“This is a meticulous and finely written account of Dina Gold’s struggle to seek belated justice for her mother, with all the twists and turns one would expect from a fictional detective story — but it is all true.”
When Dina Gold was a little girl, her grandmother told her stories about the glamorous life she had led in pre-war Berlin and how she dreamed of one day reclaiming the grand building that had housed the family business.
Dina’s grandmother died in 1977, leaving behind no documents, not even an address, to help locate the property or prove its ownership. But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Dina had not forgotten her grandmother’s tales and set out to find the truth.
In 1990, Dina marched into a German government ministry at Krausenstrasse 17/18, just two blocks from Checkpoint Charlie, and declared:
“I’ve come to claim my family’s building.”
And so began her legal struggle — to reclaim the building that had belonged to her family.
The six-story office block had been the headquarters of the H. Wolff fur company, one of the most successful Jewish fashion firms in Germany. Built by Dina’s great-grandfather in 1910, it was foreclosed on by the Victoria Insurance Company in 1937. Ownership was transferred to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Hitler’s railways, that later transported millions of Jews to death camps.
Today the Victoria is part of ERGO, a leading German insurance company. Few are aware that the Victoria was once chaired by a lawyer with connections to the top of the Nazi party. The Victoria was also part of a consortium that insured SS-owned workshops using slave labor at Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
Dina has delved deep into archives across the world and made shocking discoveries. What she found has repercussions even in today’s Germany.
In a major victory, Dina persuaded the German government to put up a plaque in July 2016 acknowledging in both German and English the history of “The Wolff Building.”
“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.
Talking about “Stolen Legacy” at the Mandel JCC in Boynton Beach on October 30. This was the second event in Florida for The Gross Family Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
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 Gross Family Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, a joint initiative with the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, invited me to participate in their 2017-2018 Speaker Series.
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.
“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.
