Tuesday 31 May 2011

Heir fights restitution of Egyptian artifacts

The grandson of the Egyptologist Georg Steindorff has entered the debate surrounding the Germany court ruling that the University of Leipzig must hand over its collection of 150 Egyptian artifacts to the Jewish Claims Conference. He believes the collection should stay in Germany.

The university bought the collection in 1936 from Professor Steindorff. The court said Steindorff had been forced to sell his collection under Nazi rule for a value far below its actual worth.

Grandson Thomas Hemer, 88, now living in Nevada, has journeyed to Leipzig, to fight for the legacy of his grandfather, an Egyptologist of Jewish origin forced to leave Germany after the Nazis came to power.

Losing the collection “would destroy an institute that my grandfather cherished,” Hemer said in an interview at the museum in Leipzig, reports Bloomberg.

See: Head of Nefertiti embroiled in German court ruling on Egyptian artifacts

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