Objectives:
A transatlantic capacity-building initiative for mid-career museum professionals, co-funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. Its primary objective is to provide advanced, hands-on training in Holocaust-era (Nazi-era) provenance research, with a particular focus on specialised collection areas such as Asian art, decorative arts, and works on paper.
Restitution Measures:
PREP itself is not a direct restitution mechanism. It is a training and professional development program. Its core “measure” is building the expertise and methodological skills within museums that enable them to conduct the rigorous research necessary to identify looted objects. This research is the essential prerequisite for any subsequent restitution or “just and fair solution.”
Framework Limitations:
It has no authority to facilitate, mediate, or enforce actual restitution cases. Curriculum does not address provenance issues related to colonial contexts or other historical injustices. It does not solve broader institutional limitations such as lack of funding, legal constraints, or administrative reluctance that can prevent restitution even after provenance is clarified.
