An Iron-Willed Pursuit

                                By Bob Faszczewski

Throughout her academic career in Woodbridge, NJ Marcia Levithan would let nothing--even a near-death experience-- stand in the way of her dream of becoming an art museum curator.

               However, just as Marcia was about to take her first major step up the stairway of success, a number of calamities struck her and her family.

               On June 1, 1977, less than a month before her daughter’s graduation with honors from Franklin Middle School, Janet Levithan was driving Marcia to a museum show at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ when a drunk driver cut off Janet’s car totalling both vehicles.

             The drunk driver walked away with minor injuries and Janet and Marcia wound up at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with critical injuries.

             State troopers who spoke to Marcia’s father Alfred said Janet’s life “hung by a thread” and it looked like Marcia would have permanent brain injuries with greatly diminished brain function for what remained of her life.

            A week later Janet died of her injuries and Marcia’s neurologists told her father that she would have to undergo months if not years of extremely difficult rehabilitation in order to achieve even a small semblance of the promising future she had anticipated only a month before.

           True to her steel-willed spirit, however, Marcia amazed every one of her treating physicians and the staff at the Jonathan Lansbury Rehabilitation Center.

            Neurologist Jeremy Stein reported with amazement, “It looks like we will be able to restore Marcia to about 60 percent of normal abilities—and this is after only eight months of treatment. Although we have every bit of modern medical technology at our disposal, I must give most of the credit to Marcia’s almost unstoppable will and the support of her father unlike any I have seen in many parents in far less tragic situations.”

             On February 8, 1978 the staff at Lansbury Center proudly wheeled Marcia to Alfred’s car for the trip back to the family home in Colonia.

              Both Alfred and Marcia knew she faced a long and difficult road ahead, but they determined they would do everything they could to make wonderful lemons out of the cruel lemonade dealt to them by fate.

             As a special homecoming present for his daughter, Alfred decided to make the most of their mutual love of art and the Great Masters.

            Over the course of his life he had accumulated about 150 of the works of some of the world’s most promising new artists as well as some lesser known works completed by some of the best known artists of Western civilization.

            Through donations from the Woodbridge Art League and a Go Fund Me Page set up by a group of Woodbridge neighbors Alfred established an art museum in his home and made Marcia the curator of this museum.

              Publicity generated by The Bugle, the local weekly newspaper in Woodbridge, led to a feature story on the local television affiliate of WOR television in New York City accompanied by a tour of the museum.

              Word about the museum spread throughout New Jersey and the New York Metropolitan Area, along the East Coast and throughout the United States.

             A number of decades before, however, in another country across the world, another family faced unspeakable calamities as it molded its talents and success into what it believed to be a promising future in commerce and wealth.

             While growing up in Gdansk, Poland Arthur Blickstein dreamed for many years about running his own business.  He moved to the top in academic standings in every subject that he studied in the small primary and secondary schools in his hometown.         

             In 1910, Arthur graduated with honors from the Gdansk Hebrew University in Poland. He spent a year assisting the local textile merchant and learning everything he could about the textile exporting business. 

             Five years later he proudly opened Blickstein’s House of Exportation and, for the next 20 years, expanded his business to nearly every corner of the globe. He accumulated great wealth by combining a stubborn work ethic with an overpowering ambition and a great intellect. 

              On the 25th anniversary of the founding of his business, Arthur married the beautiful Marisa Bornstein, the daughter of one of his customers, who had made a name for herself by designing fashions for the fabrics handled by her father’s firm. 

               Arthur and Marisa built a beautiful home in one of the most picturesque and wealthy suburbs of Warsaw. They also loved the works of the Great Masters and purchased a number of paintings, building a collection with an estimated worth of $3.5 million over the course of the next decade.

             However, those in  many of the countries surrounding Germany who had developed a hateful jealousy of successful Jews, blaming them for the runaway inflation and other economic ills that beset the nations of that area.

            Looking for a “savior,” they turned to a young German politician who was building his reputation by preying on irrational fears to feed his hopes for great power and his own inadequacies.

             Adolph Hitler worked, at first behind the scenes and then in the open, accumulating vast political power in Germany as he continued to spread his gospel of hatred for “non-Aryan races” throughout the surrounding area.

            The Nazi scourge soon enveloped most of that area of the world and resulted in the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy ever to beset modern Western civilization.

            Millions of Jews and others who dared to stand up against Hitler were summarily executed in the ovens of Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

             Arthur and Marisa’s success in the textile export business came to the attention of local Nazi officials, who had their eyes on Poland as another rung in their ladder of fear, exploitation and destruction.

