Fordham Law alumnus Raymond Dowd ’91 was quoted in Newsweek about Obama’s Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, which will help Holocaust survivors and their descendants reclaim Nazi-looted artwork.
“It really sends a signal to the world about the U.S. government’s seriousness in undoing Nazi wrongs,” says Raymond Dowd, a lawyer who has represented claimants in a handful of Nazi-era restitution cases. Dowd says this could be the most important federal policy regarding Nazi-looted art since the end of World War II. The government had previously issued laws or policy statements on the issue, such as the 1998 Holocaust Victims Redress Act, but “this is the first time that the U.S. has actually acted since World War II, taking concrete legislative action, to assist Holocaust victims in recovering property.”