On June 13, 1938, Irma Bundy sold four fossils to the Natural History Museum of Vienna. The two oysters and the two ammonites from the Cretaceous period dating from 145 million years before humans to 66 million years before were given to her as a gift by a relative, Fritz Illner. Illner worked as an engineer near the town of Kastamonu in Turkey, in the valley about 38 km south of the Black Sea coast.
The Bundy and Illner families went through all the horrors of the Holocaust, and few of them survived. Fritz and his wife fled Austria to France at the beginning of 1933. Before they left, they gave the fossils to Irma. After the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, the reality in Vienna became impossible for the Jews who still remained there, and Irma sold the fossils to the Natural History Museum in the Austrian capital.
Meaningful ending to 2022:
ā Arno Mitterdorfer (@ArnoMiDo) December 30, 2022
Restitution of 4 fossiles of collection of Natural History Museum Vienna @NHM_Wien. Objects will find new home at renowned Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv. pic.twitter.com/gKs2ecE3Tq
"This sale was made under enormous pressure and persecution, and certainly not by free choice," the Natural History Museum recently wrote to the relatives of Fritz and Irma who live in Israel today, after they managed to locate them and asked for the fossils to be returned to them.
"Woman in Gold" is a great film showcasing an important, meaningful, & lengthy effort to return paintings stolen during the Holocaust to their rightful owner from Austria to America!
ā kitzeyes (@kitzeyes) November 13, 2021
Ryan Reynolds & Helen Mirren star in the film released in 2015. https://t.co/LRyVHPYLrA pic.twitter.com/m2DRcnUNKW
Irma Bundy and Fritz Illner were eventually murdered in Auschwitz. The Austrian government is currently working to return to the descendants of Holocaust survivors items that were taken from them. "Nothing can correct the injustice of the past," wrote the letter sent by the museum to the family members of Irma and Fritz, "and a few stones cannot compensate for the pain your families went through. But perhaps these fossils will help preserve the memory of Irma Bundy and Fritz Illner."
Hanan Argov, a resident of Rishon Lezion, was surprised to recently receive an email from the representative of the Jewish community in Austria informing him of the fossils found. His grandmother, Ruth, was Irma's daughter and died in 1981. "We barely know anything about Irma," Hanan says, "Her husband, Shmuel, used to tell us stories about his time in the Holocaust. It's exciting that we suddenly have a connection with the family past."
Too little, too late.
ā Cynthia š» (@cynparker_) September 5, 2021
Reparations insufficient ā measly reimbursement for stolen property.
The return or reimbursement for #art & culturally significant property in state facilities is mediocre at best. In private collections, nonexistent. Disgraceful. #Austria #Holocaust https://t.co/AOrLbtsqdf
One of the experts involved in the transferring of the fossils is Dr. Omri Bronstein, curator of the invertebrate collection at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, who spent several years at the museum in Vienna as part of a postdoctoral fellowship.
"The Austrian government contacted the museum and announced that it must return the fossils to the families," he said in a statement, "The museum of course cooperated and began the process of locating the family. In general, they located grandchildren and great-grandchildren who didn't even know the stories. They took a lot from these families, and they certainly didn't think about the fossils. As soon as the Natural History Museum in Tel Aviv entered the matter with all its might, it progressed. These fossils have scientific, cultural and historical value. They are an asset."