              The Nazis transported the couple to the Chelmno Camp in Poland, where they ended their lives and those of three of their four children in the infamous gas “showers.”

                However, a strong underground opposition movement became a major force in helping survivors of the Holocaust to escape to the United States and other free nations.

            Among those rescued through the efforts of the Christian Nazi Victims Refuge Network was Katrina, the sole member of the Warsaw Blicksteins who the “National Socialists” had not exterminated.

             Katrina Blickstein eventually escaped through opposition channels in Poland, Germany, Austria, France and England to the United States. The Polish Christian family of Wdaslaw Thomlinski welcomed Katrina to their home in Toledo, Ohio, where the prosperous family of Wdaslaw’s third cousin, Wictor, adopted her. Wictor was the chief operating officer of Ohio National Bank.

            She received a bachelor’s degree in finance at Ohio State University, and eventually married Gerald Thomlinski, Wictor’s son and the executive vice president of the bank.

           Meanwhile, the conquerors and their collaborators sold on the thriving Black Market most of the homes and many of the priceless works of art which previously had belonged to wealthy Jewish merchants.

             When the Allies stopped the brutal march of Hitler and his minions across Europe unscrupulous members of the Black Market bought much of the art pieces “for a song” and then sold them for usurious profits to many unsuspecting art dealers and museums.

             Testimony at the war crimes trials of many former Nazis at Nuremberg helped prove that many artworks that formerly had belonged to Jews murdered during the Holocaust existed, but it would be at least 20 more years before authorities recovered any of the masterpieces.

            Through her own stubborn determination. Katrina spent a large amount of time and effort in reestablishing her family’s rightful legacy.

          The Thomlinskis combined their influence and wealth to hire a team from one of the most top-notch law firms in the United States—Fulbright, Hanson and Jones. The firm left no stone unturned in its efforts to trace back the true ownership of the paintings.

            “These paintings and the other works of art represent the cultural heritage not only of my family, but also of every family from Western Europe who the Nazis raped twice—first through their cruel murders of millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust and then through the robbery and illicit sale of items which are vital to our heritage,” Katrina told The Toledo Blade after one of the trials in Ohio.

            Thousands of lawsuits, filed by Katrina’s family and the families and heirs of millions of Holocaust victims, went up and down in courts at every level in the United States and around the world.

           Law firms on both sides spent millions in legal fees over the course of the next three decades to find the true owners of these works of art produced by some of the globe’s most renowned artists.

           Back in New Jersey, Alfred Levithan, over the course of 30 years, had pursued his hobby of art collection by looking for lesser-known works by some of the Great Masters and using them to make his home in Colonia “an artistic showplace.”

           He obtained a number of these paintings, including a number of previously-unknown works by Vincent Van Gogh, from an art wholesaler, Harry Sampson, who presented Arthur with what he thought were impeccable credentials.

           When his daughter expressed such an avid interest in his passionate hobby at such an early age Levithan was delighted. Then the careless and reckless actions of a drunk driver appeared to murder not only his wife but also his dreams of an heir who he expected to carry on his legacy.

          Marcia’s almost miraculous recovery, although not complete, gave Arthur hope that he would have his terrible streak of bad luck reversed. He worked very hard to give her every opportunity to fulfill that portion of her lifelong dream that still remained within reach.

          For 20 years the father and daughter worked very hard to make their little museum a big success, and their hard work seemed to be paying off as the fame of their art gallery spread not only throughout New Jersey, but throughout the United States and around the globe.

         In the meantime, however, hundreds of lawsuit-initiated investigations continued to probe into the origins of the artworks which many believed the Nazis had looted from the homes of wealthy Jews before and during World War II.

         One of the investigations, initiated by Fulbright, Hanson and Jones on behalf of Katrina Blickstein Thomlinski, wound its way from the Spanish museum to Sampson, the partner of Spanish art dealer Juan Perizo, in an art merchandising firm based in the United States. Perizo had obtained the paintings through Black Market sources who had stolen them from the Madrid museum.

          Sampson, although known in many circles for his “impeccable” credentials and reputation, also had many connections in the dirty underbelly of the European Black Market.

          Among the Van Gogh paintings Alfred Levithan purchased from Sampson were three obscure works by Vincent Van Gogh, for which he paid $25,000. Maybe he should have suspected something—it was highly unlikely that even unknown works by Van Gogh would sell for a “meager” $25,000. However, Alfred relied on the reputation and integrity of Sampson and trusted that the dealer had obtained the paintings from a legitimate source.

           Levithan thus added the works to his home museum collection and Marcia proudly exhibited them as the curator of the home museum.

