The Same Hannah Flamenbaum?

Hannah K. Flamenbaum is an assistant New York attorney general (State of New York Office of the Attorney General Andrew Cuomo). It seems that she is the same Hannah Flamenbaum trying to retain ownership of an item stolen from Berlin's Vorderasiatisches Museum between 1945 and 1949 and now in the US, where it is being treated by the courts as war-loot:

Attorney Steven Schlesinger argued that the estate of Riven Flamenbaum has a legal claim [...]  "Under the Soviet rules at the time, there was permission to pillage and plunder," Schlesinger said.

Mr Schlesinger in the spring and early summer of 1945 there was also acquiescence to mass rapes of civilian women by Red Army soldiers in Berlin, but that does not make either theft or rape any the less reprehensible - for whatever reason it is later justified. Neither is there any evidence that Ms Flamenbaum's father served in the Red Army.

I find it ironic that it is precisely the New York Attorney General's office which has for the past few years been involved in seval important showcase processes which shine a beacon of hope that there is at least somebody in the US who is actively working to attempt to clean up the dirty side of the US market for foreign artefacts and antiquities. It would seem that not all senior staff there understand the ideals behind such activities. What a shame.


Tanya Roth, Esq., 'The Case of the Golden Tablet', FindLaw April 13, 2010.