Max Liebermann's widow Martha killed herself in March 1943 as police came to deport her, and in 2025 a Dutch committee advised returning a Liebermann drawing from the Rijksmuseum to her heirs

Max Liebermann left his studio and collection to his wife Martha. In December 1938 she surrendered silver and jewellery and was barred from the family house on Pariser Platz. On 14 December 1940 she was forced to sell the Wannsee villa to the Reichspost for 160,000 reichsmarks, paid into a frozen account. She obtained visas for Sweden and Switzerland, but the Reich flight tax of 50,000 Swiss francs was demanded and she could not leave. Told to prepare for deportation to Theresienstadt, she died on 10 March 1943 after an overdose as police arrived. The state confiscated her belongings. In 1948 an art historian wrote that dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt bought about 200 drawings from her shortly before her death. The Dutch Restitutions Committee found it highly plausible that a Liebermann chalk drawing the Rijksmuseum bought from Galerie Beyeler in 1956 was hers and that she lost it through Nazi-era circumstances. On 3 March 2025, on a claim by her great-granddaughter, it advised returning it to her heirs. In February 2024 the German Advisory Commission recommended the same for a Menzel drawing. Whether the Rijksmuseum has handed over the drawing is not confirmed^†.