Congress honors ‘Monument Man'
Harry Ettlinger, right, is congratulated by U.S. Rep.
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Dist II) on his being honored.
Harry Ettlinger may be 81 years old, but when he talks about the elite group of World War II veterans of which he is a member, he calls himself "the baby of the bunch."
He was just 19 when he was ordered off a convoy of GIs headed into heavy combat in the Battle of the Bulge. Then, weeks after the war ended, Ettlinger was sent below ground in Germany to work as one of the "Monument Men," a corps of 350 people assigned to rescue the works of art the Nazis had confiscated and stashed in many parts of Europe, including that salt mine he was sent to in the town of Heilbronn.
Some 61 years later, he and three others of the 12 surviving Monument Men came to Capitol Hill June 5 and 6 to be honored by Congress. A congressional resolution cited them and their late colleagues for their work in ensuring the "preservation, protection, and restitution of artistic and cultural treasures."
Among the resolution's cosponsors were New Jersey Reps. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Dist. 11) and Donald Payne (D-Dist. 10).
Art experts estimate that the Nazis looted artwork worth tens of millions of dollars.
"They were taking art from anyplace they could find," said Ettlinger. "They murdered Holocaust victims and took their belongings. They took from museums. The raided everything in France.
"They wanted only the classical art. They were not interested in that period starting with the Impressionists in the 1870s. They called that ‘degenerate art.' However, they realized the values of those. One-fifth of all the art in Europe changed hands, and I'm talking about millions and millions of pieces," said Ettlinger.
Three years ago, the work of the Monument Men caught the attention of Robert Edsel, a wealthy Texas oilman turned art historian who wrote and self-published a book on the subject called Rescuing Da Vinci.
The story of the rescue of Europe's art treasures also inspired a group of Stanford University film graduates to produce a documentary, The Rape of Europa, which was shown in March at the West Orange JCC as part of the 2007 New Jersey Jewish Film Festival.
Ettlinger, a Rockaway resident whose Jewish family fled Germany for the United States in 1938, is active in the Holocaust Council of MetroWest. He chairs the Wallenberg Foundation of New Jersey, named for Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who rescued some 100,000 Hungarian Jews.
As he prepared for a moment he called "highly satisfying," Ettlinger said, "It has not bothered me that there wasn't a lot of attention given to us. I am satisfied that I can finally hear what my comrades have done."
Until he arrived in Washington on June 5, he had not met his fellow honorees — Bernie Taper, Horace Apgar, and James Reeds; in Europe, they had been "deployed all over the place," said Ettlinger. But he was certain they would have much in common to discuss, and, he said, he believes all the Monument Men have made an important contribution to future generations.
U.S. Army Sgt. Harry Ettlinger, right, and a fellow soldier inspect a Rembrandt
self-portrait stashed away by the Nazis in a German salt mine.
Photo courtesy National Archives and Records Administration
"From my personal viewpoint, we ought to preserve the cultures of all the people in the world," he said in a cell phone interview moments after arriving in Washington. "As long as they respect our culture, we should respect theirs. We should not come along and steal from them or destroy theirs. Culture is necessary. It is part of human life."
As far as his own contribution, Ettlinger said, "Fate gave me an opportunity to do something in line with what good human beings should be doing. It reinforced the kind of value systems I was taught when I was a kid, and I acted in accordance with that. It probably was the most profound job that I ever had, believe it or not, 700 feet down in a salt mine. That sounds kind of funny, but that was it."
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