SC man suing Dutch government for return of family artwork taken during WWII
CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) – A Charleston man is working to get back paintings his family lost to the Nazis during World War II.
Bruce Berg filed a lawsuit against the Netherlands, the country’s ministry of education, culture and science as well as several museums. Berg’s grandfather was Benjamin Katz, who was a partner in a renowned art gallery in the Netherlands that specialized in paintings by Dutch “Old Masters” like Rembrandt.
While the war was raging on the front lines in May 1940, Nazi agents were collecting prized paintings for Hitler’s dream of building the greatest museum in the world. It was what some have called the greatest art plunder in human history, and it was a part of Adolf Hitler’s conquest to build an empire.