Carl Heumann’s art collection -- and those who keep it alive

Grandchildren dearest,

Let’s take a break from my father’s book, The Rim of the Volcano, and talk about something that has happened since he wrote that book.

I grew up with my grandfather’s art on our walls, but as a child I was oblivious about the history of those pieces and the journey they went through to find their way from war-torn Germany to our homes in Berkeley and Atherton, California – and some of them even on to our current home in Gig Harbor, Washington.

    

(“Sophia” in our Berkeley, CA house in 1957 and in our current Gig Harbor, WA home.)

Even with war raging all around him, Carl refused to remove his very favorite pieces from the walls of his home in Chemnitz, insisting that one cannot live in fear and that removing those beloved pieces was, in a way, giving up. As a Jew, he had already been relegated to his home and, even as those walls seemed to increasingly close in on him, he was determined to at least cover them with the art that gave him comfort and provided some hope for the future.

     

 

     

Here is just a small sample of art from my grandfather’s collection:

Eduard Bendemann (1811-1889): "Junger Mann, Trauernd" (Young Man in Mourning) Bequeathed by my father to the Kunnstsammlung Chemnitz.

Bonaventura Ginelli, 1814, Portrait of Hans Christiam Ginelli, uncle of the artist. Now at my brother, Stephan’s home.

Friedrich Salathe, Italian Landscape with Trees, 1815. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Unfortunately, Carl’s most beloved pieces were destroyed along with Carl’s house – and Carl himself – when Allied bombs destroyed much of Chemnitz on March 5, 1945.

Fortunately, Carl kept most of his art collection in safe boxes away from the city. And fortunately, when the Nurnberg Laws declared that Jews were no longer allowed to own property - and certainly not “good German art”! –Carl was able to transfer ownership of the collection to his non-Jewish wife. (I do not know how Carl’s art collection escaped Nazi seizure during the year between Irmgard’s death in January, 1944 and Carl’s death in March, 1945. Hmmmm – this is something I’ll need to research!)

Family lore tells the story that, amid the chaos of post-war Germany, Rainer went to retrieve his father’s art from the vault of a bank that was now occupied by Russian guards. Piled high on the concrete floor were stacks of valuables – jewelry over here, paintings over there, sculptures in that corner, everything else tossed carelessly into the far corner.

Rainer located paintings, drawings, and sketches that he recognized from his father’s collection and attempted to persuade the guard to let him take them.

“These paintings… my father…dead… I take?” Rainer spoke no Russian and the guard spoke no German. The guard didn’t understand Rainer and seemed annoyed by the inquiry.

Rainer tried again. “My father… paint… draw… dead… I take? Yes?”

The guard suddenly smiled. “Your father… he was arteeeest? He paint? Hmmmmm…” Yes, Rainer nodded. The guard looked at the paintings and drawings. He was unimpressed. He shrugged his shoulder and drew heavily from his coveted cigarette.

“You take.” So Rainer did.

That’s the story, anyway. As my grandfather’s collection was large, containing hundreds of pieces of art, from very large to very small, I have my doubts that this is exactly how it happened. But it makes a good story, and I know of no other explanation for how my grandfather’s art collection – at least what survived of it – made its way out of what had become Russian occupied East Germany to Munich, where all three Heumann kids lived after the war.

Most of Carl’s art collection was sold at auction in Stuttgart, coincidentaly on my first birthday – November 29, 1957.

     

But Rainer, Thomas, and Ulli kept some pieces for themselves. When Thomas finally emigrated to the US in April, 1953, he took with him a large suitcase filled with art from his father’s collection. He had very little else to his name.

Now – fast-forward 61 years, to January, 24, 2014, when I received this email.

Dear Carol,

My name is Julia. I am a provenance researcher at the Albertina Museum in Vienna on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture.

My job is to inspect all collective objects which became part of the collection from 1933 until present in regard to their provenance and previous owners. In questionable or disputable cases, dossiers are being compiled. The reports will be presented to the Art Restitution Advisory Board which gives recommendations to the Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture regarding a potential restitution.

