How Bremen is handling its stash of suspected Nazi-looted goods

Up until a year ago, the basket, made of rattan and varnished wood, was just used as a rubbish bin for discarded pieces of paper.

It looked good in the office of Bremen's top finance official and no one thought to wonder where it had come from.

Then it turned out that the bin had probably been stolen from Jews and others as they fled persecution from the National Socialists.

Decades later this is not 100% certain, says Gundula Rentrop, who, as a museum educator, researched the history of Bremen's finance department until her retirement.

Her suspicion that the bin had been stolen was enough and it was banished from the finance official's office to the department's basement, where it joined other items thought to have a tortured past.

A cellar full of suspicious items

The basement is protected by a heavy door strong enough to protect anyone inside from a gas leak - itself a relic of the war years.

Inside are piles of files, a living room cupboard, a display cabinet, two worn upholstered chairs, a cloth napkin and now, the wastepaper basket.

"These are all suspect items," says Rentrop, glancing around the room. "The furniture is very unusual for offices. Some items still have haulage stamps on the back."

The furniture is thought to be Nazi-looted property, taken from deportees and people who fled the regime by sea. Before the belongings of the persecuted were auctioned off at absurdly low prices, authorities, universities and museums would have picked out any special items such as jewellery, Rentrop says. "The furniture didn't even appear in lists or records."

There were only a few official papers left anyway, as the Nazis removed almost everything. "Only archive fragments remain in Bremen," says Rentrop. A few lists of emigrants' luggage, records of auctions and the confiscation of assets - some even note potatoes.

Bremen's finance department first began to look into its history ten years ago. A research group from the University of Bremen, led by historian Jaromír Balcar, analysed what was left and created an exhibition.

Special role of the harbour cities

Even though only around 1,300 Jews lived in Bremen in 1933, the Hanseatic city played a key role in the plundering of the persecuted, as the research shows.

"As a traditional port of emigration to overseas, Bremen was the central port of call for Jewish victims of persecution from all over the Reich alongside Hamburg," says Balcar in his book "Robbery by Official Decree."

He is researching Hamburg's role for an exhibition slated for early 2025. "This is where the final act of their robbery took place, which continued even after the victims had left the country."

After the outbreak of war, goods taken from the emigrants piled up in the harbours. Researchers at the German Maritime Museum - Leibniz Institute of Maritime History in Bremerhaven - estimate that there were around 6,000 to 7,000 items of cargo in Bremen and Hamburg - the property of 4,000 to 5,000 emigrant families.

First comprehensive database on Nazi-looted property

Researchers Kathrin Kleibl and Susanne Kiel from the Maritime Museum are trying to gain an overview of the suspected loot.

They are analysing thousands of documents, compiling research results and have been publishing the details in the LostLift database since September of last year.

Almost 3,400 items are already listed - as far back as possible from the time people left their homes until the items are auctioned off.

There is also information on around 6,600 parties involved - from the families affected as well as the haulage companies, bailiffs and buyers involved.

"What we are doing should have happened much earlier," says Kiel. Initially, many people kept quiet to avoid being confronted with their own guilt and to avert possible claims.

But even now, more than 80 years later, the researchers often get nowhere with their research. "Many are afraid to finally bring out the dirt that has always been swept under the carpet and clean it up," she says.

Looted goods still in many flats and houses today

She is convinced that looted furniture can be found not only in the cellar of the tax authorities, but in many people's living rooms.

If their own home was bombed out, Germans were even entitled to the confiscated property of the victims.

Kiel says the aim of the project is not to return the furniture that was seized back then but also to document the injustice done, and analyse it scientifically.

Anyone who discovers a suspected item in their home can contact Oldenburg's State Museum of Art & Culture - anonymously if desired, says researcher Marcus Kenzler.

"The aim is to transfer potential Nazi-looted property from the protected private sphere to a public space so that it can be displayed, seen and possibly recognized," he says.

The museum borrows the object for five years, records it in a database and, in the best-case scenario, returns it to the original owners.

Keeping the memory alive

So far, there is great interest, he says, though the museum has only recorded 10 objects so far, including a tea service and decorative plates.

People are still inhibited, as families fear for their reputation. But the time and personnel resources for the project are also scarce, he says.

So Kenzler is placing his hopes in new collaborations, with one under way with the Jever Castle Museum and talks in process with the East Frisian State Museum in Emden and Cloppenburg Museum Village.

In Bremen, ever since her retirement, Rentrop has been recording and cataloguing the historical documents of the finance department in the state archives.

Tracking down the expropriations is mainly an effort carried out by volunteers.

But they bring energy to the project and next hope to set up a memorial on the banks of the Weser river, cycle tours to auction sites and guided tours of the Reich House, still the name of Bremen's Finance Department building.