When World War II ended, a group of men and women began hunting for works of art inside salt mines, caves and castles. They found more than 6,500 pieces in a salt mine near Salzburg, including Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine”. In another German mine, they uncovered a Rembrandt self-portrait, along with others hidden there by the museums. The atmosphere in these caves, cool temperatures and moisture in the air, helped in preserving the paintings. It also protected them against the war, the bombs, the Nazis and the looting.
Who are these people so committed to saving our art?
They.. are the Monuments Men.. (superhero entrance music plays)
Kidding aside, these people are real life heroes that played a crucial role during WWII. They hid art, sometimes even moved it to different places, and risked their lives in doing so. Here's an excerpt from monumentsmen.com:
The “Monuments Men”, were a group of approximately 345 men and women from thirteen nations who comprised the MFAA section during World War II. Many were museum directors, curators, art historians, artists, architects, and educators. Together they worked to protect monuments and other cultural treasures from the destruction of World War II. In the last year of the war, they tracked, located, and in the years that followed returned more than five million artistic and cultural items stolen by Hitler and the Nazis. Their role in preserving cultural treasures was without precedent.
Today, like the art they protected and found, there is an ongoing quest for the stories of their lives. The Monuments Men Foundation is now in its fifth year of research for their bios. Some are already complete, some only with pictures, while others are still just a name. Click here to help out. Who knows, maybe you'll find you knew one of them all along.
Sources:
http://www.monumentsmenfoundation.org
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/little-known-monuments-men-hunted-art-treasures-stolen-by-nazis/
http://www.wikipedia.com
