web analytics

Witch Way to the Party?

by | Oct 18, 2023 | 0 comments

Asheville, NC is where tourists in October find a plethora of autumnal sights, including phantom ones. Not only is it peak-leaf season in the Blue Ridge, it’s also peak-ghost season at Biltmore Estate.

Biltmore House in Autumn. Image courtesy of R.L. Terry via Wikimedia Commons.

Biltmore House

Biltmore Estate, home to what is considered to be America’s largest residence, sits amidst the stunning grounds designed by famed landscaper Fredrick Law Olmstead. The curated gardens and rolling hills are the perfect backdrop for the home itself, which is truly a work of art. The home is an enormous, stately French Renaissance mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt (New Yorkers will recognize Hunt as the genius behind the pedestal of the Statute of Liberty and the façade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Hunt outdid himself at Biltmore in the number of rooms behind its the grand exterior. No fewer than sixty-five fireplaces, thirty-four bedrooms, forty-three bathrooms, and one indoor pool can be found inside.

Hunt also made sure to create special spots for the family-in-residence to privately retreat. Specifically, for the man of the house, Mr. George Vanderbilt, Hunt inserted a large, luxurious library. This grandiose space housed 10,000 tomes, which George likely pretended to have read. There were many lively distractions on-tap at Biltmore, which may have prevented him from really digging into the books (these felicitous diversions will be explained below).

George’s Library at Biltmore House

Whether or not George actually read any of the books, the library was a favorite retreat for him. In modern parlance, it may be referred to as his “man-cave.” The library today feels a bit spooky, and with good reason. George’s ghost is reported to visit the room with alarming frequency.

Library at Biltmore House. Image courtesy of Warren LeMay via Wikimedia Commons.

Before George died his untimely death in 1914 from complications from illness (not COVID), he was known to take his leave in the library when he heard a thunderstorm approach. His ghost seems to have kept up the habit. When late-summer and autumn storm clouds gather over the Blue Ridge, it’s a safe bet George’s ghost is high-tailing it to his sacred library. Who knew ghosts were afraid of thunder and lightening? It’s a shame thundershirts only come in “living dog”-sizes.

George’s ghost is not the only paranormal presence to haunt the historic halls of Biltmore. Remember the raucous fun this post alluded to earlier? Biltmore was famous for throwing outrageous parties in its prime. With each party, the national press had a field day. It’s hard to detail what happened at these soirées without disclosing embarrassing information about the over-served guests. Suffice it to say that these get-togethers put Gatsby’s parties to shame.

The guests so enjoyed themselves at Biltmore parties in life, that many have returned posthumously to keep the fun going. Modern-day guests report hearing clinking glasses, bits of dance music, and glittering laughter in the halls. Ghosts getting handsy with their ghoul-friends? Sounds likely.

Halloween Room at Biltmore House

Biltmore contains another spooky secret, apart from the ghosts. The creepy and mysterious Halloween Room is aptly named for this time of year. It’s a room in the basement that regularly creeps out modern-day guests. A dark, damp tunnel opens into a dimly lit, cavernous room. Adorning the walls are not the luxurious fabrics and intricate tapestries seen upstairs. Down below, the walls are covered in murals of black cats, witches, and gross-looking bats.

Halloween Room at Biltmore House. Image courtesy of Warren LeMay via Wikimedia Commons.

 

For years, no one – not even the living heirs of the Vanderbilt and Cecil families – knew where these painted scenes came from. The room was simply called the Halloween Room, because it was assumed that the creepy paintings were leftover decorations from a Halloween party. An autobiography of a local man revealed the truth and solved the mystery: they were leftover decorations, but the party wasn’t for Halloween – it was for New Year’s!

This new source gave all the details. On December 30th, 1925, the theme for Night One of the New Year’s festivities was “vaudeville.” Evidently, vaudeville comedic acts and European cabarets were all the rage in Manhattan. The idea was to bring a piece of the mystery and glamour down South.

What resulted was a truly legendary bash – the Charleston Daily Herald reported that over one hundred guests attended, and partied either until they dropped, or till dawn (whichever came first). One guest went on the record and called it “The best party I’ve ever attended.” If that’s the case, no wonder he and other ghosts return to Biltmore. The living dead are still killin’ it on the dance floor in the Halloween Room (but no one was actually murdered there).

