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11th Nazi-Looted Artwork Returned to Heirs of Jewish Cabaret Performer Killed in Holocaust
A drawing by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele became on Friday the 11th artwork returned to the family of Fritz Grünbaum, an Austrian-Jewish cabaret performer whose art collection was stolen by the Nazis before he was killed in a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and US Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo of Homeland Security Investigations announced in New York City on Friday the return of “Seated Nude Woman, front view” by Schiele. The drawing was seized by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office earlier this year from the estate of Gustav “Gus” Papanek. The artwork from 1918 is believed to depict Schiele’s wife.
Ernst and Helene Papanek, Austrian Jews who fled Nazi persecution in 1938 and emigrated to the United States in 1940, purchased the artwork in 1961 not knowing that it had been stolen from Grünbaum. They gave the drawing as a gift to their son, Gus, in 1969 and it remained in his estate until the latter’s death in 2022. The Papanek family fully cooperated with the District Attorney’s office to return the drawing, and it was given to the Grünbaum family at a ceremony on Friday in New York that was attended by members of both families.
“We believe that returning the drawing is the right thing to do,” said the Papanek family. “The experience of the two families serves as yet another reminder of the evil and brutality of the Nazi regime.”
“The recovery of this important artwork — stolen from a prominent Jewish critic of Adolf Hitler — sends a message to the world that crime does not pay and that the law enforcement community in New York has not forgotten the dark lessons of World War II,” said Timothy Reif, Grünbaum’s relative.
Grünbaum was a writer, director, comedian, and film and radio star in Austria whose art collection comprised of hundreds of pieces, including more than 80 works by Schiele. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1938 after their annexation of Austria and forced to give his wife power of attorney. She was later coerced to hand over her husband’s entire art collection to Nazi officials. Many of the confiscated works were auctioned or sold abroad to finance the Nazi Party. Grünbaum died in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1941, and his wife was killed a year later in another Nazi concentration camp.
In September 2023, the District Attorney’s Office returned seven Schiele artworks to Grünbaum heirs from the Museum of Modern Art; The Ronald Lauder Collection; The Morgan Library; The Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and the Vally Sabarsky Trust in Manhattan. Another artwork was returned voluntarily by the collector Michael Lesh directly to Grünbaum’s family in October 2023, and in January 2024, two more artworks were returned — from the Allen Museum of Art at Oberlin College and the Carnegie Museum of Art.
The Schiele drawing “Russian War Prisoner” remains seized in place at the Art Institute of Chicago, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The post 11th Nazi-Looted Artwork Returned to Heirs of Jewish Cabaret Performer Killed in Holocaust first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.