Pianos and Paintings from Transnistria: The Plunder of ‘Cultural Trophies’ During the Romanian Occupation (1941-1944)

ABSTRACT This article is the first attempt to piece together the sporadic traces of cultural plunder in wartime southwestern Ukraine under Romania’s occupation in 1941-1944. In Transnistria, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered, the violent and organized redistribution of wealth and heritage via acts of cultural looting occurred in tandem with the economic exploitation and extermination of Jews in the region. Motivated by prospects of high profits, regional and local public officials set up hidden networks and organized group schemes that transgressed the boundaries of state hierarchies and extended beyond the region. While deliberately extracting ‘cultural trophies’ from local museums, theaters, and art galleries based on Ion Antonescu’s verbal orders, they simultaneously plundered the valuables and belongings, including objects of cultural value, of the Jews.