The Lady in Gold (57 page)

  
1
IN MAY 1942, CROATIAN JEWS:
Slavcho Zagorov,
The Agricultural Economy of the Danubian Countries, 1935–45
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1955), p. 337.

  
2
AMONG THE FEW EXCEPTIONS:
Ibid.; Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
(New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 183–84.

  
3
SOME WERE FORCED TO PLEDGE:
Philip J. Cohen,
Serbia's Secret War: Propaganda and the Deceit of History
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996), p. 91.

  
4
AUTHORITIES WERE GROWING IMPATIENT:
Viktor Gutmann, memoir.

  
5
TENJE:
The Third Reich and Yugoslavia, 1933–1945,
vol. 1973 (Institute for Contemporary History, 1977), p. 668.

  
6
AT THE GYPSY VILLAGE:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

  
7
ONE NIGHT IN EARLY MAY 1943:
Gutmann,
His Trial and Death.

  
8
THEY WERE TOLD TO KEEP:
Nelly Auersperg, interview, Aug. 2006.

  
9
A FRIEND OF LUISE'S:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2006.

10
“I WILL HELP YOUR FRIEND”:
Maria Altmann, interviews; “Whose Art Is It, Anyway?”
Los Angeles Times Magazine,
Dec. 16, 2011.

11
HERE LUISE WAS EXPECTED TO WAIT:
Maria Altmann, interviews, 2001–2011.

12
ONE DAY SHE HAD OPENED:
Telephone interviews with Eddy Auersperg, Jan. 24, 2007, and Maria Altmann, 2001–2008.

  
1
IT WAS A WARM, BLUSTERY DAY:
Document for Storage of the “Sammlung S. Lederer,” or Serena Lederer collection, listing the Klimt paintings transferred from the Belvedere
to the Schloss Immendorf; signed by Baron Freudenthal, dated Mar. 3, 1943. A copy of the document provided courtesy of the Belvedere.

  
2
“WAS VERY HUMAN”:
Anna Lenji, “The Testimony of Anna Lenji on Labour in an Estate,” Shoah Resource Center, Yad Vashem, p. 1.

  
3
“WHICH I THOUGHT WAS HORRIBLE”:
Ibid.

  
4
THE AUSTRIAN GALLERY'S FRITZ NOVOTNY SENT:
The Belvedere inventory of important paintings signed by Fritz Novotny on Aug. 1, 1944, included works by Kokoschka. A copy of original document provided courtesy of the Belvedere.

  
5
THEIR FATHER HAD WARNED THEM:
Johannes Freudenthal, telephone interview, Jan. 20, 2007.

  
1
FOR NELLY, NOW FOURTEEN:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews Vancouver, Aug. 2006.

  
2
INSTEAD, THEY ARRESTED HIM:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews Aug. 2006.

  
3
THE SIGHT OF THE SUFFERING CHILD:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews Aug. 2006.

  
1
WOLFGANG WAS ALSO LISTED:
Lillie,
Was einmal,
p. 662.

  
2
CONSTRUCTION CREWS THAT WERE EXCAVATING:
Hans and Gertrude Aurenhammer,
Das Belvedere in Wien
(Vienna: Verlag Anton Schroll, 1971), p. 36.

  
3
HER NEIGHBOR, A LITTLE BOY NAMED HANS HOLLEIN:
Hans Hollein, interview.

  
4
THE COMPOSER RICHARD STRAUSS:
Kennedy,
Richard Strauss,
pp. 101, 108. See also Mark-Daniel Schmid,
The Richard Strauss Companion
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), p. 53; and Del Mar,
Richard Strauss,
vol. 3, p. 400.

  
5
HE SPENT THE LAST HOURS:
Magnin-Haberditzl,
Familien-Chronik,
p. 17.

  
6
“THINK, DEAR FRIEND”:
Rainer Maria Rilke,
Letters to a Young Poet,
trans. Joan M. Burnham (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2000), p. 51.

  
7
“YOU COME AND KEEP”:
Rainer Maria Rilke,
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge,
trans. Burton Pike (Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2008), p. 56.

