WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish official says the son of a Nazi official has returned three artworks that his family had looted from Krakow during World War II.

Krzysztof Marcinkiewicz, spokesman for the provincial governor's office in Krakow, said Monday that the gesture inspired hope that other Nazi descendants will follow suit.

In the ceremony Sunday in Krakow, Horst von Waechter of Austria returned an 18th-century map of Poland and two historic drawings that his mother had appropriated there in late 1939, shortly after her husband, Otto Waechter, had become governor in the southern Polish city occupied by German and Austrian Nazis during the war.

The handover was the result of efforts by Polish historian Magdalena Ogorek. Poland is searching worldwide for artworks the Nazis looted from 1939-45, sometimes even finding them at auctions.