In 1998 an international conference on how to deal with assets from the period of the Holocaust took place in Washington D.C., with 42 states, non-governmental organizations and the Vatican participating. Its result was the Washington Declaration that lays down, among other things, when it is certain or highly likely that an artwork was expropriated under circumstances of NS-persecution. If so, a just and fair solution to the satisfaction of the legal descendants of the legally abused persons has to be found. This may be a restitution of the artwork.
As a consequence of the Washington Declaration, the German Federal Government, the Federal States and the chief local government associations passed a Common Declaration in which they assumed the obligation of finding and restituting assets expropriated under circumstances of NS persecution, especially those expropriated from Jewish ownership.