  
8
THE MASSIVE FORTIFIED BUNKER:
Aurenhammer and Aurenhammer,
Das Belvedere,
p. 36.

  
9
“CASTLE OF THE FIRST REICHSMARSCHALL”:
Ibid.

10
BY THEN DEPORTEES WERE DRIVEN AWAY:
Bukey,
Hitler's Austria,
p. 164.

11
THE MAN RIA HAD KILLED HERSELF FOR:
Christie's press release, May 28, 2010. See also Comini,
Gustav Klimt,
p. 29, citing a 1975 letter from Erich Lederer identifying Munk as the fiancée of Hans Heinz Ewers.

12
HE EARNED THE FÜHRER'S APPROVAL:
Max Beloff,
On the Track of Tyranny
(Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), pp. 58–59.

13
MORGENSTERN WROTE HITLER:
Hamann,
Hitler's Vienna,
pp. 357–59.

14
SHE MADE A FINAL FORAY:
Stanislaus Bachofen-Echt, interviews.

15
“DIED OF A BROKEN HEART”:
Rinesch, memoir.

  
1
SOME PARTISANS BEFRIENDED:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews.

  
2
THE CROATIAN NO LONGER FELT OBLIGATED:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews. Nelly also tells this story in a private family memoir.

  
3
THEN, ONE DAY, THE FAMILY:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews.

  
1
THAT SEPTEMBER, ERICH FÜHRER:
Sultano and Werkner,
Oskar Kokoschka,
p. 56.

  
2
“DEGENERATE ART”:
Ibid.

  
3
“HERR PRESIDENT, HERE IS YOUR PAINTING”:
Ibid.

  
4
“WILL IT BE OF ANY INTEREST”:
Ibid., p. 155.

  
5
BUT ARCHIVES THAT SURFACED:
Czernin,
Die Falschung,
p. 154.

  
6
AND THAT FÜHRER MADE:
Ibid., p. 141.

  
1
BY THEN, HITLER'S ARMY HAD STOLEN:
Greg Bradsher, National Archive and Records Assistant Chief Administration, “Documenting Nazi Plunder of European Art.”

  
2
“MY PICTURES”:
The Private and Political Testaments of Hitler, Apr. 29, 1945, Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality.

  
3
THEN, ACCORDING TO A POLICE REPORT:
A belated police report on the incident, dated May 20, 1946, was provided and translated at the Leopold Museum. In a Mar. 28, 2011, article titled “Burned to the Ground,” grandson Rudolf Freudenthal told the
Niederösterreichische Nachrichten
newspaper that the SS used timed fuses to ignite the fire.

  
4
THIS WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN:
The precise number of paintings burned at Schloss Immendorf is unknown. An inventory signed by Baron Rudolf Freudenthal lists ten paintings from the Lederer collection. Belvedere researchers add an eleventh,
Medicine,
which Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer helped the Belvedere to acquire. But in the book
Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele und die Familie Lederer,
by Klimt expert Christian Nebehay (Vienna: Verlag Galerie Kornfeld Bern, 1987), p. 17, there is a list of thirteen Lederer Klimts sent to the Immendorf. With
Medicine,
that would bring the total to fourteen.

  
5
THE COUNTESS MARGIT BATTHYANY, NÉE THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA:
David R. L. Litchfield,
The Thyssen Art Macabre: The History of the Thyssens
(London: Quartet Books, 2006), p. 181.

  
6
“ORDINARY PEOPLE BORE WITNESS”:
Bukey,
Hitler's Austria,
p. 224.

  
7
IN THE PRETTY IRON-MINING MOUNTAIN VILLAGE:
Ibid., p. 225.

  
8
IN WIENER NEUDORF:
Ibid.

  
9
FIVE-HUNDRED-POUND BOMBS:
Nicholas,
Rape of Europa,
pp. 316–17.

10
ON MAY 5, THE MINES:
Ibid., p. 317.

11
“LATEST HORDE OF BARBARIANS”:
Marie Vassiltchikov,
Berlin Diaries, 1940–1945
(New York: Vintage, 1988), p. 270.

