Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU)

This unit of the American intelligence service, established in November 1944, attempted to reveal the art looting methods and capture those responsible.

Auctioning off Household Belongings

A direct connection between Holocaust and expropriation becomes particularly evident in the public auctions of household effects that belonged to deported Jews. According to the eleventh additional ordinance to the Reich Citizenship Law from November 25, 1941, all assets belonging to German Jews "would be forfeited" to the German Reich as soon as they transferred their residence abroad - a cynical euphemism for deportation to an extermination camp in the East. The exploitation of the assets of deported Jews was precisely organized. Their furnishings were often publicly auctioned in front of their houses by marshals or tax officers.