Retired professor seeks money from Germany over Nazi-seized art

Retired economics professor Fred Westfield said he was celebrating this 12th birthday when he last saw his uncle, Walter Westfeld, a renowned art collector. Two days later came Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, on Nov. 9, 1938, when Nazis looted and burned Jewish synagogues and businesses across Germany and Austria.

The young Westfield fled Germany shortly thereafter as part of a British refugee program in response to Kristallnacht that brought about 10,000 Jewish children to England. He later moved to the United States with his parents and the family anglicized their name by adding an "i."

Walter Westfeld was arrested a few days after Kristallnacht on currency violation charges for trying to move his artwork to the United States, and the Nazis auctioned hundreds of his paintings and tapestries to pay his fine, the lawsuit says.

Among the items were an El Greco that Adolf Hitler wanted for his personal collection.

Westfeld remained in prison and concentration camps until he was killed in the Auschwitz death camp in Poland.

In 2004, Westfield said he was doing an Internet search for his uncle's name and learned the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was looking for Walter Westfeld's descendants. A museum archivist was trying to find out if the Nazis illegally sold "Portrait of a Man and a Woman in an Interior" by the 17th-century Dutch master Eglon van der Neer, he said.

"It was essentially my uncle's money that made it possible for our family to survive," said Westfield, who retired from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "His heirs have a right to what was taken away from them."

The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court, says today's Germany is responsible for the actions of Hitler's regime and wants a jury to award an unspecified amount for the loss to Westfield's heirs.