Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
A whirlwind of emotions
“When I received a letter from Director General Maaz, I was overwhelmed and in a whirlwind of emotions – at the same time, I couldn’t believe it, and I felt overjoyed but also sad.” This is how Miriam Friedmann describes her reaction to finding out that a painting that once belonged to her grandparents Selma and Ludwig Friedmann was to be returned to her.
Private archive Friedmann
Selma and Ludwig Friedmann
The Friedmanns were a respected family from Augsburg. Selma and Ludwig Friedmann lived in the heart of the city with their four children: Friedrich Georg, Anna, Elisabeth, and Otto.
Sammlung Häußler, Augsburg 🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
Second-generation textile manufacturers
The Friedmanns were successful entrepreneurs. They ran a linen and wool products company that Ludwig had taken over from his parents.
Sammlung Häußler, Augsburg 🔍 Move the mouse over the image to zoom in
Founded in 1872, the company became one of the leading linen manufacturers in southern Germany and was a major employer for Augsburg and the surrounding region.
Augsburg City Archives, FS FA B 3853
Ludwig Friedmann was a judge at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. He was also an active member of the Israelite Religious Community and served as its deputy chairman.
Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem. Gift of artist in memory of his parents, Gustav and Johanna Meyer
The children flee overseas
After the National Socialists assumed power, the Friedmanns were immediately subjected to repressive measures.
His eldest son Friedrich Georg was imprisoned for a short time in 1933 and expelled from university. He fled to Italy in the same year. Following the enactment of the Nuremberg Race Laws, Anna Friedmann is not allowed to take her journeyman's examination as a seamstress. She flees to England in 1935. In 1938, the youngest son, Otto, is no longer allowed to attend school. To save him, his parents send the twelve-year-old on a Kindertransport to London. Their daughter Elisabeth is the last to flee to the USA. She is 19 years old. Children and parents never see each other again.
Häußler Collection, Augsburg
Economic ruin
The National Socialists gradually destroyed the family's economic existence. Ludwig Friedmann was forced out of his positions and had to sell his company and private home. The money goes into a blocked account.
Forced relocation and death
In 1942 Selma and Ludwig Friedmann had to move into a so-called Jew house (Judenhaus), where they lived with other Jews in extremely cramped conditions. It was here that they received notification that they were to be deported on 8 March 1943.
They knew what lay ahead. Selma’s mother Flora Fromm had been murdered in Theresienstadt in June 1942 and acquaintances had also told them of the dreadful fate of those deported ‚‘to the East’.‘ were deported.
With no way out, Ludwig and Selma Friedmann and three other couples with whom they were friends took their own lives on the evening before the planned deportation.
The painting Bauernstube was with them until the end of their lives.
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Wiedergutmachungsbehörde V für Schwaben, JR-Akten 1356 f, p. 1 of 2
‘Utilization’ of the Friedmanns’ property
After her death, the city authorities clear the room in the ‚Jews‘ house‚. A representative of the city inspects the possessions left behind and marks all items that can be ‘utilised' with a four-digit number. They are handed over to the municipal welfare office. The delivery note meticulously lists everything that Ludwig and Selma had left from their formerly large household, right down to the oilcloth tablecloth and the 16 kitchen towels.
Bavarian State Painting Collections, Registry, picture file 10859
The painting Bauernstübe is sold to a Munich buyer
Ernst Buchner, the former director general of the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Painting Collections), received an offer to purchase the painting Bauernstube. The subject line of the letter read: ‘Utilization of cultural property from Jewish ownership’. Buchner acquired the painting in May 1943.
Search for clues
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‘From Jewish ownership’
More than seventy years later, provenance researcher Anja Zechel investigated the origins of the painting. From the sales documentation it was clear that it was ‘formerly Jewish-owned’.
More than seventy years later, provenance researcher Anja Zechel investigated the origins of the painting. From the sales documentation it was clear that it was ‘formerly Jewish-owned’.
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
This label from Galerie Heinemann in Munich was an important clue.
Nuremberg, GNM, German Art Archive, NL Heinemann, KV-M-696
The gallery’s customer records have survived and can now be viewed online. Here the provenance researcher found the date of sale and the buyer’s name: Ludwig Friedmann from Augsburg. He bought Bauernstube in June 1919. His daughter Elisabeth had recently been born; perhaps this was the motivation for the purchase.
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Another important clue was to be found on the back of the painting: the number 1157 on the canvas . This is the missing item number from the list of property for ‘utilization’ which Anja Zechel had discovered when consulting the reparations files in the archive. Presumably the painting was initially meant to be transferred to the Welfare Office with the household goods and was given the number 1157, between the oil painting with the number 1156 and the small suitcase numbered 1158.
Staatsarchiv Augsburg, Wiedergutmachungsbehörde V für Schwaben, JR-Akten 1356 f, p. 1 of 2
The painting was then subsequently classed as cultural property, which is presumably why it was removed (‘gestrichen’) from the list in a subsequent copy.
Central Institute for Art History, Photothek, Inv. No. 125312
Return of the painting
The painting had obviously been acquired unlawfully and had to be restituted. But to whom? It was not difficult to locate the heirs. Ludwig and Selma Friedmann’s eldest son, Friedrich Georg, had in fact returned to Germany in 1960. He established the Department for American Studies at the University of Munich. His daughter Miriam Friedmann also moved to Germany in 2001, to her grandparents’ home town of Augsburg. She was the first point of contact in the restitution process.
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In July 2018 the painting Bauernstube was restituted in Augsburg to Miriam Friedmann as representative of the joint heirs.
‘Through the return of this painting we have got back an item that once gave joy to my grandparents’, observes Miriam Friedmann. ‘As Anja Zechel’s painstaking research has revealed, my grandparents kept hold of this painting even after they had been dispossessed and forced to live cooped up in a so-called Jew house. It was indeed the only item they had left to remind them of their former life. It was hanging on the wall when they took their lives the night before their deportation together with 3 other couples with whom they were friends. The painting bore witness to what happened.’
For Miriam the return of the painting fills in a gap: ‘For my parents, as for so many others, talking about the past was painful. And therefore a chapter was missing from all our lives. The return of this painting also gives us back a little piece of this history.’
