Nearly 80 years ago, Nazis stole a family's painting. Now a US judge will decide if they should get it back
LOS ANGELES - For 25 years, a painting by the Impressionist master Camille Pissarro has hung on a museum wall in Spain.
The artwork's dark past is no secret: In 1939, months before the start of World War II, Nazi officials forced a Jewish woman to trade it for her freedom as she tried to flee Germany.
But despite committing to international agreements that call on nations to work toward returning artwork looted by the Nazi state, Spain has waged a relentless legal battle in U.S. courts against descendants of the woman, Lilly Cassirer, to keep the masterpiece, which is valued at $30 million.
The fight has stretched well into its second decade as attorneys for Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum spent years first trying to have the case thrown out of the U.S. courts and then arguing the museum is the lawful owner of the painting.
Claude Cassirer, Lilly Cassirer's grandson, filed the lawsuit in 2005 but died
