Geneva Court to Rule Dec. 14 on Ownership of Wolf Hagaddah

The Geneva Supreme Court will hear appeals on Dec. 14 against a lower court ruling that the famous Wolf Haggadah is the rightful property of the Jewish communities of East and West Berlin.

The communities are represented here by the World Jewish Congress, whose lawyer, Philippe Grumbach, informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency of the hearing date.

The appellants are lawyers representing the Polish Ministry of Culture and the reputed owner of the Haggadah, Nathan Hecht of Montreal.

According to a judgment delivered last month by the Tribunal of First Instance, “no other party can offer a more likely claim” than the Berlin Jewish communities and the WJC.

But the Haggadah, which is valued at between $1 million and $1.5 million, was placed in custody of the examining magistrate pending appeal.

The WJC hopes the Polish authorities can be persuaded to withdraw their claim to the rare piece of Judaica, which they say was stolen from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw in 1984.

It dismisses Hecht’s claim as frivolous.

The Haggadah, written in French and dating from the 13th or 14th century, was part of an outstanding collection of Judaica owned by Albert Wolf, a German Jew who died in 1907.

Wolf willed it to the Berlin Jewish community, which displayed it at the Jewish Kunstmuseum there.

The collection was seized by the Nazis in 1938 and the Haggadah was removed to Glatz in Silesia, which became Glodzko in Poland after World War II.

Its removal from Poland remains a mystery.

Hecht claimed he bought it for hard currency but refuses to say when. The Poles insist it was stolen.

The Haggadah turned up in Geneva last June. It was placed for auction with the respected firm of Habsburg and Feldman by Bery Gross, a Brooklyn dealer in Judaica, who was acting as an agent for Hecht.