The fate of a rare violin abducted by the Nazis in Germany was settled with HUF paying 100 million in compensation.

On the last day of the year, the Franz Hofmann and Sophie Hagemann Trusts in Bavaria announced a UR 285,000 (HUF 105 million) compensation to the heirs of Jewish music merchant Felix Hildeshimer. The full amount was transferred the day before, they said.

Hildsheimer bought an instrument made in Italy in 1706 in 1938, but soon became a Jew, forced to sell his home and music business, and committed suicide in 1939.

Sophie Hagemann, co-founder of the Music Foundation, who died in 2010, bought the violin in 1974 and played it himself. Although the purchase was made in good faith and helped to clarify the appearance of the foundation, the German panel for proposals for the recovery of cultural assets stolen during Nazism did not recommend the return of the violin in 2016, only to provide financial compensation to the heirs.

The proposal was later accepted by both parties, but the Amberg Foundation, which promotes violin education mainly to young people around Nuremberg, postponed the fee and refused on the grounds that the former owner “did not lose the instrument” in early 2021. Heirs can ask for it. “

However, the parties themselves did not deny that the foundation had deteriorated and the valuable violin had been lost to Nazi persecution as the Reconstruction Committee raised the proposed compensation from € 100,000 to € 285,000 in early December this year. Family. Meanwhile, during 2021, the Foundation elected a new president, who took the position of a “just solution.”

By paying compensation, the trust’s assets have been reduced by less than half, but the company is looking for a way to continue operating in line with its original purpose. According to the foundation, they agreed with the heirs that they were trying to turn Gurneri into a “tool of understanding”. (MTI / dpa)