Felix Ganz (Mainz) – A Man and his Collection

Public lecture by Nathalie Neumann: Felix Ganz (1869-1944) was a successful businessman from Mainz and managing director of Ludwig Ganz AG, which imported and manufactured oriental carpets and textile products for furniture and home décor. He was also an art collector with an important collection of art objects from the Middle East and East Asia. In 1934, Ludwig Ganz AG was ‘aryanized’. In 1942 he and his second wife Erna were deported to Theresienstadt, where they survived for two years, and were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp in October 1944. His art collection disappeared with only have a rough description of the items from restitution claims. In 2019 some objects belonging to Felix were discovered in the Landesmuseum in Mainz.
Adam Ganz is the great-grandson of Felix Ganz. In autumn 2018 he and Nathalie Neumann successfully applied to the German Lostart Foundation (DZK Magdeburg) to research the fate of the collection in conjunction with the University of Mainz.