Restitutions from the Volkskundemuseum Wien before 2015After 1945, there was no real awareness in the VolkskundemuseumWien, as was also the case elsewhere in Austria, of the injusticesthat had been committed in the past. The objects acquired by themuseum as a result of Nazi persecution were treated as normalmuseum assets. It was even thought for a long time that they werebetter off in a museum than in private homes, and that the originalowners would have preferred to see their things in a museum andwould have been grateful that a museum, rather than an antiquesdealer, had taken possession of them. The persecution of their­previous owners and the enforced flight they had to endure were notseen as coercive. It was not recognised that the victims were givenno choice but to hand over their assets or to sell them, generally ata much-reduced price. Expropriations and looting were not regardedas such. For a long time, this reflected public opinion in Austria.In order to have expropriated objects returned under the­restitution laws adopted after 1946 it was necessary for their ­ownersto know where they were. On the other handregulations obligedmuseums and collections to notify the district authorities of expropri-ated assets. In November 1946, Heinrich Jungwirth who was Directorof the Volkskundemuseum, at the time, reported that the museumwas in possession of objects expropriated by the NS regime fromsix individuals. In fact the number was much higher. The value andextent of the objects concerned was also incorrect and incomplete.By 1951, eighteen objects had been returned. Six objects from Albert­Pollak(1878–1943) that ought to have been restituted were kept bythe museum in return for an export approval.Further restitutions took place after 1998, following resolutionstaken by the Ethnographic Society, which is the legal entity respon-sible for the museum. By 2015, the Volkskundemuseum Wien had­restituted twenty-four objects. The whereabouts of a further object,a jug, which is eligible for restitution, is still untraceable today.KP72