Beethoven score manuscript

Following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Petschek family, a wealthy Czech Jewish family involved in banking and the mining industry, fled to the US. They attempted to send by post a prized family possession, the original score of the fourth movement of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13. However, it was intercepted by the Gestapo. The Nazis asked an expert from the Moravian Museum to verify the authenticity of the score. The expert recognized Beethoven's handwriting, but in order to save the manuscript from being looted he lied to the Nazis and said it was not authentic. The Museum was then allowed to keep it. It remained with the Moravian Museum for more than 80 years.^[3]

The Nazis seized most of the Petschek family's assets and possessions, which Czechoslovakia's Communist regime nationalized after the war. Franz Petschek, who had run the family's mining businesses in Czechoslovakia, tried from his new home in the US to get the piece back but got scant sympathy from the Communist government.^[3]

In August 2022, the Moravian Museum di take the decision to return the manuscript to the heirs of the Petschek family, adhering to the Terezin Declaration which urged governments to make every effort to return former Jewish properties confiscated by the Nazis, fascists and their collaborators to their original owners. Before returning the Beethoven score, the museum exhibited it for five days. It had not been exhibited earlier during the museum's prolonged custody of it. The museum considered it one of the most precious items in its collections.^[3][4]