Some sources have described this situation as restitution in reverse – but it is really only reversed, in terms of the fact that the party the artefact was taken from is a museum & the party that now holds it is an individual. The ruling does nothing to reverse the logical outcome – that the party holding onto the looted artefact is instructed to hand it back to the original owner.

From:
New York Times

Nazi Victim’s Family Told to Return Artifact
By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: June 1, 2012

The decision turns on its head the familiar scenario of Holocaust victims suing to reclaim property stolen or extorted from them by the Nazis. But in this case, according to court papers, the precious 3,200-year-old Assyrian artifact had been looted, not from the survivor, but from the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin, at the close of World War II.

It is not clear how the survivor, Riven Flamenbaum, came into possession of the tablet after his liberation from Auschwitz in 1945, when he was sent to a displaced persons camp in southeastern Germany.
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Apostolos Santas became famous in 1941, when he tore down the Nazi flag that had been raised on the Acropolis in Athens.

From:
Athens News Agency

Resistance figure Santas dies
06/13/2011

(ΑΝΑ-ΜPA) — One of the two men who secretly climbed atop the emblematic Acropolis Hill in central Athens and took down the Swastika in the early morning hours of May 31, 1941 – a defiant and extraordinarily symbolic act of resistance at the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece (1941-44) – died on Saturday at the age of 89.

Apostolos Santas passed away in Athens.
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In yet another example of the peculiarities of museum collection ethics, the British Museum can hang on to carious items taken by indisputably hostile means, while at the same time searching out the possible owners of items found in the UK today. I’m not saying that doing the latter is bad, but it is unclear at what point the magical split occurs between collections that must be repatriated & those that must not.

From:
Art Daily

April 19, 2011
The Hackney Hoard: Coroner to Rule on Unique and Historic Treasure Case Found in Garden

LONDON.- On 18 April 2011 the Coroner for Inner North London resumed an inquest in relation to a hoard of American gold dollars found in Hackney in 2007. The hoard consists of 80 coins which were minted in the United States between 1854 and 1913. They are all $20 denominations of the type known as ‘Double-Eagle’ and the find is totally unprecedented in the United Kingdom.

The hoard was discovered in the back garden of a property in Hackney and reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme but in a unique twist to the story a likely descendent of the original owner of the coins has been found.
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Museums (generally those in the Western World, that have artefacts that others want returned) have long argued that they safely look after their collections, preserving them with a level of care that would not be possible elsewhere. Stories such as the one below however, remind us that there is no guaranteed safety anywhere in the world. And surely it is all the more upsetting for the original owners if they were denied access to their own artefacts, only to see them destroyed or damaged, while in the care of another institution?

An earlier article about the reconstruction of the sculptures follows at the end of the first one.

From:
Press TV

Berlin exhibits shattered WWII statues
Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:55PM
The German city of Berlin has mounted an exhibition of ancient statues and stone reliefs nearly destructed during bombings of the World War II.

The Tell Halaf Adventure displays 3,000-year-old basalt statues unearthed in present-day Syria a century ago.

The sculptures were broken into thousands of pieces during 1943 bombings and kept in the vaults of the capital’s Pergamon Museum and then in East Berlin.
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In a new book, The Sword Of Zeus: The Hidden Story Of How Greece Shaped World War II, author N. J. Slabbert argues that the Elgin Marbles ought to be returned to Athens, to honour the efforts made by Greece during the Second World War.

MEDIA RELEASE FROM MONTAGU HOUSE PUBLISHERS
For further information about this release or to request an interview with author N.J. Slabbert, please e-mail Em at infomontagu@gmail.com ; also visit www.theswordofzeus.info/ .
February 1 2011
AUTHOR URGES BRITAIN: RETURN ELGIN MARBLES TO HONOR GREECE’S WWII DEAD

Writer N.J. Slabbert, creator of the Sword Of Zeus Project on Greece’s role in WWII, has urged Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens without further delay to honor Greece’s World War II dead.

While the Marbles’ return on general ethical and cultural grounds has been supported by other public intellectuals including Nobel Prizewinning author Nadine Gordimer and journalist Christopher Hitchens, N.J. Slabbert says Greece’s critical role in WWII provides a very specific historical reason to return the Marbles now. He sets this position out in a forthcoming book, The Sword Of Zeus: The Hidden Story Of How Greece Shaped World War II.
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A fragment from the Acropolis taken from Athens during World War Two has been returned.

From:
Reuters

Acropolis marble taken by soldier is returned
Tue Dec 2, 2008 2:45pm EST

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece welcomed back on Tuesday a marble fragment from a frieze decorating the Parthenon temple which an Austrian soldier removed during World War Two, but renewed a call for all its stolen treasures to be returned.

An inscription on the fragment, measuring 7-by-30 cm (2.8 by 12 inches), says it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943 — in the midst of the three-year occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, led by Germany.
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