. it's been stuck with legislators and lawyers debating this thing and using fancy terms like providence and the general public doesn't know what they're talking about. you have something like the case and is the front page of the newspapers around the world and there are a william pictures found. there is a billion and half euros assigned to this value. no one has a list of the works of art get somebody has defined 1.5 will you in euros. i'm happy because everyone in the world is paying attention for a moment and is it worth hundreds of millions? probably that we don't have the information to determine what the values are. it's a complicated case. it's a hairball of the case but i think this. i think people around the world at least in the western -- are governed bylaws and for the most part people i think feel what i said earlier. no passage of time makes it okay for somebody to keep something including german museums if it was stolen and we can identify who it belongs to. if we can massage this process by making sure that legislators in germany and others send when we were at the berlin film festival last week we were with a german cultural minister for 30 minutes. we were her favorite people and especially monuments -- if they realize the voting public now understands the story that is not just a big discovery but it's the whole theft unfolding in slow motion and if you get google alerts like we all do there are discoveries like this in the paper every single day. not that dramatic but they are out there but it's all the same story. they read this case an 80-year-old guy, it's complicated, tax evasion etc.. the film is now going to reach a worldwide audience in a way that the audience can never get out there and tell. are there adjustments to the story? yes but other principles of what to lace accurate? now people love a chance to look at the case and understand this doesn't seem right that we in berlin have made efforts to discuss and be open about all the things that happened in nazi germany. everywhere you go there is a museum built to discuss it. as a sign of something that's going to be built and yet that same transparency hasn't been evident in how the museums and how the countries approached discussing these works of art. if the public that goes to these museums and elects these politicians now knows about this and all the politicians see the movies too now the game has changed. now everybody can participate in this discussion and now instead of having legislatures legislate these statues of limitations the public can discuss their view and people around the world people of good will feel it's not okay to keep things just because there has been a passage of time we will see the laws change because it's just the right thing to do. >> the father will was given art back to take to switzerland and other neutral countries and he obviously kept some for himself. but what is fascinating is after the war he convince the allies that he was a victim of the nazis and not a nazi himself and he allowed subjects to get out selling their art and this is now his son who kept this 1200 pieces in a dusty room in munich with trash and everything around it. it's an incredible story. >> we have five people to ask questions and we have four minutes. please be my guest. >> we have discussed your pelot. was a similar action taken to preserve art in asia? >> yes, there were a handful of monuments officers and of course the problem well there are british monuments through the u.k. we should say monuments officers that work in southeast asia but we are talking about maybe five or less and then about five or six i would say michael that work in japan. of course they can get there until after the war is over so it comes a very different kind of operation whereas the american british effort in western europe is about trying to preserve works of art and effective repairs in japan the whole effort has to be skipped as a result of the dropping of the two atomic bombs. >> yes maam. >> awad to raise the question of robins with regard to berlin 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, that's it. you don't know if it came from prussian state. you don't know which state or municipal gallery it came from. you don't know anything then that's the principle artist. museum of germany. it is very very weird. comments? >> let me just contrast that with france. france had this so-called 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 it's 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 who sees it 100 years from now will save chico what was that all about and start looking at it. so it's very important even when art to identify where it came from. to their credit the germans have a wonderful process. there are 40,000 so-called think it's called stuff i'd were little ricers outside the apartments of the jewish who works belt with their names and dates and it is raised about an inch above the sidewalk so when you are walking you have to look down for you will trip. this is all over the country and it's a way of saying they should be done again in the museums that the jewish family was expelled from here and it is again a way of teaching lessons for the future. >> there are actual web sites that the german government put together in which they put up pro-nazi information objects that went missing, information objects loss from germany so there is information out there in the published form either the internet or books whether they label it in their galleries i can't speak to that. >> i really hate to cut off the questioning at this point. [laughter] susan how much time do we have? 10 minutes. oh great. yes maam. >> this is for mr. edsel. i noticed in the book you very rarely mention the monuments women that also i was just wondering why you haven't told their story as well as amend? [laughter] >> i haven't been busy enough? the women play an important role however during these times women worked in combat and so the effort of the women, it plays a role more behind-the-scenes helping assemble the maps used for allied pilots. some of the early intelligence work by people like our dealio call and edith stand and who an important curator for joseph widener whose collection is one of the early collections to come to the national gallery of art. their story really comes into focus at the conclusion of the war with it integral role they play at the collecting points helping get the setup and the sorting process for institutions. my three books, the first book i wrote rescuing da vinci which is a photographic telling lists the names of all these people but it's not a narrative story and the two books that followed monuments men and saving italy tell the story of the origination of the idea and the historical background of the creation of art preservation officers going back to germany in world war i up until the end of the war in 1945. so the answer is not yet but i'm not unaware of it and it's all mind list of things to do. >> i would say that my colleague sylvia baylor, sylvia can you raise your hand. we'll have either tomorrow or friday on giuliana a monuments woman so i'm looking forward to reading that. >> we found one in 2009. my labor day was spent at a va hospital in boston interviewing the bronze star recipient and just a tremendous tremendous woman. we had a great experience with her and hers is a story that you'll have a chance to know about in the time ahead. >> a member of the audience raised a point in mr. some of it about the monuments. there was a plan to save the artifacts and unfortunately not implemented but this was part of the 352 civil affairs special functions team. efforts were also undertaken by the colonel and is meant to save the treasures of iraq and the city stinking of sewage and army civil appears move to save modern or back as well as the treasures of the dynasty. the ambassador might like to know there was also ceramic agent -- in a museum in baghdad. tonya ga headed the artifacts in that country was forced to flee for his life when the assassins got loose. unfortunately he died in a boston airport but the army was still interested in preserving the artifacts where we go. >> one thing with the iraqi government had shown any interest in maintaining