Walter Benjamin’s cultural treasures concept explains who may legally claim seized artifacts.

Evidence

Her thesis was stunning in its simplicity: “Harvard’s dismissal of Lanier brings to mind Jewish German philosopher Walter Benjamin’s observation that when history is written by the victorious and at the expense of the victims and survivors, the spoils become ‘cultural treasures.’ Only the victorious are permitted to claim as legally theirs what was seized from others. The latter were deprived of their freedom and rights and continue to live under the institutional condition dictating that their grievances go unheard.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1212

Categorization

• XREF: Benjamin’s ‘cultural treasures’ line also appears in the Frankfurt School literature on the victors writing history; Azoulay’s citation of Benjamin parallels that tradition.