Hugo as a successful surgeon in Cairo and Ernst Picard as a gynecologist in Tel Aviv: Compared with the tattered and bony crowds that were liberated in the concentration camps, they were extremely well off. Still they had something in common: According to the nazi legislation all German jews lost their citizenship. When Hugo and Ernst turned to the restitution court in Konstanz to have the sale of the house in Kreuzlinger Strasse cancelled, their lawyer Dr. Wachsmann who formulated the application in 1949 described the plaintiffs as follows: "Dr. med. Ernst Picard, German from birth… since 1939 Palestinian citizen..., Professor Dr. med. Hugo Picard, German from birth... since 1941 stateless." Presumably, Salomon would have been very upset to see his sons described this way!

The trial wore on to 1952, then the plaintiffs withdrew their application.

The house had been sold in 1935 in a hurry. It was bought by a dentist who originally had rented a part of the house as an office. The dentist and his family were Swiss from the neighbouring village Taegerwilen. Apparently, it was hard for them to pay in cash, which the Picards unavoidably had to insist on. Therefore, both parties agreed on a reduced sum of 40 000 Reichsmark.

Many witnesses were heard to deliver their statements at court. In detail, they discussed the question of the time of the sale. Nazi repression was not the only reason for the sale of the house. Apparenty, Eugenie had already mentioned in 1931 that she wanted to sell the house. In addition, so the witnesses in Konstanz, the situation for Hugo and Ernst in Berlin was not dangerous in the thirties. There was no reason for them to have left the country at that time!

The actual value of the house was estimated to range around 55 000 Reichsmark in 1931, but at the time of the sale, many jews in Konstanz left the country and the market was flooded with property on sale.

All in all, the example of the house of the Picards shows that even the Swiss in the border regions could profit from the repression of jews in Germany – apart from the orphaned jewish bank accounts that were revealed many decades later.

In 1952 it became clear that the house in Kreuzlinger Strasse would remain with the Thurgovian owners, although the brothers summed up: "Originally, the family never seriously considered the sale of the house, that our father bought in 1885. The sons always thought of keeping the house in order to spend their old age in their home town."