How did museums get their exhibits? Was there injustice involved? This is an explosive question for the houses, and not just in connection with National Socialism or the colonial era.
Erfurt (dpa/th) – For the museums in Thuringia, when researching the origin of collections, the GDR era is becoming more of a focus. This applies to the forced resettlement of GDR citizens in the 1950s and 1960s, said Gert-Dieter Ulferts, board member of the Thuringian Museum Association, the German Press Agency. After the establishment of a restricted area along the border with West Germany in the early summer of 1952, the GDR government forced thousands of people classified as “politically unreliable” to leave their homes and places of residence and to move to the hinterland.
The Thuringian open-air museum Hohenfelden (Weimarer Land district), for example, has applied to the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg for financial support for a corresponding research center. It wants to investigate whether the possessions of people who were forced to move out might have ended up illegally in museums. According to the museum director Franziska Zschäck, who is also the association’s vice president, there has not yet been a funding decision.
The Museumsverband has had a coordination office for a year and a half to support the museums in so-called provenance research. It is also about illegal acquisitions under National Socialism and during the colonial period. First, 30 houses were surveyed and isolated first checks of collections in the depots were made, said Ulferts. Another will soon follow in the Arnstadt Castle Museum.
From the point of view of the association, the main problem with origin research is the mostly low staffing level, especially in the smaller municipal museums. “They often only have one or two employees who, in addition to looking after the collection, museum education and administrative work, do not come to research the provenance,” said Ulferts, describing the situation. Well-managed museum depots are also an important prerequisite for targeted research into the origin of the collection. “But not every small museum has them.” More than 200 houses belong to the Thuringia Museum Association.
