There is a database dealing with all the claims concerning expropriation by the German Empire during the Third Reich. When you enter "Picard" linked to the keyword "damage", the database will offer "Eugenie Picard" and "Stamp Collection". 

A little old lady busy with twincers and a magnifying glass? This vision does not work. And indeed, it was Ernst who had been handed a valuable stamp collection by his father-in-law Ludwig Russ. When the family left Germany, the stamp collection had been appended to a package containing the property of mother Eugenie.

In the file, there is an affidavit signed by Edith and Ernst, in which the stamp collection is described. The collection had been started by the founder of the Bank "A. Russ jr." in the sixties of the 19thcentury. It contained many valuable stamps that had been issued when the use of stamps was introduced. When the family emigrated its value had been estimated at 5000 Reichsmark.

"When we left Germany, it had already been illegal to take valuable stamp collections abroad," so Edith and Ernst declared, "for this reason, we took the collection to the jewish shipping agency Bracht and Rothenstein, where mother's goods were kept in a storeroom."

However, Eugenie never ordered to have her stored goods transferred to Switzerland, as was intended. Meanwhile, the jewish shipping agency had been forced to hand over their firm to a German owner Harry W. Hamacher. As a part of the post-war investigations, the family was informed that the goods had presumably been destroyed during the combat actions which destroyed large parts of the capital or else had been lost during transport. It was impossible in the sixties to soundly verify, who was guilty of losing the cargo that held Eugenie's possessions, so the claim was repelled in 1967 after Ernst's death.