Music Room at Biltmore House

As if ghosts and creepy bat paintings weren’t enough, Biltmore houses an even more spectacular secret. Modern-day tourists learn this secret back on the first floor of the home, in the Music Room. It’s here that the National Gallery of Art hid the nation’s artistic treasures during WWII.

Music Room at Biltmore House. Image courtesy of Warren LeMay via Wikimedia Commons.

Fearing a Nazi air-raid attack on the nation’s capital, David Finley – then director of the National Gallery of Art – called Edith Vanderbilt to ask a favor. Finley had been a guest at Biltmore (lucky him!) and recalled both its remote location and fireproof construction features. This winning combo made it the perfect hideaway for some of the most precious works of art in the United States. Botticelli’s The Adoration of the Magi and Rembrandt’s Self-portrait were among the sixty-two paintings and sculptures tucked neatly behind steel-enforced doors.

Guests at Biltmore in 1942 had no idea that they were sleeping under the same roof as the nation’s most valuable pieces of art.  It was only after the war that the secret stash at Biltmore was made public knowledge.

Biltmore House and grounds. Image courtesy of Don Sniegowski via Wikimedia Commons.

The Story Continues at Biltmore Estate

To learn more about Biltmore House, its secrets, and all of its haunted happenings, visit Biltmore Estate in-person this season. Go for the peak fall foliage and stay for the hard-partying ghosts. There’s even a famous winery on-site –  and we hear the Boo-ze is free-flowing.

Nazi Law and Art Looting

by | Dec 30, 2017 | 0 comments

Leila Amineddoleh had the honor of contributing to Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg. Her chapter was about the ways in which the Nazi Party enacted laws to seize property and loot art, and ways that courts are now grappling with those laws to restitute property. Read more about the book from Bloomsbury Press.

 

About Nazi Law

A distinguished group of scholars from Germany, Israel and right across the United States are brought together in Nazi Law to investigate the ways in which Hitler and the Nazis used the law as a weapon, mainly against the Jews, to establish and progress their master plan for German society.

The book looks at how, after assuming power in 1933, the Nazi Party manipulated the legal system and the constitution in its crusade against Communists, Jews, homosexuals, as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses and other religious and racial minorities, resulting in World War II and the Holocaust. It then goes on to analyse how the law was subsequently used by the opponents of Nazism in the wake of World War Two to punish them in the war crime trials at Nuremberg.

This is a valuable edited collection of interest to all scholars and students interested in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Table of contents

List of Figures
List of Contributors
Foreword, Lorenz Reibling (Boston College, USA)
Acknowledgements

Introduction
John J. Michalczyk (Boston College, USA)

Part I – A Judicial System without Jews and without Justice

1. Politics, Ethics and Natural Law in Early Twentieth Century Germany, 1900-1950, Douglas G. Morris (Federal Defenders NY, USA)
2. Our Enemies Have No Rights: Carl Schmitt and the Two-Tiered System of Justice, Paul Bookbinder (University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA)
3. Defining the Jew: The Origins of the Nuremberg Laws, Oleksandr Kobrynskyy (University of Nuremberg-Erlangen, Germany)
4. Vichy France and the Nuremberg Laws, John Romeiser (University of Tennessee, USA)
5. The Judenräte and the Nazi Racial Policies: Ethical issues in Claude Lanzmann’s Last of the Unjust (2013), Yvonne Kozlovsky Golan (Haifa University, Israel)
6. High Treason in the People’s Court, John J. Michalczyk (Boston College, USA)

Part II – Hippocrates Abandoned by Nazi Doctors

7. Resistance or Complicity: Medical and Religious Responses to Law under the Third Reich, Johnathan Kelly, Erin Miller and Michael A. Grodin (Boston University, USA)
8. Homosexuality and the Law in the Third Reich, Melanie Murphy (Emmanuel College, USA)
9. Physicians, Psychologists, and Lawyers as Torturers: From WWII to Post 9/11, George Annas and Sondra Crosby (Boston University School of Public Health, USA)
10. Nazi Medicine and the Holocaust: Implications for Bioethics and Professionalism Education, Ashley Fernandes (Ohio State University, USA)

