User:Eli185/Otto Ollendorff

Jewish merchant and art collector from Breslau

Art collector
Lovis Corinth's painting Woman with Lilies in a Greenhouse, which originally belonged to the Steinbarth Collection in Berlin-Großlichterfelde (since 1912) was acquired by Ollendorf from Breslau.

When the Nazis came to power, Ollendorf was persecuted due to his Jewish heritage. He committed suicide on May 8, 1939. His widow Meta Ollendorf, née Conizer, and their two children escaped to North America.

The Corinth painting, however, was segregated from the emigrating family's luggage by the Gestapo in 1939. The Wenzel art dealer in Wroclaw, who had experience in such tasks, brokered the now "Aryanized" painting through the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Wroclaw to the Municipal Art Collections in Görlitz. Mrs. Ollendorf Breslau appeared as the seller of the painting with the title Frau am Fenster (Woman at the Window), the price was given as 1000 Reichsmark.

In September 1990, the heirs filed an application with the Görlitz city administration for the retransfer of the painting in accordance with the Property Act of October 3, 1990. The case was handed over to the Saxon State Office for the Settlement of Open Property Issues in Dresden. It was not until 1995 that targeted research began in Görlitz. In 1998, the result was a concrete administrative procedure with a decision stating that the Ollendorf heirs had a legitimate claim to the retransfer of ownership of the expropriated painting. The painting was restituted in 1998.