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> Most of the loot was hidden in his family home. Subsequently, his mother destroyed and threw away dozens of paintings and drawings, some by Cranach, Bruegel a
by droithomme 8y ago
> Most of the loot was hidden in his family home. Subsequently, his mother destroyed and threw away dozens of paintings and drawings, some by Cranach, Bruegel and Watteau, and dumped more than a hundred works into a canal. A pious woman, she chose not to destroy a Medieval sculpture of the Virgin Mary, abandoning it instead in a forest chapel.
His mother is a terrible person who should go to prison for life for intentional destruction of irreplaceable cultural items in order to cover up serious crimes.
As far as the thief himself goes his own culpability is much less than hers.
- heyjudy 8y agoNetherlands extremely rarely gives anyone an actual life sentence for anything. Plus, it's a property crime, and depends if she had knowledge of their value and intent based on that. Also, you'd need to lock-up half of the European aristocracy and most galleries for taking, and not willingly-returning, works taken from WW2 Holocaust victims and survivors. So in the grand scheme of things, she's, at most, a committer of criminal mischief.
- sandworm101 8y agoIt is more than a property crime. In canada/uk/us it is destruction of evidence. It is conspiracy after the fact. It may be harbouring a fugative. Those would all attach to the original grand theft. She could be looking at serious time should prosecutors go that route.
- droithomme 8y ago> you'd need to lock-up half of the European aristocracy... Is that bad?
- jacquesm 8y agoSuggest nickname change ;)
- kiba 8y agoHis mother is a terrible person who should go to prison for life for intentional destruction of irreplaceable cultural items in order to cover up serious crimes. What do we hope to gain from locking up an old woman?
- sandworm101 8y agoGeneral deterance. It makes it clear to others that destruction of evidence can be far worse than the crime you are attempting to hide.
- growse 8y ago"If only we lock up this one more person, _then_ it'll finally be clear." How's prison working out as a deterrent, generally?
- pexaizix 8y agoIt works fine. Just because some people can't stop themselves from committing crimes, that doesn't mean the general public doesn't respect deterrents. There are so many things I wouldn't do because I know I'd get in trouble.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't post unsubstantive rants to Hacker News, even if you feel strongly about art. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- droithomme 8y agoAbsolutely nothing in my post is a rant and your assertion that it is is highly offensive and quite frankly unhinged. You really have done an exceptional amount of damage to this site over the years. Are you not deeply ashamed of your committed unwavering hard work contributing to this once fine board's long descent? HN can be great again, but it will take work.