and portraying these treasures but keeping it in the basement of the defense ministry what are they going to do if they get it back? >> go ahead. >> i just want to point out if everyone feels like they are sitting on a goldmine tonight they really are. i am steve katz into elderly jewish gentleman came into the congressional office of the great congressman and they told the story of austria having thousands of still looted artwork and agricultural property in the government buildings and museums and the key to their story was that did you know congressman about all the captured german war records in the national archives. i was a young staffer. he sent me over to what was the collection ensued when the not for michael kurtz and the fine work of the archives we would never have forced the austrians into restitution plan. to the point about legislatures we need them in good democracies. we need to make them better and that democracies. the in austria they vitiated all the laws to get them re-created. the list that came out were frightening in terms of the pressure it took to bring this about. we had a jewish ambassador at the time in vienna. he wouldn't lift a finger. people don't want to get involved. so we need champions but for the national archives let me tell you folks these champions could make their case. of the records i went through before greg's finding was created we have international archives the blueprints for hitler's museum. when you see that it's pretty frightening. for his birth date and maybe robert can confirm this hitler would produce four color brochures about the size of a readers digest of his favorite looted art and he would send this to the front lines of his troops. so i want to compliment the archives and asked michael if he has a second, how did the archives get all of the stuff they did -- because it includes the german war records from the salt mines that hitler hid the stuff then. >> and all the documents and we didn't understand at the time. >> the liu and everyone else. it's due to the national archives that we know this. >> back in the late 1990s ambassador eizenstat you asked me how many pages of material do you have and i said 10 million? it sounds like a good number but actually i think i probably underestimated as we and covered more and more material. this created -- from our enemies. yes maam. do you want to respond might? >> very briefly. the national archives was the inheritor of the records that were seized by the army. the army over the process of many years and the national archives picked up the project, microfilmed the captured german records in order to preserve them and eventually the restitution of records -- and so we kept all the records of the united states army as it relates to all the functions of combat and post-war operations and so when i started my research in 1979 there was no google. there was no greg. there was greg who was very helpful and so now one of the things i would like to mention also is the united states the national archives i should say, following up on what ambassador eizenstat was trying to achieve with the washington principles has established and created an international research portal for nazi era cultural property and is absolutely a treasure mind. if you need to as a family member or an heir to a piece of property try to trace a work of art study what's available on line. if you are doing research oriented historian and due to the work of the national archives there are now 19 other national archives and art institutions around the world, in europe i should say that participate in this. you can do a great deal of research. that would have been absolutely physically impossible prior to five to 10 years ago. >> the best thing about being a citizen in this country, passport in the right to go to the national archives. i kid you not. these documents, these photographs is one of the great privilege is to be a citizen to go out there and see the labor of so many people that it worked out there and making them available whether it's your day off for doing research. it's an extraordinary opportunity for everybody. >> i think i will let ambassador eizenstat make closing remarks at which point we will adjourn to where robert will be signing copies of his books. susan does that sound like a good plan? i'm sorry we didn't get to you but perhaps you can address one of us afterwards. >> i can say on a personal note that we should all be very proud to be americans because what the national archives has a great resource, what robert disclosed about the heroism of the monuments and what demonstrates about the determination of the u.s. army which after all in 43 the war was hardly one. i mean it was hardly one. normandy hadn't even occurred. here we are in the midst of a cataclysmic a tool and general eisenhower takes it upon himself to issue this kind of directive. these men and women to risk their lives because they think the probe would not sub art are so important. it's that spirit that we need to get back to to continue the momentum. that would be the real tribute. i would say also half the effort that went into this was put into saving the jewish in europe we might not have had quite as klatt of -- cataclysmic output but this would not detract from this remarkable heroic story and again only in the united states of america could have taken this upon itself in the midst of a war and it's a great tribute to the country. it's a great tribute to the archives to have this in a gray chevy to robert having brought this to us. [applause] [applause] >> thank you for coming and we will see you outside. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> no former british foreign secretary david miliband and former u.s. ambassador to syria robert ford discuss humanitarian efforts in syria. the washington institute hosts this event. it's about an hour and 10 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon everyone. my name is andrew tabler and i'm a senior fellow with the washington institute for near east policy where i work on syria among other things or syria and everything that it affects in the region. the discussion today is about the syrian conflict and where strategic interest in humanitarian urgency intersect with over 160,000 killed, countless thousands injured missing or detained the syrian uprising continues to make a grizzly indelible marc not only on syria but the middle east as a whole with over 40% of syria's 23 million population displaced internally or its refugees during over three years of a bloody uprising. >> area recently overtook afghanistan is the world's leader. diplomatic attempts to bring about a settlement have yielded very little for the syrian people. indeed during the recent geneva ii peace talks when ambassador ford was president ambassador samantha power permanent representative to united nations noted that the regime's bombardment of opposition controlled areas during the talks marked quote the most concentrated period of killing in the entire duration of the conflict, the most concentrated killing in the history of the searing conflict today. following the breakdown of the talks doing to the assad regime timeliness to discuss the transition serious president is sought is holding for another transition centered on its quayle re-election to a third term as syrian president which by summer of words could be announced next week. if this occurs it is extremely unlikely that diplomatic efforts with the pieces of syria back together again anytime soon in a country where anything resembling a functioning state is -- while the situation is brought misery to the syrian people it is also increased regional and international security concerns as well. while many have compared serious demise to that of former yugoslavia it now looks more like somalia where a bloody two decade long war has torn apart to stating created a sanctuary for criminals and terrorists. syria has effectively fractured three barely contiguous areas in which u.s. designated terrorist organizations are ascending. the regime still holds sway in western syria in writers from hezbollah the shiite islamist group backed by iran regularly cross the

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