Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. From 1933, when Hitler took power in Germany, until 1945, when the Allied Forces liberated Europe, the Nazis and their collaborators stole countless works of art and cultural objects from museums and private collections throughout Europe. Indeed, according to the American Alliance of Museums, the Nazi regime orchestrated a system of theft, confiscation, coercive transfer, looting, pillage, and the destruction of objects of art and other cultural property in Europe on a massive and an unprecedented scale. Millions of such objects were unlawfully and often forcibly taken from their rightful owners. This systematic looting and confiscation of the cultural property of the Jews and of other persecuted groups has been described as the greatest displacement of art in human history. In order to provide the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs a fair opportunity in our courts to recover artwork that had been confiscated or misappropriated by the Nazis, Representative Nadler and I, along with several other bipartisan cosponsors, introduced the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, or HEAR Act. Companion legislation has been introduced by Senators Cornyn and Schumer in the Senate. Since World War II ended, the United States has pursued policies to help Holocaust victims reclaim artwork and other cultural property that was unlawfully taken.…”