Berlin to return 1913 painting to Jewish family

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A 1913 painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner depicting a lively Berlin street scene will be returned to heirs of the Jewish family that was forced to hand it over to the Nazis before World War II, the state government said Thursday. Kirchner's oil painting "Berliner Strassenszene" has hung in the Bruecke Museum in the German capital since 1980. It will remain in the museum until Sunday, before being returned to heirs of the family that originally owned it, Berlin's state ministry for culture said in a statement. No details of the restitution, including the identity of the original owners, or the heirs, were to be released, the statement said. The painting's value was estimated to be over €10 million (US$12.59 million), the government said.