During my research in 2013, I discovered  that Carl Heumann sold drawings via the Kunstantiquariat C.G. Boerner between 1936 and 1943. The Albertina bought some of the drawings that once belonged to Carl Heumann. So I tried to search out what happened to him and his family. I got much information from archives in Germany, and today I also got the hint from a colleague to your blog.

I have already collected much information from different archives and literature, but nothing is so valuable than the memories and documents from contemporary witness.

I was so overwhelmed to read the letters your father wrote your sons....all the memories of this tragic time in his life and the documents he still has...

Carol, it would be a great pleasure and help for me if you and your family would be willing to support me in finalizing my report on the collection of Carl Heumann.

In hopes of hearing from you and best regards,

Julia

How exciting! I immediately forwarded Julia’s email to my father, who was… well, not excited.

Dad had already chastised me numerous times for “putting everything on the internet” (referring to my Northwestladybug blog) and he didn’t like the idea that his father’s name was now “out there” too, for “just anyone” to find.

Dad would later eat his words, but at that point in 2014, he was livid, saying in an email to me (with his sister Ulli cc’d), when I asked about posting more about Carl…

“Carol --

NO, NO, and NO again! The real reason is privacy, even if you don't want to understand what privacy is.  What I wrote was written to very specific people, not to the world, which your blog is. Yes, your friends on the blog may all be "good people," but what I wrote was not written to them, and is nobody's business. NOBODY'S!  In this day and age we are losing so much of our privacy.  I will not be part of it.  What I wrote there -- it even has names in it! ABSOLUTELY NOT TO BE PUT ON YOUR BLOG, even if what is there is public knowledge.  Our names are not.

If you want to write a novel, with all changed names, and not traceable to my family, that's your business. You can even make your novel very generally about "Privileged Mixed Marriages under the Nazis in Germany," but you have to have a lot of information about other such marriages.

Love, in spite of disagreements -

Dad” 

Just reading that again now makes me feel like a child being punished. Can you see why the prospect of writing a book about Carl and his family, even when my father asked me specifically to do so shortly before his death, was so difficult for me? 

Again, generational trauma…

Eventually I did write back to Julia (copying my father and aunt, to stay out of trouble):

“Dear Julia,

I will, coincidentally, be traveling in Europe this coming May and would like to briefly visit with you at the Albertina, if at all possible.  We are hoping to visit the museum anyway, so if there's anything that can be learned via an in-person meeting, I would be very happy and honored to do so. My husband and I will be in Vienna on May 9th.

Although my father and aunt are the keepers of the memories, I am very interested in my grandfather's life and experiences, so this would potentially be quite interesting for me.

Please let me know if an in-person meeting is a possibility for you.  If your schedule is too busy, I totally understand!

Thanks!

Carol”

Three months later, Julia and I did meet at the Albertina Museum in Vienna.

I will never forget the moment when Julia brought me into her office and there, on her bookshelf were three large binders with the words “Carl Heumann” running down the spine. Who on earth knew enough about my grandfather to fill three binders? Julia, it turns out, was that person! In my broken German, I asked Julia question after question, and in her broken (but much better) English, she answered me.

(On Julia’s bookshelf: My father’s book, The Rim of the Volcano, which he gave to her after they met in person - read on - along with four binders full of information about my grandfather and his art collection.)

That meeting with Julia changed my life.

I suddenly wanted to know everything about my grandfather and about his life as a German Jew married to a non-Jew, with Mischlinge children, during WWII. Ironically, my father had been writing about his family experiences for years, even completing two books, The Longest year in the Young Life of Peter Bauer and The Rim of the Volcano, both of which I devoured. But Dad made it clear that his books were only for the eyes of his own family. Was it more than just the desire for privacy that led my father to be so protective of his family’s information? Could it have also been fear? Once persecuted and violated, as the Nazis had done to my father’s family, I can only imagine that the terror doesn’t go away – even 60 years later.

