Joint U.S.-Ukraine commission pledges further efforts to preserve cultural artifacts (11/29/98)

Joint U.S.-Ukraine commission pledges further efforts to preserve cultural artifacts

by Yaro Bihun
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

WASHINGTON - A joint U.S.-Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Commission met here on November 17-18 to review progress and discuss several new issues dealing with, as described in a joint statement, "the protection and preservation of cultural heritage of all national, religious and ethnic groups that is of common interest to the U.S.A. and Ukraine."

Specifically, the commission, which was co-chaired by the chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of American Heritage Abroad, Michael Lewan, and the Deputy Minister of Culture and Arts of Ukraine Leonid Novokhatko, focused on the preservation of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues in Ukraine and discussed possible cooperation in preserving Ukrainian American cultural materials in the United States.

Ukraine also made the case for U.S. assistance in the return of the works of the 15th-16th century German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer, which were removed in 1941 from Lviv's Stefanyk Library by the Germans and found their way into American, as well as other countries', museums, galleries and private collections.

The joint statement noted "significant headway" made since the last meeting of the commission in May of 1997 on the preservation of the cultural heritage "of national minorities in Ukraine, and in the protection of their rights, notably of the Jewish community." It also characterized the Ukrainian government's executive order on the preservation of burial sites in Ukraine as a "considerable achievement" and "positively assessed" Ukraine's efforts in preserving Jewish burial sites in Lviv and Uman and returning the Brodskyi synagogue to the Jewish community in Kyiv. The statement also underscored the significance of the commission's survey of cemeteries and the preparation of a catalogue of Jewish cultural sites in Ukraine.

The commission noted that some outstanding problems dealing with the return of religious property remain to be resolved.

The U.S. and Ukrainian sides also agreed to cooperate with the Ukrainian American community, especially in helping it protect and preserve archival materials about its roots. On this subject, the commission heard a presentation by Andrew Fedynsky, director of the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland.

On the plundered art issue, the joint statement records that it was raised by the Ukrainian delegation but does not indicate that any action was taken or planned.

"I am of the opinion, and I'm sure that all commission members will agree, that we greatly value the meeting's accomplishments," Mr. Novokhatko said in an interview before departing for Kyiv.

"It's clear that there was a difference in our focus - and I stress the word 'was,' because we have now agreed to broaden the scope of the American commission, which until now had concentrated on the Jewish cemetery issue, while we did not want to limit our efforts to cemeteries," he said.

Presenting the confiscated arts case for Ukraine was Oleksander Fedoruk, who chairs the Commission on the Restitution of Cultural Treasures working under the aegis of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. He said in an interview that he first raised the issue of art removed from Ukraine during World War II at an international conference in 1995. Some of that art ended up in the United States, Germany, Poland, Russia and elsewhere, he said.

"These treasures, illegally removed to foreign lands, must be returned. Such are the norms of international law," Mr. Fedoruk stressed.

The Dürer collection, which was initially taken to Berlin, he explained, was ultimately split up and dispersed to a number of museums and galleries in Germany, England, Canada and the United States. In this country they were sent to Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Boston and New York (The Metropolitan Museum and Morgan Library).

Mr. Fedoruk pointed out that in January 1943 the United States, Great Britain and the former Soviet Union signed a joint declaration which stipulated that art stolen during the war must be returned to its rightful owners.

Despite Poland's claim to the Dürer works, Mr. Fedoruk stressed that these art objects were stolen from Lviv and that is where they should be returned. "That is our position, and it's the same position that Germany and Holland, for example, take with respect to their treasures," he said.

Art works were not the only precious objects taken from Ukraine during the war, he added. A number of archives, including the Shevchenko Scientific Society archive, were spirited away by the Germans and remain to this day in Warsaw.

"This whole issue is very complicated, very emotional, and it will be the subject of further negotiations," he said. "We will not drop the issue. We will keep it alive until these articles are returned to their rightful owners - which is the city of Lviv."

The stolen art issue will come up again at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets on November 30-December 3. The conference, co-hosted by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, is a government-organized international meeting of over 40 governments and a limited number of non-governmental organizations seeking to address Nazi-confiscated assets, including art.

Ukraine will be sending a special delegation to that conference, Mr. Fedoruk said.

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