WARSAW, Poland — In a gesture welcomed in Poland, the son of a Nazi official has returned three works of art that his family had looted from the southern Polish city of Krakow during World War II.

Polish officials said Monday they hoped the gesture by Horst von Waechter of Austria would inspire other Nazi descendants to follow suit.

In the ceremony Sunday in Krakow, von Waechter returned an 18th-century map of Poland, built into a small table, and two historic drawings that his mother, Charlotte von Waechter, had appropriated there in late 1939. It was shortly after her husband, Otto von Waechter, had become governor in the southern Polish city occupied by Nazi Germany during the war.

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The handover took place at the office of the Krakow provincial governor and was the result of efforts by Polish historian and politician Magdalena Ogorek, according to Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz, spokesman for the governor.

He said one of the paintings had Charlotte von Waechter’s handwritten pencil inscription saying it came from the Potocki Palace in Krakow, where the Waechters resided during the war.

Ogorek told The Associated Press she spotted some Poland-related objects at Horst von Waechter’s castle in Austria, while she was doing research there about his father, who died in 1949 at the Vatican while waiting to be smuggled to Argentina to avoid facing justice.

She said von Waechter returned the objects to Krakow for no compensation.

“He gave a good example to others and we should be happy about this,” Ogorek said.

Ryszard Czarnecki, a member of the Polish Law and Justice party and a vice-president of the European parliament, told the Guardian: “This is probably the first time that the member of a family of one of the most important Nazi occupiers is giving back art that was stolen from Poland during the war.

“I hope that the return of this painting will encourage other families in possession of looted art to return them instead of trying to sell them at auction,” he said.

Von Waechter said he had attempted to return one of the paintings to the Potocki family in the past, but they “did not want to have anything to do with me as the son of a Nazi.”

Ogorek said Polish officials were initially similarly wary.

“Polish officials are reluctant to have contact with the children of Nazis, but I convinced them that our obligation was to do everything we could to return this painting to the city of Kraków,” she said.

Poland was severely damaged during World War II, its palaces, museums and libraries bombed and plundered by the Nazis and by the Soviet Red Army from 1939-45. The government continues trying to retrieve looted works of art, and the Culture Museum has posted a list of many of them.

Some of the artworks occasionally surface at auctions around the globe, leading Poland to negotiate the terms of their return.