Richard M. Barancik, the last living member of the Monuments Men and Women of the Second World War, an international group of approximately 350 people who worked together during and after the war to protect and recover European works of art and artefacts looted by Nazi soldiers or otherwise in danger of destruction, has died. Barancik died in Chicago Hospital on July 14 and his death was confirmed by his daughter Jill. He was 98 years old.
Barancik was born in Chicago on October 19, 1924. He enlisted in the army at age 17 and began studying engineering at the University of Nebraska for a brief period before moving to Europe to help with the war effort. “I must admit that I was a bad student in high school. But I spent my time reading and I was always interested in art and drawing,” he recalls in a meeting released last year. “In contrast, my engineering studies were well spent because I found something that I really loved and had a natural ability to do. And that’s where I took my education seriously. Unfortunately, my time at the University of Nebraska was cut short when we were called up for active duty before graduation because, by then, Hitler was making his last push and the U.S. Army was running out of infantry replacements.
An Army private first class, Barancik was stationed in England in 1944. On Christmas Eve of that year, he was on board a ship crossing the English Channel to France and the Battle of the Bulge when an accompanying ship, the SS Leopoldville, was sunk by German torpedoes, killing at least 800 American troops, and Barancik’s ship was hijacked as a result. After the surrender of Germany, Barancik was sent to Austria, where he discovered for the first time the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program of the Allied Armies, also called Men’s and Women’s Monuments. “When I arrived in Salzburg, I was overwhelmed not only by the beauty of the city but also by the quality of the men in the Fine Arts Section. They were generally older and very well educated in Fine Arts,” he said in the same interview.
Barancik soon volunteered for the Monuments Men, working for three months as a driver and guard. He helped reassign works of art and artifacts to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point, one of two main collection points used by the group. He also served as a guard in the Austrian salt mines, in which around 6,500 works of art looted by the Nazis were stored.
Pfc Richard Barancik during his military service in World War II Photo: Monuments Men and Women Foundation Collection, courtesy of the Barancik family
Much of the work Barancik helped transport and save was kept in sealed boxes at the time, so he couldn’t see much of what he was protecting. “Somebody could have said, ‘There’s a Vermeer in there,’ and he knew art was important or valuable,” Robert M. Edsel, founder and president of the Monuments Men and Women Foundation and author of the book. The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and History’s Greatest Treasure Huntsaid The New York Times. (The book was made into a movie in 2014, directed by and starring George Clooney.)
After his stint as a monument man, Barancik began his studies towards what would become a career as an architect. He stayed abroad at the University of Cambridge and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before returning to the United States to complete his studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He opened the architectural firm Barancik, Conte & Associates in 1950 and continued to work in the field until his retirement in 1993.
In 2015, Barancik and three other Monuments Men and Women members traveled to Washington, D.C. to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a civilian. “Americans cared about the cultural traditions of Europe,” he told the Los Angeles Times on the occasion of the medal ceremony. “We did everything we could to salvage what the Nazis had done. It’s the best we could do.
His daughter Jill said The New York Times that Barancik “was very embarrassed by the attention” that ensued after receiving the Congressional Gold Medal. “He didn’t feel like a hero,” she said. “He said, ‘I was a kid, I was there for three months. I’m wrong to take credit for myself. But I was like, ‘You were a witness, you represent the people who are no longer with us.’ She added that a positive effect of the reinvigorated attention was the countless correspondence Barancik would receive. “He was getting fan mail and, once a week, an autograph request,” her daughter said. “He was getting sensitive letters from people, including a lot of school kids, which kept the conversation going.”
