The Rape of Europa (2006)
Actual Films

Description

The Nazis stole thousands of pieces of art and destroyed many others. But many individuals evacuated art and the American "Monuments Men" helped map out air strikes to avoid the destruction of many masterpieces. It is harrowing and moving to see art restored to the families of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Collected reviews and ratings

8.0 Variety | Ronnie Scheib

Bringing a radically new perspective to World War II and the Holocaust, this fast-paced docu, based on Lynn Nicholas' bestseller about the fate of European art both under the Nazis and afterward, casts the Third Reich in a wholly different light.
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8.0 Salon.com | Andrew O'Hehir

All in all, an exciting and terrifying new perspective on an era you probably thought you understood.
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8.0 Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

When people think about World War II, wondering what it meant for the fate of museum-quality art is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet as the documentary "The Rape of Europa" demonstrates, this is a surprisingly vast and involving topic.
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8.0 Washington Post | Desson Thomson

The documentary, directed by Bonni Cohen, Nicole Newnham and Richard Berge, spills over with fascinating facts and testimony
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7.5 Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

This absorbing documentary begins with one painting, Gustav Klimt's "Gold Portrait of Frau Bloch-Bauer," which, like countless other paintings, was stolen from Jews, disappeared, and then mysteriously reappeared in galleries and museums in Europe and America with shadowy provenance.
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5.0 Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

Unfortunately, most of the two-hour documentary is devoted to annotating what the Nazis stole for both their state and personal collections. The movie doesn't dramatize this crime - it catalogs it.
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