Now someone from outside the family was interested and I was determined not to be silenced. This would be my experience and my story. Carl was my family, too, and I was determined to follow this new lead where ever it would take me. Putting my life “out there” on my blog had reaped only great things – new friendships, new knowledge, and new information and, unlike Dad, I welcomed it.

After out trip to Vienna, Julia and I stayed in touch and my father and Julia began corresponding. At first, Dad was dubious, but within a few weeks he and Julia were enthusiastically exchanging information via email. Could it be that Dad’s attitude about “our information being put out there” was changing?!  Within a few months of my trip to Vienna, I got this email from Julia:

“Carol, there is something I want to consult with you about. Since you wrote me that there are further documents, especially on the collection, I hit on an idea! What do you think if I'll come to your (your fathers) place, officially?

Provided that your father agrees and I can see the documents and use them for my report? In addition the director of the Bureau of the Commission for Provenance Research gives his consent.

So, Carol, please be honest. Crazy idea!?!

Warm regards,

Julia”

It was Julia’s job to research as much as she could about my family in order to provide information to the Art Restitution Advisory Board which provides recommendations to the Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture regarding a potential restitution. In other words, the Albertina Museum was in possession of some pieces from Carl’s collection and they might be required to restitute those pieces back to us, his heirs.

If you’ve seen Woman in Gold, our story is similar – but with art worth nowhere near as much as the Altman family’s art.

In September, 2014, Julia did come to the US – first to Seattle, where she stayed with my family for a few days…

                  

… and then to Ashland, Oregon, where Julia and Dad GOT TO WORK!

     

That suitcase that Dad brought with him when he emigrated to America in 1953 has lived under the bed in all of my father’s homes since. Watching him share the contents with Julia was such an emotional experience!

   

Whereas just a few months previous, I was being admonished for putting pieces of our family’s information on the internet, the flood gates had now been opened and Dad was suddenly ready to share information with the others outside the family who were interested in his story. In fact, Dad had come to really enjoy meeting and working with Julia and he, too, had come to regard her as a new friend.

It was a turning point. After Julia’s visit, Dad’s attitude completely changed and, within a year, Dad was asking me to “tell my story when I’m gone.” Not just to tell his story to his descendants, but to tell his story to the world!

Thanks, Julia!

My father had hoped to see Julia again, but unfortunately he died before that could happen. I would see Julia again in Chemnitz in February, 2018 when the mayor invited heirs of Carl and Thomas to come to the opening of an art exhibit in their honor, and Julia traveled to Chemnitz to join us in the celebration.

(My daughter, Kat and son, Peter, and my cousin Claudia, with Julia to her left.)

(Julia with Jürgen Nitsche, expert on Jews in Chemnitz. My father wanted so much to meet Jürgen after years of corresponding with him, but unfortunately they’d never have a chance to meet.)

The Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Arts and Culture were unable to come to a unanimous decision about restitution of Carl’s art at The Albertina. Finally, in March 2018, after four years of deliberation, the board decided not to restitute the works to our family because “although Carl Heumann was undoubtedly persecuted, the sales in question were not motivated by the situation of persecution, but by his interest as a collector.” I was neither surprised nor disappointed. By that point, the most important result of our relationship with the Austrian board – a friendship with wonderful Julia – had already happened and for that, we continue to be so grateful.

In the years since, I have been contacted by museums in Berlin, Munich, and Dresden. Art from Carl’s collection with suspect provenance (in other words, the art that was ill-begotten by Nazis during the war) were discovered in their vaults. Unlike the Austrian board, ALL the German museum boards have decided to restitute art back to Carl’s heirs. Once this damn pandemic is over, my brothers and cousins and our families plan to travel to Germany to pick up these pieces:

Albert Kirchner, Fischerwiede, 1854.

Jacob Gensler, Maedchen mit Papagai

Jacob Schiller, Devil’s Bridge at Midnight, 1800

We’ve been told that more art from Carl’s collection will likely be found in other museums in Europe. Our biggest hope is to somehow create a book of high-resolution copies of all the art from Carl’s collection that we can find. This way, we can keep Carl’s love of art alive for future generations of his descendants.