German attempts to impose cultural as well as military supremacy on France, at the same time as drinking from the fountain of French art and literature, is a key theme of this book. The French art scene flourished during the war as the French, on balance, showed scant inclination to resist the aryanization of the art world. All that was required of artists who wished to exhibit at the Salon d’Automne, for example, was to sign a register stating that they were not Jewish. Although many Jewish dealers had been forced to flee, their collections dispersed, there was no shortage of others ready to step up, notably Martin Fabiani, a Corsican well known as a dealer in Nazi-looted art.
At the end of September 1949 the Commission de Récupération Artistique (CRA), in which Rose Valland had played such a crucial role, was disbanded. It had located some 60,000 artworks, 45,000 of which were returned to their original owners. (At the time of writing there are many thousands of artworks still missing.) After ten years in Berlin, Valland returned to France and became, finally, a curator for the Musées Nationaux. In 1948 the United States had awarded her the Medal of Freedom and the French government awarded her the Médaille de la Résistance and Légion d’honneur, as well as making her a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. But this quiet resistance operator, whose actions contributed to saving so much of France’s cultural heritage, has not enjoyed the recognition granted to other members of the resistance. Some speculate that the lack of recognition could be because she had no descendants, or, more likely, because she deliberately shunned exposing her private life, one that amid the 1940s glow of praise for resistance heroes was not easy to accept. Her close companion and lover was a British translator and academic, Dr Joyce Helen Heer, born in Liverpool in 1917, who worked at the US Embassy. Or could it be because she was involved in the business of saving not lives but works of art, history valuing the saving of lives over that of worldly goods? Furthermore, because of her professional skills, deep knowledge of art, and refusal to be cowed into submission, Valland was clearly a ‘troublesome’ presence to certain art dealers and a thorn in the side of some museum professionals. ‘Mentioning Valland could have reopened controversies in the art world and called into question the ownership of some valuable pieces kept by the national museums.’ Far from being the ‘shy, timid curator’ depicted by history, Rose Valland was a tireless and vocal advocate for the restitution of artwork. She was able to blend into the background when necessary … but she was not afraid to question the methods and actions of anyone at any time.’
In the case of opera, the Germans believed cultural supremacy was already theirs, especially where Wagner was concerned. But Germaine Lubin paid a high price for colluding with this notion, not returning to Paris until 1950 when she sought to resume her career with a recital. Although she met with some sympathy and gave a few further performances, it was a difficult transition, and when in 1953 her son committed suicide, she abandoned public appearances entirely. For the remainder of her life she became a voice teacher, giving lessons at her home on the Quai Voltaire in Paris. Among her notable pupils was the leading soprano Régine Crespin, but by the time she died in Paris in 1979, aged eighty-nine, she cut a sad and lonely figure.