France returns Torah scrolls looted by the Nazis

Four Torah scrolls that had been looted in Germany by the Nazis and were kept in a Parisian museum were returned on Thursday, June 5, to representatives of the German Jewish community, the French Ministry of Culture announced.

These "mappot," long linen strips embroidered or painted with Hebrew inscriptions, were used to protect Torah scrolls and were looted during Nazi attacks on synagogues in Würzburg and Kitzingen, Bavaria, possibly during Kristallnacht in November 1938 .

After the war, these pieces of fabric made from circumcision swaddling clothes were found by the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, which handed them over in 1951, along with other objects, to a Parisian museum that later moved to become the Museum of Jewish Art and History (Mahj).

Although they have no commercial value, these mappots "are witnesses to a major episode in the history of European Jews," declared Dominique Schnapper, president of the Mahj, during the restitution ceremony on Thursday.

Through research, the museum's teams were able to precisely identify the places of origin of these strips and enable their return to the Shalom Europa Museum of the Jewish Community of Würzburg and Lower Franconia.

The research also helped identify the four Jewish children to whom the bandages belonged, all of whom were able to emigrate "in time" to the United States to escape the Holocaust , according to the ministry.

Research of this type "remains difficult, especially when no request for restitution has been made," said French Culture Minister Rachida Dati in a statement. "But we are continuing it, in order to identify the works and property looted during the Nazi period and to return them despite everything, more than 80 years after the events."

Legally, these four religious objects were simply on deposit at the Mahj and their return to Germany did not therefore make it necessary to deviate from the principle of inalienability of public collections as is the case for the restitution of colonial property, explained representatives of the museum.

In 2023, France adopted a framework law that allows for exceptions to this principle to more easily return cultural property looted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.