Kien, Julius

Leonhard Weidinger — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 14:36:16 +0000

Kien, Julius Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 04/27/2021 - 16:09

Julius Kien

21 January 1868 Uherský Ostroh, Moravia – 21 June 1949 Sydney

Julius Kien was born in Uherský Ostroh, Moravia, as the third of six children. His family is thought to have moved to Vienna before the turn of the century. He owned a commercial agency on today's Rooseveltplatz in Vienna. According to the declaration of assets he was forced to make in July 1938 because of his Jewish origins, he owned a house in Pötzleinsdorf, securities, cash and unspecified artworks and pictures. The German art dealer Adolf Weinmüller evaluated and took some of these art objects for sale. Handelsagentur Julius Kien und Co. was closed on 30 November 1938. Friedrich Röck, director of the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology), informed the Ministry for Internal and Cultural Affairs on 10 March 1939 that Julius Kien's ethnographic collection contained two Chinese burial urns from the Sung era and a hanging plant pot from the Ming era, which had been prohibited from export and given by the former owner to the Museum für Völkerkunde. The next day, a letter was sent to Julius Kien confirming that the museum had accepted the three objects as a gift by agreement with the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Office) and had no objection to the export of the remaining ethnographic objects in the collection. In March 1939 Julius Kien fled via Switzerland and London to Sydney, Australia. At the end of March 1939, the director of the Museum für Völkerkunde requested authorization from the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office) to purchase the three objects owned by Julius Kien for 700 Reichsmarks. The documents do not indicate whether the museum acquired these objects as a gift or purchase.

In 1970, Hedwig Spiegel, née Kien (1903–1985), and Friedrich/Frederick Kien (1904–1998), Julius Kien's children, claimed unsuccessfully to the Finanzlandesdirektion für Wien, Niederösterreich und das Burgenland (Provincial Tax Office for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland) for the return of four artworks listed in the special edition of the Wiener Zeitung of 2 September 1969 under the first Kunst- und Kulturgutbereinigungsgesetz (Determination of Ownership of Works of Art and Cultural Assets Act). The claims were not in connection with the three objects acquired in 1939 by the Museum für Völkerkunde, which were dealt with during the systematic provenance research under the 1998 Art Restitution Act. Etta Becker-Donner, later director of the Völkerkundemuseum (Museum of Ethnology, now Weltmuseum Wien), had noted in autumn 1946 in the Kien file that she intended to register these acquisitions under the Vermögensentziehungs-Anmeldungsverordnung (Asset Expropriation Registration Regulation) but apparently never did so. In 2001, on the basis of provenance research, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of the two burial urns and the hanging pot by the Museum für Völkerkunde to the heirs of Julius Kien. The objects were returned in 2006 and then sold to the museum, the proceeds going to the Yad Vashem memorial.

Keywords

Art collector

Nazi persecutee

Nazi asset expropriation

Entrepreneur

Ildikó Cazan-Simányi

18 November 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Julius Kien, 14.3.2001, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Kien_Julius_2001-03-14.pdf (3.12.2020).

Ildikó Cazan-Simányi, "... ganz auserlesene, nicht mehr erhältliche Stücke ..." Die ethnographischen Objekte des Julius Kien (1868–1949), in: Archiv Weltmuseum Wien 69 [voraussichtlich 2021].

Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Jetzt ist er bös, der Tennenbaum. Die zweite Republik und ihre Juden. Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Wien 2005, 46–47.

N. N., Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung, Julius Kien, URL: www.lostart.de/Content/051_ProvenienzRaubkunst/DE/Sammler/K/Kien,%20Julius.html (3.12.2020).

N. N., Eintrag Julius Kien, in: Geni A MyHeritage company, URL: www.geni.com/people/Julius-Kien/6000000007375375630 (3.12.2020).

Wilhelm, Flora

Leonhard Weidinger — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 16:17:25 +0000

Wilhelm, Flora Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 04/27/2021 - 16:13

Flora Wilhelm

20 May 1868 Hohenems – 23 September 1942 Treblinka, Generalgouvernement (now Poland)

Flora Fränkel was born on 20 May 1868 as the third of ten children of Emil Fränkel and Mathilde, née Levi-Sulzer, in Hohenems, Vorarlberg. In 1892 she married the knitwear manufacturer Eugen Wilhelm in Hohenems, where her children Henriette and Karl were born. Around 1900 Flora's family followed her parents to Vienna. Eugen Wilhelm emigrated in 1907 on his own to New York City, USA, where he died nine years later. In 1914 his daughter Henriette followed him, giving birth to her own daughter Frieda that year. Karl, an employee of the Zionistisches Landeskomitee, states that he was registered in Vienna from 1900 to 1934. After several acts of violence by the Nazis, he fled in 1934 to Budapest. Flora Wilhelm remained in Vienna, separated from her family.

After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich, she was subject to persecution as a Jew by the Nazis and was forced to move to a collective apartment at Seegasse 9 in the 9th district, from where she was deported to Theresienstadt in June 1942 and three months later to Treblinka, where she was murdered. In 1939 Flora Wilhelm had loaned ninety-three ethnographic objects from various parts of the world to the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology) in Vienna. Provenance research has been unable to establish why and when the figures, jugs, bowls, containers, ceramics, chains, baskets, vases, fabrics, blankets, leather goods, bridles, shoes, weapons and musical instruments were collected by her. From 1971 to 1974, Alfred Janata, curator at the Völkerkundemuseum attempted to locate Flora Wilhelm's heirs with the aid of Sammelstelle A (an institution for asserting claims and disposing of property expropriated under the Nazi regime). In spite of correspondence with the son Karl Wilhelm in Budapest – he had been forced to work for several months in 1944 in the copper mines in Bor, Serbia, and survived the war in hiding – the objects remained in the Museum für Völkerkunde. It is not clear why they were not restituted. It was not until 1999, during the reorganization of the museum, that objects of various provenances were discovered again, identified from lists as having been loaned by Flora Wilhelm, photographed and packed in specially marked boxes. As the Art Restitution Advisory Board determined in 2004 that the loans did not come under the provisions of the Art Restitution Act, the objects owned by Flora Wilhelm have not yet been restituted and are still in the museum.

Keywords

Nazi persecutee

Collector

Ildikó Cazan-Simányi

18 November 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Flora Wilhelm, 14.12.2005, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Wilhelm_Flora_2005-12-14.pdf (3.12.2020).

DÖW, Opferdatenbank des Dokumentationsarchives des österreichischen Widerstandes, Opfersuche: Flora Wilhelm, URL: www.doew.at (3.12.2020).

Hohenems Genealogie, Jüdische Familiengeschichte in Vorarlberg und Tirol, Emil und Flora Fränkel, Mathilde Levi-Sulzer, Eugen, Henriette, Frieda und Karl Wilhelm, URL: www.hohenemsgenealogie.at (3.12.2020).