I was invited to speak at the 39th St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, one of the largest in the country with over 10,000 audience members.
People come to hear authors speak on topics as diverse as: business, cooking, economics, family, fiction, history, music, religion, sports, and more.
My event, in partnership with the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, was in commemoration of the 79th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
I really enjoyed meeting the enthusiastic volunteers in the bookstore, which I visited before going on stage. Great to learn that all contributors’ books are on sale for the duration of the Festival!
It was a packed auditorium, with 275 people listening intently to the Stolen Legacy story.
“On the Road” with Brooklyn Law School on November 2 at St. Andrews Country Club, Boca Raton, Florida.
Up on stage with Nick Allard, President, Joseph Crea Dean and Professor of Law at BLS, talking to alumni and invited guests about Stolen Legacy.
The Law School, with graduates practicing in 49 states, Washington D.C., and 37 countries, hosts events across the United States in order to connect with alumni.
There were many questions about the legal position regarding property restitution in former East Germany, Poland, Belarus and even a query from someone who had fled Iraq decades ago and would like to reclaim his long lost family buildings.
Once again, it was such a full house that additional seating had to be carried in so that that everyone could be accommodated. And there were plenty of questions for me to answer.
The first event of the season was held at the Mandel JCC, Palm Beach Gardens. It turned out to be so popular that more chairs had to be brought in. About 175 people attended.
It is always wonderful to have so many excellent questions and such an engaged audience.
The Rose Valland Institute, an independent interdisciplinary project initiated by artist Maria Eichhorn within the context of documenta 14 (the art project held once every five years in Kassel, Germany), hosted a lecture and workshop on the fate of European property during the years 1933 to 1949. The Institute researches and documents the expropriation of Europe’s Jewish community and the ongoing impact of those confiscations.
And I was there speaking about “Stolen Legacy.”
Based in Kassel’s Neue Galerie, the Institute is named after art historian Rose Valland, who secretly recorded details of Nazi plundering of state-owned French and private Jewish-owned art from France during the German occupation of Paris. After the war, she worked for the Commission de Récupération Artistique (Commission for the Recovery of Works of Art) and played a decisive role in the restitution of Nazi-looted artworks.
The Rose Valland Institute investigates fundamental issues connected with ownership of artworks, property, real estate, assets, companies, moveable objects, libraries as well as scientific works and patents that were acquired by illegal means from Jewish citizens in Germany and the occupied countries during the Nazi era and have still not been returned.
The Institute is appealing to the public to research Nazi loot that may exist in their own inherited property and to submit their findings. The ultimate aim is to return that property to its rightful owners or their heirs.
I was invited to speak at the 39th St. Louis Jewish Book Festival, one of the largest in the country with over 10,000 audience members.