Part III – Economic Policies and the Stripping of the Jewish Community

11. The German Plunder and Theft of Jewish Property in the General Government, David M. Crowe (Elon University, USA)
12. Nazi Laws Used to Plunder Art and the Current Legal Tools Used to Unwind Looting, Leila Amineddoleh (Fordham University and New York University, USA)

Part IV – A God Subverted by Nazi Policy

13. The Hereafter versus the Here-and-Now: Catholicism under National Socialism, Kevin Spicer (Stonehill College, USA)
14. Nazi Persecution of German Protestants, Christopher Probst (Maryville University, USA)
15. Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich, Gerhard Besier (Dresden University, Germany)

Part V – To the Victor Belongs Justice: At Nuremberg and Beyond

16. German Courts in the Maelstrom of Criminal Guilt: Tracing the Rise of Collective Responsibility in Nazi Death Camp Trials, 1963-2016, Michael Bryant (Bryant University, USA)
17. The Devil’s Chemists on Trial: The American Prosecution of I.G. Farben at Nuremberg, Mark Spicka (Shippensburg University, USA)
18. Nazi Experiments, the Nuremberg Code, and the United States, Sandra H. Johnson (St. Louis University School of Law, USA)

Epilogue, John J. Michalczyk (Boston College, USA)

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

“This fine collection of essays explores how law came to serve as a tool of destruction in the Third Reich and as a means of moral reconstruction in the postwar years. It offers a timely and valuable intervention in ongoing debates about the capacity of law to deform and reform societies.” –  Lawrence Douglas, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought, Amherst College, USA

“From a wide variety of perspectives, the contributors to this book underline the supreme importance of the rule of justice and the horrifying consequences of its neglect. Well-written and thought-provoking.” –  D.W. de Mildt, editor of Justiz und NS-Verbrechen / Nazi Crimes on Trial, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 

Updates on Nazi-Looted Art and the Kunstmuseum Bern

by | Feb 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Last winter, Leila Amineddoleh authored an article about Nazi-looted art, the Monuments Men, and the “Gurlitt Collection” for the NY State Bar Association. The piece examined legal issues related to the art objects in Cornelius Gurlitt’s collection of legally acquired, and looted, art, in addition to a broader examination of statute of limitations issues related to Nazi-loot. Leila’s article was updated twice due to advancements in the case.

Kunstmuseum_Bern,_exterior_viewLast spring, after Mr. Gurlitt’s death, it was announced that he left his collection to the Kunstmuseum Bern. The museum was given six months to accept the gift. In November, mere days before the museum made its announcements, an estate issue arose. Uta Werner, Mr. Gurlitt’s 86-year-old cousin, applied to the Munich Probate Court for a certificate of inheritance for his estate, provoked by a psychological report concerning Mr. Gurlitt’s limited mental capacity at the time of the drafting of his will. The president of the German Forum for Inheritance Law noted that there were indications that Mr. Gurlitt was a “misfit” suffering from delusions. Ms. Werner has articulated that if she succeeds on her ownership claims, she intends to restitute Nazi-looted items to their rightful owners, as determined by a court. The Kunstmuseum Bern addressed the delay in a statement earlier this month,

“At its last meeting, the Board of Trustees of the Kunstmuseum Bern categorically resolved that it will establish a “Gurlitt” research body and defined its tasks and structure. However, this decision can only first be implemented when the pending application of Cornelius Gurlitt’s cousin for a certificate of inheritance has been probated in Munich. The Board of Trustees regrets this delay, in particular because it will impede the settlement of restitution cases that have already been clarified and endorsed by the Kunstmuseum Bern, but the circumstances are beyond its control.”

In the meantime, representatives of the rightful owners are optimistic that restitution will begin before estate issues are resolved. Christopher Marinello, an attorney for the Rosenberg family (the family owned a Matisse painting in Gurlitt’s collection that Cornelius Gurlitt had agreed to return), expects “an expeditious restitution over the next few weeks.”

 

 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2434205