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An Internet site displaying art stolen by the Nazis was launched in London on Friday aimed at reuniting some 100,000 stolen works with their owners.
The Swift-Find Looted Art Project (www.swift-find.com) displays a vast database of art works that can be consulted free of charge by auction houses and museums.
The site, which was a year in the preparation, already carries details of 25,000 stolen paintings, sculptures and precious objects stolen by the Nazis and still not returned to their owners.
It was created mainly to help victims of the Holocaust, said its director Shauna Isaac, who invited people to register any stolen works not already on the site.
Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Allies sent the majority of the stolen goods back to their countries of origin. Many unclaimed items were handed to museums.
Sixty years later, efforts are still being made to find stolen goods.
In January, Austria restored five masterpieces by Gustav Klimt to the American descendant of a family of Austrian Jews robbed by the Nazis.
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AFP 091741 GMT 06 06
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