(live-PR.com) - AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch commission is studying a claim by the children of a wartime art dealer for the return of 227 paintings acquired for Adolf Hitler's collection and now in the largest museums in the Netherlands, officials said Wednesday.
The decision on whether to relinquish the artwork to the family of Nathan Katz will hinge on the Restitution Committee's determination whether the Jewish art dealer was forced to sell the works or whether he voluntarily sold them to the Germans, which was illegal during World War II.
In terms of numbers, it is the largest claim ever put forward for a single collection, said Evert Rodrigo, head of the collections department of the Dutch Art Collections Institute, which manages state-owned artwork. No value has been put on the collection.
«Many museums are involved. And not just museums. We also lend to embassies and to official institutions,» Rodrigo said.
The claim was submitted this summer by Katz's daughter, Sybilla Goldstein-Katz who lives in the United States, and her three siblings.
Postwar U.S. military records say Katz bartered a painting by Rembrandt in 1941 to buy a way out of Nazi-occupied Holland for himself and his family. Art historians say Rembrandt's «Portrait of a Man» was worth 25 visas for Spain and the release of Katz's mother from Westerbork, a concentration camp for Jews in eastern Holland.
Katz regained possession of the Rembrandt, but the background of the other paintings now in Dutch state museums is unclear. Katz lived in Basel, Switzerland, after he left the Netherlands.
«This claim by the Katz family was not at all expected here,» said Christiaan Vogelaar, curator of De Lakenhal Museum in the city of Leiden, which displays seven of the contested paintings, including works by 17th century masters Jan Steen, Gerard Dou and Jacob van Ruisdael.
Rodrigo said the Restitution Committee must go over each painting to determine the circumstances of its sale.
Unlike the family of another Jewish art dealer, Jacques Goudstikker, which finally won a 55-year legal battle, the Katz family had not been in recent contact with the Dutch government.
Katz himself lost a bid after the war to recover the paintings he once owned.

After the Nazi defeat in 1945, the Netherlands reclaimed many of the works stolen or bought by the Nazis. Bob van het Klooster, spokesman of the Ministry of Culture, said the works were catalogued and returned wherever possible, but about 5,000 works remained in the possession of the state. Most were distributed to state museums on permanent loan.
Last week, the Dutch Art Collections Institute notified the museums that the Katz family had filed a claim for works at their institutions. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the national museum, confirmed it also received a letter but declined to say which paintings were concerned.
Codart, a network of curators from the Benelux countries, said Katz was forced to sell many of his works to Alois Miedl, who was tasked by Hermann Goering to sweep the Nazi-occupied countries for artworks for Hitler's planned Fuehrer Museum. Goering himself seized many of the works for his own collection.
But some reports said Katz continued to deal with the Nazis after he relocated to Switzerland.
The minister of education and culture, Ronald Plasterk, turned to the Restitution Committee last Friday for advice on sorting out the collection, which could take anywhere from several months to a year or more.