Friedrich Flick receiving his sentence by the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1947. Photo: Mazal Library/ Green Series via Wikimedia Commons

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art told the publication Artnet last week that it is evaluating a large donation given to the cultural institution by the widow of a German industrialist whose family fortune was allegedly amassed by its ties to the Nazis.

“The current leadership of the museum is thoroughly reviewing the situation,” a spokeswoman for the museum told the news outlet, adding that the donation was accepted under a former management. “They will assess their position regarding this donation and take appropriate action based on their assessment.”

In 2014, one of the museum’s founding patrons, Ingrid Flick, gave around $670,000 to the Tel Aviv Museum’s Prints and Drawings Gallery on behalf of the German Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. She is the widow and third wife of Friedrich Karl Flick and inherited reportedly $5.5 billion from her husband when he died in 2006. She is also the chairwoman of the board of trustees of a foundation named after her late father-in-law, Friedrich Flick.

An obituary of Friedrich published by The New York Times when he died in 1972 called him “one of Hitler’s biggest industrial backers.”

He was in prison for three years after being convicted as a war criminal by the United States Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1947 for using slave labor to produce weapons for the Nazis and looting German‐occupied countries, among other crimes. He expanded his coal and steel empire by taking control of companies that Jews sold under duress by the Nazis. He reportedly employed between 40,000 and 50,000 prisoners of war and camp inmates, many of whom died working for him. He was said to be the richest man in Germany by the end of War War II and after prison, he rebuilt his fortune by selling his business and investing in a number of companies, including becoming the biggest shareholder of the German car manufacturer Daimler-Benz, now known as Mercedes-Benz. At the time of his death in 1972 he was one of the world’s richest people, worth more than $1 billion.

When Friedrich, Friedrich Karl became the sole owner of his father’s conglomerate after buying other other family members and the fortune was later inherited by Ingrid.

“As a person with an affinity for art and a collector of modern art, it has been a personal desire of mine for many years to support art that is also open to the public,” Ingrid said in a statement to Artnet on July 13. “The Tel Aviv Museum of Art was, therefore, only one of several institutions to which I am pleased to donate. This donation and my personal motivation to contribute to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art has nothing to do with the history of my late husband’s family. Such speculation serves only to insult the valuable work of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which I will gladly continue to support in the future.”

David Schaecter, a Holocaust survivor and president of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA, told Artnet he is happy the Tel Aviv Museum is re-examining its donation from the Flick family. He said, “I hope that it removes the names of the heirs of any Nazi fortune from its walls.”

Earlier this month, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art cancelled a conference organized by Christie’s after the auction house was criticized by many, including Schaecter, for auctioning a jewelry collection linked to another German businessman who built his fortune with the help of the Nazis.