These were not just famous paintings. These were an intrinsic part of a culture. If you rob a people of the artifacts that constitute that culture, you take away their soul. I am sharing my fellow blogger’s thoughts with you, for your consideration.
For centuries, when there was a war, the winning side would take the culture of the country they had beaten in the war, the art, the music, literature, and either incorporate it into their own culture or simply destroy it. This was done in addition to raping, torturing and murdering the losing population.
The Monuments Men — a group of American and Allied “soldiers”, most of whom were actually art historians, gallery owners and artists, not soldiers at all– were different. At the end of World War II, they went into Nazi-occupied areas, even into Nazi headquarters and private quarters of the Nazi elite, and not only rescued art and artifacts that the Nazis had systematically stolen from private citizens and museums in occupied territories, but they took the unprecedented step of returning these artifacts to the original, rightful owners, rather than simply keeping them for American or Allied museums…
View original post 482 more words
Petchary's Blog 