[Pool/InTime News]
More than 90 Greek Jewish religious artefacts stolen during the Nazi occupation of Greece are being returned from Poland under an agreement between the two countries, the Culture Ministry has said.
The collection, comprising 91 items, was looted from synagogues and Jewish families in Greece by the Nazi-era Rosenberg Taskforce, an organization tasked with appropriating cultural property during World War II.
The items include 46 liturgical textiles, 17 pairs of Torah scrolls, nine individual Torah scrolls or fragments and a pair of hanging ornaments.
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni traveled to Warsaw on Wednesday to receive the artefacts, describing their return as a significant act of historical justice and the first repatriation of cultural goods from Poland to their country of origin.
“These relics … are part of the living memory of my country and of Jewish Greeks,” Mendoni said, noting their connection to communities devastated during the Holocaust.
Polish Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska called the repatriation “a historic moment,” achieved in less than two years through cooperation between the two ministries.
The artefacts were discovered after the war in castles in Lower Silesia where Nazi-looted property had been stored and were transferred in 1951 to the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Greece first requested their return in 2001.
