On July 22, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York announced the seizure of 17 “manuscripts and scrolls” of community records from Jewish communities in what are now Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. The manuscripts disappeared during the Holocaust and were assumed lost. They were discovered through (or, rather, at) Kestenbaum Auctions in Brooklyn, dealers in many kinds of Judaica.

Described in other reports as “funeral scrolls,” the manuscripts are, with one exception, what are known as pinkasim (sing.: pinkas; the word in modern Hebrew means “ledger”), bound manuscript folios that were maintained by local chevrei kaddisha (burial societies). Some date from the nineteenth century, while one Hungarian volume dates from after the Holocaust. The manuscripts are in both Hebrew and Yiddish (one volume is partially in German) and written largely in calligraphic hands of varying accomplishment, some in full color with adornments and illustrations. The provide invaluable information about once-thriving communities that were destroyed by the Nazis, and, whatever their value to private collectors today, belong to the communities from which they stem.

The Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 that concluded World War II stipulated that all unclaimed movable Jewish property at war’s end was to have been returned to the communities of the survivors. The survivors in this case are the descendants of the Jews of the communities in what are today Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine that produced the pinkasim. These were communities that were decimated by the Nazis; the Jews who survived Auschwitz returned to find that their homes had been looted and that priceless community records had disappeared.

In this case, the chief applicable US statute is Title 19, United States Code, Section 1595a(c)(1)(A), which provides that “merchandise which is introduced or attempted to be introduced into the United States contrary to law . . . shall be seized and forfeited if it . . . is stolen, smuggled, or clandestinely imported or introduced.”

In the words of the affidavit filed by special agent Megan M. Buckley in support of the seizure warrant:

nearly all of the Manuscripts and Scrolls disappeared or were confiscated by individuals or entities who had no legal right to procure them either during or immediately after the Holocaust. [Note that one of the volumes dates from after the Holocaust and, thus, must have been smuggled out of Hungary under different circumstances.] As such, they represent invaluable cultural religious artifacts that should be properly returned to the survivors of their original Jewish communities.

Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine were under Communist rule from 1948 to 1989. During that period, legitimate export of the materials would have been next to impossible. When combined with the current restrictions on the export of cultural property from each of these nations, and the absence of any provenance or documentation of conveyance from any survivors of the Jewish Communities who created or originally owned the Manuscripts and Scrolls, there is no legitimate means by which the Manuscripts and Scrolls could have been imported into the United States without having been illegally acquired or stolen from the originating Jewish Communities.

The application for the warrant dismisses the remedy of a restraining order as insufficient for protecting the materials. In February 2021, when the Department of Justice first contacted Kestenbaum, the auctioneers had already sold four of the original 21 lots, two to the State Library of Israel, one to a private collector in Israel, and one to a private collector in Monsey, NY. There is demand for materials of this type, and

it is unclear how much longer the auction house will continue to cooperate while it is in possession of one of the Manuscripts and Scrolls. As an auction house, it may return the item to the consigner, who could then sell it, or the auction house could sell the item in its possession internationally, as it has in the past, potentially placing it beyond the Court’s jurisdiction and undermining the government’s efforts to return it to the survivors and successors of the community that created it.

The consigner caused the plot to thicken further, as he raised even more significant concerns regarding potential liquidation. While the consigner also has been cooperating with law enforcement up to this point, it is unclear how long the consigner will continue to do so. Notably, the consigner has repeatedly expressed that he feels that he should be compensated for having the Manuscripts and Scrolls which contributes to the government’s concerns of potential liquidation. Indeed, the consigner has expressly repeatedly stated his intention to sell the Manuscripts and Scrolls to international buyers, one of whom, in Ireland, already has contacted him directly, and then let those international buyers make high quality facsimiles and distribute them to interested parties.

Thus:

it is clear that, absent a warrant, the consigner’s intention is to sell the Manuscripts and Scrolls to the highest bidders and he will not provide them voluntarily to the survivors and successors of the originating communities.

As a result, “a restraining order will not be sufficient to preserve these unique cultural works. For these reasons, seizure of the Manuscripts and Scrolls is needed in this case.”

Accordingly, the seizure warrant was issued by United States Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo on July 20; the manuscripts were duly seized on the 22^nd, and now await the no-doubt complex process of repatriation that will restore the pinkasim to their rightful owners.