Offbeat | Report: Progress slow in Nazi art restitution

The Jewish Claims Conference says 15 years after the first international agreement on the restitution of Nazi-era looted art, more than half of the countries that endorsed such accords have done “little or nothing” to implement them.
In a report released yesterday, the Claims Conference urged the creation of an expert group to help museums investigate the histories of their collections “more actively and professionally.”
They say of 50 countries analyzed, only four — Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands — have made “major progress” in implementing agreements on returning art and other cultural property plundered during the Nazi era.
Eleven countries made “substantial progress,” seven have taken some steps, while 23 have made no significant progress, it said. The remaining weren’t ranked for lack of information. AP