NEW YORK, NY.- — In response to complaints from the art world of the difficulty and expense in viewing the scattered and complex records needed to ascertain whether an artwork was looted, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) has initiated and supported a series of interlocking projects that provide greater access to and information about the records of the main Nazi agency responsible for looting cultural valuables in Nazi-occupied countries. Original Nazi files of the looting of hundreds of thousands of art, books, archives, and other cultural valuables have now been located and documented in the latest project to make accessible the Nazis’ own records of their plunder. “Smaller museums and individual art dealers in particular often do not have the resources and personnel to do the research necessary to establish the provenance of art objects they have. We are making it easier for them to carry out their professional and mora