In 1938, when the Nazis invaded, Jindrich Waldes arranged for his family to escape, while he stayed behind. The following year, he was arrested by the Gestapo, which seized all his property. He was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died.The communist government that took over Czechoslovakia in 1948 subsequently declared Waldes' holdings property of the state.But after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the drafting of restitution laws, Jiri Waldes believed that he could retrieve his father's collection--or at least obtain its monetary value.In 1992, Waldes hired lawyers, art dealers and other consultants in the Czech Republic to help him get the family property back. To generate goodwill, he donated to the National Gallery 22 paintings, sculptures and drawings, including several by the country's most famous painter, Frantisek Kupka.A Czech court awarded Waldes, 84, of Somers, N.Y., restitution of scores of paintings, including 15 works by Kupka. But the Czech Culture Ministry later ruled that the restituted works were national treasures that could not to be moved or sold out of the country.