Italian Parliament introduces bill to create restitution process for art seized under Fascist racial laws

The Italian Parliament introduced Bill 2834 on July 9, 2026, to create a framework for returning art and cultural property lost under Fascist laws and during the Holocaust period. The legislation would allow the government to set up a process for reparations covering items seized or looted due to antisemitic persecution codified in 1938 under Benito Mussolini's government.

The Chamber of Deputies’ VII Committee on Culture, Science, and Education reviewed the bill on June 24.

Livia Ottolenghi, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, told the committee that wounds from the racial laws remain deeply felt and described how Jewish individuals were stripped of property through coercion or outright confiscation even late in the war.

Ottolenghi added that the bill fills a gap by establishing a right to redress for the dispossession of artistic heritage. Italy had backed the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art and the 2009 Terezin Declaration yet recorded only some progress on fascist-era restitution in a 2024 World Jewish Restitution Organization report.

Gideon Taylor, President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said the bill offers a historic opportunity to deliver justice to victims and their heirs. He noted that families in Italy have faced considerable resistance compared with neighboring Western democracies, though operational and legal details still require resolution.