12
HE HAD POSTERS PUT UP:
Ibid., p. 266.

13
“THESE DAMAGES COULD HAVE BEEN”:
“Der Zeit ihre Kunst, der Kunst ihre Freiheit: Wiederaufbau und Neugestaltung der Secession,”
Arbeiter-Zeitung,
July 20, 1951, provided and translated by the architect, author, and Secession historian Otto Kapfinger.

14
“IN ORDER NOT TO LEAVE”:
Ibid.

15
“A VERY PRECIOUS BUILDING”:
Ibid.

16
SHE SURVIVED THE GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG:
Monika Mayer, Provenance Researcher at the Belvedere. A Belvedere inventory lists the second portrait of Adele in wartime storage at the Weinern Castle: July 31, 1944, memo from Fritz Novotny, on Direktion der Österreichen Galerie stationery. The second portrait of Adele was listed as “Frau Bl. Bauer.” In addition to the account of the Secession fire in the
Arbeiter-Zeitung,
see also Andreas Lehne, “Die Katastrophe von Immendorf, nach dem Archivmaterial
des Bundesdenkalamtes,” in
Belvedere: Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst
(Vienna: Sonderband Gustav Klimt, 2007), p. 54.

  
1
“RESTITUTION OF PROPERTY”:
Czernin,
Die Falschung,
p. 262.

  
2
“THE ENTIRE NATION”:
Ibid. See also Petropoulos, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos.”

  
3
THE KLIMT PORTRAITS OF ERICH'S SISTER:
Natter and Frodl,
Klimt's Women,
p. 91.

  
4
“BETWEEN 1938 AND 1945”:
Monika Mayer, “Provenance Research at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere,” unpublished essay, presented at Sotheby's London, Oct. 2006, p. 3.

  
5
ON OCTOBER 22, 1945, FERDINAND SIGNED:
Petropoulos, “Report of Professor Jonathan Petropoulos,” p. 23.

  
1
THE NEW COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT:
Gutmann,
His Trial and Death,
p. 15.

  
2
BUT HER FATHER WASN'T THERE:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, 2006–2011.

  
3
THE POSTWAR SHOW TRIALS:
Pamela Ballinger,
History in Exile: Memory and Identity at the Borders of the Balkans
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 108; John Borneman,
Death of the Father: An Anthropology of the End in Political Authority
(New York: Berghahn Books, 2005), p. 150; MacDonald,
Balkan Holocaust?: Serbian and Croatian Victim-Centered Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia
(Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 191; Ivo Banac,
With Stalin Against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 110.

  
4
“PARASITES” WHO “EXPLOITED THE WORKING CLASSES”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews.

  
5
“THE GERMAN WAR ECONOMY”:
Viktor Gutmann, memoir.

  
6
THE PROSECUTOR ALSO CLAIMED:
Gutmann,
His Trial and Death,
p. 17.

  
7
VIKTOR ARGUED:
Ibid.

  
8
“GUTMANN IS ONE OF THE WORST”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

  
9
“WORKERS OF BELISCE”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, e-mail, May 3, 2011.

10
AT THE TRAIN STATION:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, e-mail, May 3, 2011.

11
“LET'S MOVE”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

12
“YOU CAN GO HOME NOW”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

13
“GOODBYE. THANK YOU”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

14
VIKTOR HANDED NELLY:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

15
“DON'T YOU KNOW”:
Nelly Auersperg, interviews, Aug. 2006.

16
“DEAREST LUISE”:
“To Luise, Written in the cell No. 29, on January 1, 1946, at 7 p.m., Zagreb. Baron Viktor Gutmann.” Family archives. Courtesy of Nelly Auersperg.

17
“IF YOU DON'T STOP PESTERING PEOPLE”:
Gutmann,
His Trial and Death,
p. 19: “Don't ask too many questions or you will find yourself in the same situation.”

18
SHE WAS CAUGHT BY A BORDER GUARD:
Salomon Grimberg, interviews, May 1, 2007.

19
“THEY BURNED MY WIFE”:
Ibid. Luise was arrested trying to leave the country several times. This account was given in Dallas on May 1, 2007, by her friend and confidant Dr. Salomon Grimberg, a Dallas psychiatrist and art historian who has published widely on subjects from Klimt to Frida Kahlo.