          Marcia and her father beamed with pride as they held a press conference announcing a gala 20th anniversary wine tasting and celebration for the little gallery which had become not only the launching pad for the daughter’s ability to overcome most of the effects of her near-fatal brain injury but also a major force in the small museum art community in the New York Metropolitan Area.

         Among the attendees at the gala, however, was Johnson Hanson, the senior partner in Fulbright, Hanson and Jones. As the museum owner and his daughter stepped forward to accept what they thought would be more congratulations on their accomplishments Hanson handed them a subpoena requiring them to appear in the United States District Court in Newark.

        The subpoena requested them to “prepare to testify about any and all knowledge they had about three paintings by Vincent Van Gogh which they had obtained through Madrid’s Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and/or one Harry Sampson, art dealer.”

        It turned out that international trade authorities had traced the origins of the paintings and they established the connection of Sampson and Perizo to the Black Market. The museum believed it had obtained the paintings from a legitimate source—a vendor with direct connections to the estate of Vincent Van Gogh.

        Fulbright, Hanson and Jones’ sources believed the paintings had come from a large collection looted by the Nazis from the home of Arthur Blickstein in Poland.

         During the eight-month federal trial prosecutors pulled out all the stops in an attempt to prove that the Madrid museum, Sampson and the Levithans had conspired to hide the true origins of the Van Gogh paintings and to prevent their return to the heirs of the Blickstein estate.

       During those eight months witness after witness, from international art experts to police investigators to Holocaust-era historians came forward to point to the conspiracy they said was perpetrated by the three parties in an effort to deprive Katrina and her family of their legacy.

       Supposedly noone knew of the existence of the Van Gogh works until the Madrid museum exhibited them in the 1970s. However, art experts now estimated the value of the paintings at $5 million.     

        Despite brilliant testimony by defense witnesses from every tier of the art world and a number of renowned international private detectives it looked like the Levithans would suffer a great financial loss and possible federal penalties at the conclusion of the trial.

       Marcia, rallying her usual stubbornness, told a very compelling story of her life and struggles when her attorneys called her to testify during the trial.

            In addition to Marcia’s outstanding testimony, another surprising development happened outside the courtroom chambers. Katrina and Marcia, who had each suffered unspeakable tragedies during their lives, became close friends.

          Marcia had many friends whose grandparents had died in the Holocaust and her connection to them had led her to become very well-versed on the tragedies.

           Katrina and her adopted family did a great deal of charitable work with the local medical establishment in the Toledo area, and she promised to connect her new friend with some of the top neurologists from such renowned medical institutions as the Mayo Clinic in an effort to help Marcia to add to her already-remarkable progress.

         Also, despite the hundreds of hours of entirely credible testimony by some of the most renowed international art and law enforcement experts, the prosecution was not able to establish a clear association or conspiracy between Arthur Levithan, Sampson and the art museum.

       It looked, however, like the courts ultimately would rule that the paintings belonged to the heirs of the Blickstein estate and that Katrina and her family should reclaim them. Experts estimated the total worth of all the works in the former Blickstein collection at $50 million.

        The court did decide that the paintings should correctly belong to the Blickstein estate. 

        Katrina concluded, though, that she could afford to sacrifice a relatively small portion of her family’s estate for the greater good of her now good friend and the tremendous boost the exhibitions of the Van Gogh works in the Levithan gallery would give to the small museum art scene in the New York Metropolitan Area.

        She, therefore, instructed Hanson to petition the court to drop all claims to the Van Gogh works purchased by Alfred Levithan and allow for their return to the small New Jersey gallery.

        Levithan agreed to provide any assistance he could to the prosecutors in the convictions of Sampson and proving the culpability on the part of members of the museum staff. He also pledged to work tirelessly for the return of the remainder of the artworks to the Blickstein estate’s collection.

       In a joint news release, the Levithan and Thomlinski families called the final conclusion, “A great day in the history of the art world in Western civilization.”

       They added, “We are sorry that these double tragedies have plagued our relatives for so long. We hope that the world has learned from the terrible lessons of the Holocaust and that our world never again will fall prey to the rantings of madmen as we saw in the years leading up to World War II.”

          With the help of stubborn persistence of the Levithans and the Thomlinskis and their supporters, authorities in the international art community and law enforcement community proved the existence of a joint conspiracy between Sampson, Perizo and several assistant curators at the Madrid museum.

         The courts sentenced the co-conspirators to a combined total of 40 years in federal prison and they returned the remaining works that the Nazis had stolen to Katrina and other survivors of the Holocaust whose homes Hitler and his minions looted.

          Additionally, the courts instructed the convicted parties to compensate all victims for the costs of all the court proceedings and the value of any property lost because authorities did not recover them.