A biographer profiles Rose Valland, who secretly tracked Nazi art thefts

From an early age, Rose Valland’s exhilaration was art. The young Frenchwoman spent much of the 1920s earning degrees and awards in art history, archaeology, and the fine arts. Yet Ms. Valland didn’t proceed to distinguish herself by teaching or writing, but through the ever-modest work of archiving. 

Following the German occupation of Paris in 1940, Ms. Valland, an unpaid assistant at the Jeu de Paume museum, began to secretly document the Nazis’ theft of vast amounts of artwork from France’s public institutions and private Jewish collections. Michelle Young’s electrifying account of those efforts, “The Art Spy: The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland,” came out May 13. Ms. Young spoke via video call with the Monitor about Ms. Valland’s accomplishments and courage. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Before the war, Rose Valland struggled to get hired in the Paris art world. Why?

First and foremost, it’s where she came from. If you are anyone of influence, you have been born and raised in Paris, and your family has been established there for maybe centuries. She comes from a small town outside of Lyon where her father is a blacksmith. So, basically, she had no connections. 

And then: misogyny. We see that with Henri Verne, who is the head of the Louvre and head of L’École du Louvre where she gets one of her degrees. He’s intent on disliking her and not even wanting to pass her thesis. This sets her off on that course, postgraduation, where she can’t find a job. 

Rose Valland ended up getting work at the Jeu de Paume. What set this museum apart?

Originally, it was a modern art collection within the Musée du Luxembourg. Then in the late 1920s, early ’30s, there’s this idea: Let’s make it its own museum. So they renovate the Jeu de Paume. The cultural sphere of Paris is interested in modern art – the famous people are Picasso, all these avant-garde influencers – but within the staid, traditional art world, it’s still seen as this inconsequential art movement. So for Rose to work there, it’s not that prestigious.

What happened to the Jeu de Paume after the Germans invaded Paris in 1940?

It was taken over by the Nazis as a clearinghouse for looted art. The most valuable stuff came to the Jeu de Paume – and that artwork would be going to high-level Nazis. They came knowing exactly what they wanted – they had a list. 

You write that she “learned to play the role of a nobody to the Nazis” as she secretly documented their theft. Was invisibility one of her superpowers?

I think so. And if we think of her sexuality [as a lesbian], she’d been concealing that – and she concealed it to the end of her life, more or less. So she already had these traits to be someone whom you overlooked and underestimated.

You describe her as unflappable. What was a favorite instance of her resolve?

There are all of her interactions with [notorious art looter] Bruno Lohse, the Nazi. He starts to suspect her, and there’s that one moment where he catches her deciphering an address and he says, “You could be shot.” Point-blank. And she looks right back and says, “All of us working here know the consequences, and we wouldn’t be that stupid.”

I think she managed [the day-to-day stress] by thinking, “My job here is to document and record, and I’ll focus on that.” 

What surprised you the most?

In part, it was the legalese of all the looting documents and how that all slowly led to the Holocaust. Realizing that link between “We just want to take some art” to really meaning “We want to take your whole identity, your presence in this country, your nationality, and all your belongings” – that that was one tie from beginning to end. To me, that was the most sinister part of the war. 

What ripple effects would you like to see from Rose’s story?

That anybody can resist. I hope she inspires people to fight for their convictions. 

I also hope that people see some echoes in the language that’s being used. I think totalitarianism uses the same playbook. Here [in the book] we are looking at it in terms of art. I want people to see how regimes talk about art and architecture. It’s equally important to other parts of the war.