public service announcement

So my sister was talking up this documentary her friend helped make. My parents went to SF to see it and raved about it. I wasn't around at the time so I didn't see it.



It was on PBS tonight. It was one of the most fascinating documentaries I have ever seen. It is called The Rape of Europa and documents the theft and recovery of a massive amount of Europe's great art during World War II. Hitler was a frustrated artist, and spent huge amounts of time and money "collecting" art in all forms. It became de rigeur for his underlings to collect art as well so people like Hermman Goering also ended up having massive collections of priceless art of all genres and media. Thousands of people hid art treasures or walled them up to hide them from the Nazis. The Louvre was evacuated by common people who just wanted to save the treasures of their country. They have an interview with a lady whose parents were curators and got assigned to evacuate and protect the Mona Lisa. She lived with the Mona Lisa. Normal people all over Europe were risking their lives to hide these things. There were people who bricked walls around Michelangelo's David to protect it from bombs. There was a whole section of the US military devoted to protecting these treasures during WWII, and recovering the lost art and restoring it to its rightful places/owners after the war, The Monuments Men. It was uplifting, just to see the extents that people went to during such horrible times to protect these national treasures of art.

So all I have to say is, watch it if you can. PBS premiered it tonight and hopefully they will show it again.