Into the main station of Geneva, Switzerland one night in February 1939 crawled a train of 22 freight cars. Atop every second car sat a machine-gun crew, and as the train stopped, three French soldiers with fixed bayonets jumped from each car. The art treasures of Spain, snatched from Madrid's gun-gutted Prado and many another lesser museum, vandalized churches and bombed palaces, had reached safety in Switzerland. In the cars were 1,842 big packing cases, containing 266 masterpieces by El Greco, Goya, Velasquez, Titian, Rubens, scores of other paintings, priceless collections of gold and silver work, porcelain, tapestries, sculpture, manuscripts. For...
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