Film depicts efforts to save art in wartime

When Robert Edsel talks to audiences about the documentary he co-produced, "The Rape of Europa,” he describes the widespread theft of art and antiquities by Nazi Germany, the efforts of European curators and historians to safeguard the art from Adolf Hitler's grasp and the courageous work of U.S. Army "monuments men” to recover the stolen works as "the greatest untold story of World War II.”

Earlier this month at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington, Edsel shared the film with an audience of 200, including former members of the Office of Strategic Services and the CIA, retired brigadier generals and late President Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower.

But the story of how the Nazis stole one-fifth of the known artworks in Europe resonates even with people who have little knowledge of art.

For those audiences, Edsel asks if they've read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code,” which incorporates Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa” and "The Last Supper” as key plot devices.

He then tells them how Louvre officials in Paris hid "Mona Lisa” from the Nazis, and how the fresco of "The Last Supper” in Milan, Italy, was covered and braced with supports in anticipation of war.

"If it wasn't for the rescuing, there would be no ‘Code,'” Edsel tells the audiences.

Edsel will speak at a "The Rape of Europa” showing at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. A former oil and gas businessman whose parents were Oklahoma natives, Edsel sold his company 11 years ago and moved to Florence, Italy, where he then had ample time for reading.

"The Rape of Europa” documents the heroes who emptied Europe's greatest museums before the Nazi invasions, taking down paintings from the walls of the Louvre and hiding them in remote castles and estates. It celebrates the work of Rose Valland, an art historian and member of the French Resistance who kept track and reported on the paintings that passed through the Jeu De Paume, a museum the Germans used as a distribution house for plundered works.

But much of the film focuses on the work of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) division, a special U.S. Army team of art historians and curators that took heroic measures to protect monuments and recover millions of pieces of displaced art. "It was the first time in history an army attempted to fight a war on one hand and tried to mitigate damage to cultural property and treasures on the other,” Edsel said.

There were between 350 and 400 monuments men. One of them was Horace Apgar of Oklahoma City. Now 83, Apgar was a tech sergeant in the 100th Infantry Division who spent nearly three years on patrol through France and "walked through half of Germany” before hostilities ended. At that time, he was reassigned to the MFAA division.

"I really got into it after most of it had been done, except for the detective work that took years after that,” said Apgar, who became the principal double-bass player for decades with the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

"I'm probably the youngest of the survivors of that organization. I think they looked at my record which said ‘college student, musician,' and they thought, ‘We can't put him in the motor pool. Maybe we can put him in the monuments, where he'll feel comfortable.' That's the way I got into it, I'm sure.”

Edsel said the story of the monuments men was largely forgotten in part because the U.S. became embroiled in both the Cold War and the Korean War. Efforts to return stolen art to its rightful owners continue to this day. And while some major pieces such as Raphael's "Portrait of a Young Man” remain at-large, Edsel said he is confident that such major pieces will be recovered in the near future.

Also, Edsel is continuing to track down and catalog the biographies of the monuments men and plans a possible second book and film concentrating on their work. But Edsel said he is in a race against time.