The Orpheus Clock Quotes

“humans with their brief lives, these beautiful objects could reach across the generations, each with a story to tell if only one could unlock its secrets.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“It dawned on me that at least some of the art my family had lovingly collected might also serve as memorial candles.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“Dozens of paintings could fit those general descriptions. Instead, claimants had to describe their stolen painting in detail, including if possible the canvas measurements—an important identifying point in paintings—and provide documentation of prior ownership.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“Thinking about Fritz and Louise’s orphaned collection, I began to wonder whether art could have a memory. Could Le Poirier, once so lovingly displayed in Louise’s warm living room, feel the pain of neglect as it withered in some warehouse?”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“Technically only involuntary sales were eligible for restitution under the new 1945 rules, and the Dutch authorities were insisting that Fritz Gutmann had willingly sold his artworks to the Nazis and had been paid for the sale—this despite the fact that the money “paid” to Fritz by Haberstock, Böhler, and other Nazis had been deposited in Nazi-controlled accounts.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“armies, as had the Allies’ own records of recovered looted art—and they would remain classified for decades. It was a perfect example of what would later be known as a “catch-22.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“when those documents still existed, claimants often could not access them because the captured Nazi records of looted artworks had been classified and sealed by the Allied”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“could a claimant provide documentation of ownership when, often, those documents had been dispersed, destroyed, or taken by the very people who stole the painting”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“Dutch Jews were being forcibly herded into the Amsterdam “ghetto,” and then into the Westerbork concentration camp. Ironically, the ghetto, or Jewish quarter, was where Jewish refugees had sought refuge from the Spanish Inquisition, at the end of the fifteenth century.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“when offered the title of baron by Bismarck and the Kaiser, he declined. Perhaps he felt he just didn’t need it. He was, after all, a modern man. According to the Annual of the Fortune and Income of Millionaires in Prussia—a sort of Forbes 500 of the day—Eugen was one of the wealthiest men in Germany.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“Eugen remained a man of considerable influence, part of a network of industrialists and bankers who worked hand in hand with the German state to further Germany’s interests as well as their own. They financed not only Germany’s industry, but also its growing and far-flung imperial interests in Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Like Eugen, many of these key players were of Jewish origin, including Carl Fürstenberg, the Arnholds, the Rathenaus, the Warburgs, and Albert Ballin, director of the Hamburg-America Line.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis

“in a French interview Eugen went so far, with considerable vision, as to foretell a form of European union.”
― Simon Goodman, The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis