Poland to ask Russia to return paintings looted by Red Army in WW2

Culture minister says traces of hundreds of thousands of items lead to the Russian Federation'

Poland will formally ask Russia to return seven paintings from a Moscow museum that were looted by the Red Army during the second world war, the Polish culture minister has announced.

Piotr Gliski said about 20 previous requests to Moscow for the return of thousands of other items stolen during the war had fallen on deaf ears. Those items included archives of the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, paintings by Old Masters such as Durer, Holbein and Cranach and manuscripts by Polish authors.