Lithuanian art donor was a Nazi collaborator
Bronius “Bob” Sredersas, the former steelworker who donated his art collection to the City of Wollongong art gallery, was a collaborator working with the Nazis in his native Lithuania.
Bob Sredersas 1976
Four years ago exWollongong councillor Michael Samaris read in a catalogue published for the 40th anniversary of the gallery that Sredersas had been a policeman in Lithuania and had served in the Nazi SS, responsible for the death of 212,000 Lithuanian Jews.
This precipitated a three-way dialogue between The New South Wales Board of Deputies, The Sydney Jewish Museum and the Wollongong City Council Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery.
It was decided that the museum’s Holocaust historian Professot Konrad Kwiet would investigate Sredersas’ past.
His report has been leaked to The Australian shortly before its scheduled release.
In the report Konrad Kwiet wrote as published in The Australian: “My initial overview was that Sredersas was a Lithuanian collaboratorserving as a ‘Kriminalbeater’ – a detective – in the Saugumas – -to be more precise – in its department V – the section of the Lithuanian Criminal Police Office B 4. The records reveal that he had already worked prior to the war first as policemen then as police officer in the Lithuanian State Security Department. When the Soviets took over control on Lithuania in July 1940, he was dismissed and reinstated after the Germans had invaded and occupied the country in 1941.”
Never-married, Sredersas’s donated his collection five years before his death 1982
Quoting from the report, The Australian published: ““Performing his duties as an intelligence officer within the KdS Litauen (Commander of the Security Policy and Security Service) … made Schroeders aka Sredersas complicit to the horrific crimes perpetrated by the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators,” Professor Kwiet wrote in the report.
“He can be classified as a ‘Nazi collaborator’ as he offered his services to a terrorist regimen, implementing Nazi policies and rules in German-occupied Lithuania.
However, no record has yet come to light that he was directly involved in the Holocaust or other acts of genocide.”
The hitherto unpublished report will be the subject of a meeting scheduled this week before NSWJBD, The Sydney Jewish Museum and The Wollongong City Council.
The Wollongong Art Gallery has a room dedicated to Sredersas and there is a plaque commemorating his donation.
Jewish heirs to Nazi-looted art will find their property in the stolen art-work section (Sredersas) of Wollongong Gallery. Shame on the museum – they should be actively researching how he got the paintings from the Jews he fingered. Australia has a lot to answer as far as their WWll conduct. The 6 million innocent souls cry out, “Never Forget!”
Notwithstanding the serious allegations against him, my understanding is that the donated artworks were mainly Australian rather than nazi loot and it was only relatively recently that people in Australia became aware re these allegations of his previous life, so addressing the situation.
Happened A lot .
Australia wanted to forget WW2 crimes .
Also rabid anticommunists welcomed .
Do not forget Evian : Saving Jews before WW2 restricted despite huge land mass .