“It’s literally a medal taken from the dead body of our grandfather,” Amaha Kassa, grandson of Ethiopian war hero General Ras Desta Damtew, revealed to an art publication, expressing the family’s anguish over their ancestral relic. Decades after being looted, the medal—valued at an estimated €60,000 to €90,000 ($63,200 to $94,800)—appeared at an online auction hosted by La Galerie Numismatique with a starting bid of €48,000 ($50,500).
The medal, deeply significant to Ethiopia’s history, was allegedly stolen by an Italian soldier present at Desta’s execution during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1937. General Desta, who valiantly fought against Italian forces, was captured and killed, marking a tragic chapter in Ethiopia’s colonial resistance.
Determined to reclaim the medal, the family enlisted Art Recovery International, a firm specializing in recovering looted and stolen cultural artifacts. They view the medal as a looted war trophy and aim to preserve it in an Ethiopian museum, where it can honor Desta’s legacy and the nation’s history.
Despite appeals from the family and intervention by the Ethiopian Heritage Authority, the auction failed to meet its reserve price. Shockingly, La Galerie Numismatique later offered to sell the medal back to the family—but at a significantly inflated price.
The family’s legal representative denounced the auction house’s demand as “outrageous and insensitive,” particularly given the item’s colonial-era provenance.
“These are stolen artifacts of immense cultural and historical significance being sold for profit,” the lawyer emphasized, urging for international accountability and respect for looted heritage.
Should war trophies remain in private collections, or do they belong in museums where history and culture can be preserved for future generations?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments as this family’s struggle sparks a global conversation on cultural justice.
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