His unit, tasked with safeguarding European art and culture amid the destruction and plunder of war, was dramatized in the film “The Monuments Men.”
For much of his life, Mr. Barancik was known as an architect, sought after for the stylish homes, high-rise apartment buildings and office complexes that he and his firm designed in his home city of Chicago and across the country.
Monuments officers at first helped Allied commanders guide bombers away from sites of cultural importance. When such places sustained accidental damage, the officers helped lead initial repairs. Their presence, according to Edsel, served as a counterbalance to Nazi propaganda about the supposed depravity of the Allies, helping to win over “hearts and minds.
In the aftermath of the war, the monuments officers became guardians of those works and undertook the first steps toward their restitution. The officers established central collection and distribution points. Mr. Barancik, an art lover, volunteered for service and was assigned to work as a driver and guard in Austria.“The Americans cared about the cultural traditions of Europe,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “We did everything we could to salvage what the Nazis had done.
In 1942, after graduating from high school, he joined the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps, studying engineering at the University of Nebraska before he was deployed in 1944 to England. “When I arrived in Salzburg,” he said, “I was not only overwhelmed by the beauty of the town but the quality of the men in the Fine Arts Section. They were typically older and very well educated.”
Survivors include three children from his first marriage, Robert Barancik of St. Petersburg, Fla., Michael Barancik of Bainbridge Island, Wash., and Cathy B. Graham of New York; two children from his second marriage, Jill Barancik of Chicago and Ellie Barancik of Los Angeles; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
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