Last chance for Holocaust restitution
‘Needs are immediate and we are all too aware of them’
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PRAGUE – Just when charitable agencies are struggling to provide services, 46 nations have called for greater aid to needy Holocaust survivors. No one suggests that communal agencies take on this obligation, but in the United States, immediate support is unlikely to come from any other source.
With a declaration endorsed on Tuesday at the Terezin concentration camp, the nations — primarily European — concluded a four-day conference on Holocaust-era assets. The conference, hosted by the Czech Republic, was the first international diplomatic forum on Nazi victims’ material losses in slightly over a decade. It also was the first to include the social welfare of survivors on the agenda.
Commentary“It is unacceptable that those who suffered so greatly during the earlier part of their lives should live under impoverished circumstances at the end,” said the Terezin Declaration.
The declaration is nonbinding, but was heralded for its moral authority and “peer review” by other nations to propel compliance.
The idea was that the proceeds of Nazi-era heirless Jewish properties in each nation could be used to finance social welfare programs, such as home care. It’s a nice theoretical proposal that could work in some countries in Europe, where there were once sizable pre-World War II Jewish communities. It could work in Israel, as well, where an independent agency has been identifying investments and assets in Mandatory Palestine that were purchased by European Jews, but were never claimed.
But European nations have uneven sentiments on property restitution, from those that have some form of restitution procedure, to those that have yet — all these decades after the Nazi era — to enact restitution laws that cover Jewish losses. Israeli institutions face similar problems.
That is a moot point in the United States. It did have pre-war European Jewish assets in American banks, but those heirless accounts were settled as part of the U.S. war claims process. And they were reconsidered in the mid-1990s, ending the question of the Nazi-era heirless funds in American institutions or governmental treasuries.
But there is a substantial need in the United States, as was pointed out by Stuart Eizenstat, the former Clinton administration “restitution czar” who led the American delegation in Prague. (See related stories.) Eizenstat told the conference that in the United States, about one-third of Nazi victims are living at or close to the poverty level.
This isn’t a secret in communities where survivors live, whether in the United States or elsewhere. Some in the United States will say that Germany should pay more. It’s a fair statement, but the Germans have paid substantial amounts in the last 60 years; continue to make significant direct and indirect payments; and victims’ needs are greater and communal resources lesser in Central and Eastern Europe than in the United States.
Some would say this is Washington’s responsibility, and the Jewish community should press for additional public funds. Yet, while it is all well and good to lobby governments, this is not an appropriate response when the needs are immediate and we are all too aware of them.
The American delegation in Prague, after long consultations with Jewish organizations, pressed for nations at this week’s Holocaust-era assets conference to make moral pledges to recognize the right of Holocaust survivors to a dignified twilight and to care for Nazi victims. Whether those pledges are honored remains to be seen; in the decade since the last conference, the record of honored pledges has been a poor one. But we as a community cannot in the interim shirk our responsibility to act humanely, compassionately, and quickly to assist the survivors we know and the institutions that are dedicated to their welfare.
More on: Last chance for Holocaust restitution
 | Last Friday, the Lithuanian tabloid Vakaro Zinios cast Rabbi Andrew Baker, top, as a villain for his demand that Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, bottom, return Jewish property after eight years of promises to do so. |
PRAGUE – It has the tone of a newspaper from Berlin in 1936, except it’s from Vilnius in 2009.
The face of a rabbi is enlarged on the cover of a Lithuanian tabloid with the words “Give it now!” emblazoned across the top. The subject, Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international affairs for the American Jewish Committee, is cast as the villain, looking down on a miniature Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, portrayed as defenseless at the hands of some Shylock.
The image, which appeared on the June 26 edition of the popular right-wing daily Vakaro Zinios (The Evening News), alludes to Baker’s demand that the Lithuanian government return Jewish property after eight years of promises to do so.
10 European countries that pose obstacles for restitution-seekers
PRAGUE – Ten European Union countries where claimants of looted art, communal property, or private property face serious obstacles:
• Poland: Has not enacted any form of private restitution or compensation for an estimated $30.5 billion worth of property confiscated by Nazis or Communists. The Jewish share of claims on those properties is estimated at 20 percent to 27 percent. Poland has a very slow and burdensome process for restitution of Jewish communal property. Since 1997, 5,500 claims were filed but only 1,625 were adjudicated.
‘We are here to ignite momentum before it is too late’
PRAGUE – Stuart Eizenstat, who led the U.S. government delegation to the June 26-29 Holocaust Era Assets Conference in Prague, sat down with JTA for an interview on the eve of the conference.
The conference, organized by the Czech government, brought together representatives of 49 countries for what participants said was likely to be the last major attempt to compensate Holocaust victims and their heirs for art and property confiscated or sold under duress during the Nazi era.
Eizenstat, a lawyer who served as undersecretary of state under President Clinton and recently was appointed chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, is largely credited with getting Jewish property restitution started in the former Eastern bloc after the end of the Communist era. He also was the lead negotiator in the $1.25 billion settlement with Swiss banks in 1999.
