For this Holocaust survivor, it’s adding “kin”-sult to injury.
Rosita Steigrad, a virtually penniless, 89-year-old widow who was forced to flee Nazi-occupied Amsterdam as a teen, got a glimmer of hope that she’d be able to live out her twilight years in comfort with the return of three Dutch Masters paintings seized from her family by the Nazis — including one that hung in Hitler’s private museum.
Steigrad consigned the paintings to her Manhattan art-dealer son, Lawrence Steigrad, to sell — but he “inappropriately retained for himself all of the proceeds from the sale of the paintings,” she claims in court papers.
Rosita’s oldest son, Jacques Steigrad, stands by her. “My mother is very saddened by it,” he said. “Since Larry went into the art business, it changed him. Now everything is about greed and money.”
Rosita sued Lawrence, his wife and business partner, Peggy Stone, and their Upper East Side Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts gallery in 2009. The case is still making its way through the courts.
The paintings were worth at least $2 million, said Rosita’s lawyer, David Perlman. The family never learned how much they sold for. Rosita, who now lives in Maine and is supported by older son Jacques, came from a family of wealthy diamond merchants who also collected fine art. But life changed for the Jewish family once the Nazis marched into the Netherlands in 1940.
They were saved by relatives who managed to get out of the country with some of their art, including a Rembrandt. The sale of that painting in New York City financed the escape of Rosita and her parents.
But the family had to surrender their house along with most of their valuables and artwork to the Nazis. One relative who couldn’t escape Europe died of cholera in a concentration camp and another committed suicide in a camp by throwing himself against an electrified fence.
Patricia Anholt Habr, a Manhattan resident and a cousin of Rosita, is also suing Lawrence, disputing the sale of four paintings that Habr said she inherited from her grandparents. The paintings include one by Dutch landscape artist Jan van Goyen and are worth a total of more than $1.5 million, legal papers say.
Lawrence called the suits “without merit” and said he turned over the sale proceeds “long ago.”
“The plaintiffs in these cases have no ownership interest in the paintings, and I do not owe them anything,” he said.
Jacques said his brother gave his mother about $10,000 several years ago, although it is not clear the money came from the sale of the paintings. He said Lawrence promised her more but never delivered.