Poland will submit seven restitution applications to the Russian Federation concerning works of art exported to the USSR by the Red Army during World War II. This was announced by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Professor Piotr Glinski, during the inauguration of the nationwide ‘Empty Frames’ project.

‘Today, we are inaugurating the nationwide ‘Empty Frames’ project, which aims to remind us of works of art and historical objects seized during World War II – both by the Germans and the Soviets,’ Minister Gliński said during a conference at the King John III Palace Museum in Wilanów. As part of the project, special plaques will be placed in 12 museums across Poland to remind people of Polish wartime losses in the field of culture and of works lost from these institutions.

The Minister stressed that of all occupied or fighting countries participating in the Second World War, it was Poland that suffered the greatest losses, including culture and art. Already in 1942, it was estimated that in museum resources alone they amounted to more than 50 % of the pre-war stock. To this day, many Polish museums still contain empty frames – a symbol of Polish wartime losses.

The head of the Ministry of Culture pointed out that since the beginning of the war, the Germans had been carrying out a planned and systematic robbery of Polish public, private and church collections. Then, the Red Army entered Polish territory, with so-called trophy brigades that were engaged in robbing works of art.

The art objects for which Poland will apply for restitution, one is from the pre-war Wilanów collection, one from the Poznań collection, three from the pre-war collection of the Czartoryski Ordinance in Gołuchów, one painting is from Łódź and one from Wrocław. The objects have been identified in the collection of the A. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński