[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1184 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







108th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 1184

 To establish a National Foundation for the Study of Holocaust Assets.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              June 4, 2003

Mr. Smith (for himself, Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Murray, Mr. Fitzgerald, and 
Mr. Lautenberg) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
    referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To establish a National Foundation for the Study of Holocaust Assets.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Holocaust Victims' Assets, 
Restitution Policy, and Remembrance Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) The United States should continue to lead the 
        international effort to identify, protect, and return looted 
        assets taken by the Nazis and their collaborators from victims 
        of the Holocaust.
            (2) The citizens of the United States should understand 
        exactly how the United States Government dealt with the assets 
        looted from victims of the Nazis that came into its possession.
            (3) The United States forces in Europe made extraordinary 
        efforts to locate and restitute assets taken by the Nazis and 
        their collaborators from victims of the Holocaust.
            (4) However, the restitution policy formulated by the 
        United States and implemented in the countries in Europe 
        occupied by the United States had many inadequacies and fell 
        short of realizing the goal of returning stolen property to the 
        victims.
            (5) As a result of these United States policies and their 
        implementation, there remain today many survivors or heirs of 
        survivors who have not had restored to them that which the 
        Nazis looted.
            (6) The Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust 
        Assets in the United States, established in Public Law 105-186, 
        found the following:
                    (A) Despite the undertaking by United States 
                agencies to preserve, protect, and return looted 
                assets, United States restitution policy could never 
                fully address the unimaginable dimension and complexity 
                of restituting assets to victims of the Holocaust. Many 
                inadequacies reveal that United States authorities were 
                driven by necessity, and practical concerns of 
                restitution commingled with conflicting interests, 
                priorities, and political considerations. Restitution 
                competed with, and was often subordinated to, the 
                desire to bring American troops home, the need to 
                rebuild devastated European economies, and provide 
                humanitarian assistance to millions of displaced 
                persons, and the Cold War.
                    (B) With respect to many types of assets, the 
                United States followed international legal tradition 
                and undertook only to restore property to national 
                governments, which it assumed would be responsible for 
                satisfying the claims of their citizens. Because this 
                practice excluded those who no longer had a nation to 
                represent their interests, or who had fallen victim to 
                the Nazi genocide, the United States also designated 
                certain ``successor organizations'' to sell heirless 
                and unclaimed property and apply the proceeds to the 
                care, resettlement, and rehabilitation of surviving 
                victims. This practice led many assets to be too 
                hastily labeled as heirless or unidentifiable, with the 
                result that they were assigned to the successor 
                organizations, rather than returned to their rightful 
                owners.
                    (C) Far more regrettable is the United States 
                failure to adequately assist victims, heirs, and 
                successor organizations to identify victims' assets, 
                instead relying upon them to present their own claims, 
                often within unrealistically short deadlines, with the 
                result that much victim property was never recovered.
                    (D) Even when property was returned to individual 
                owners or their heirs, it was often only after 
                protracted, cumbersome, and expensive administrative 
                proceedings that yielded settlements far less than the 
                full value of the assets concerned.
                    (E) While the overall record of the United States 
                is one in which its citizens can legitimately take 
                pride, even the most farsighted and best-intentioned 
                policies intended to restitute stolen property to its 
                country of origin failed to realize the goal of 
                returning property to the victims who suffered the 
                loss.
                    (F) In many instances, policy and circumstance 
                combined and led to results that can be improved upon 
                now, to provide a modicum of justice to Holocaust 
                victims and their heirs and in memory of those who did 
                not survive.
            (7) The United States Government should promote both the 
        review of Holocaust-era assets in Federal, State, and private 
        institutions, and the return of such assets to victims or their 
        heirs.
            (8) The best way to achieve this is to create a single 
        institution to serve as a centralized repository for research 
        and information about Holocaust-era assets.
            (9) Enhancing these policies will also assist victims of 
        future armed conflicts around the world.
            (10) The Government of the United States has worked to 
        address the consequences of the National Socialist era with 
        other governments and nongovernmental organizations, including 
        the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which 
        has worked since 1951 with the Government of the United States 
        and with other governments to accomplish material restitution 
        of the looted assets of Holocaust victims, wherever those 
        assets were identified, and has played a major role in 
        allocating restitution funds and funds contributed by the 
United States and other donor countries to the Nazi Persecutee Relief 
Fund.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT AND PURPOSES.

    (a) Establishment.--There is established a National Foundation for 
the Study of Holocaust Assets (in this Act referred to as the 
``Foundation'').
    (b) Purposes.--The purposes of the Foundation are--
            (1) to serve as a centralized repository for research and 
        information about Holocaust-era assets by--
                    (A) compiling and publishing a comprehensive report 
                that integrates and supplements where necessary the 
                research on Holocaust-era assets prepared by various 
                countries' commissions on the Holocaust;
                    (B) working with the Department of State's Special 
                Envoy for Holocaust Issues to review the degree to 
                which foreign governments have implemented the 
                principles adopted at the Washington Conference on 
                Holocaust-era Assets and the Vilnius International 
                Forum on Holocaust-era Looted Cultural Property, and 
                should encourage the signatories that have not yet 
                implemented those principles to do so; and
                    (C) collecting and disseminating information about 
                restitution programs around the world;
            (2) to create tools to assist individuals and institutions 
        to determine the ownership of Holocaust victims' assets and to 
        enable claimants to obtain the speedy resolution of their 
        personal property claims by--
                    (A) ensuring the implementation of the agreements 
                entered into by the Presidential Advisory Commission on 
                Holocaust Assets in the United States with the American 
                Association of Museums and the Association of Art 
                Museum Directors to provide for the establishment and 
                maintenance of a searchable central registry of 
                Holocaust-era cultural property in the United States, 
                beginning with European paintings and Judaica;
                    (B) funding grants to museums, libraries, 
                universities, and other institutions that hold 
                Holocaust-era cultural property and adhere to the 
                agreements referred to in subparagraph (A), to conduct 
                provenance research;
                    (C) encouraging the creation and maintenance of 
                mechanisms such as an Internet-based, searchable portal 
                of Holocaust victims' claims for the restitution of 
                personal property;
                    (D) funding a cross match of records developed by 
                the 50 States of escheated property from the Holocaust 
                era against databases of victims' names and publicizing 
                the results of this effort;
                    (E) assisting State governments in the preservation 
                and automation of records of unclaimed property that 
                may include Holocaust-era property; and
                    (F) regularly publishing lists of Holocaust-era 
                artworks returned to claimants by museums in the United 
                States;
            (3) to work with private sector institutions to develop and 
        promote common standards and best practices for research and 
        information gathering on Holocaust-era assets by--
                    (A) promoting and monitoring banks' implementation 
                of the suggested best practices developed by the 
                Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in 
                the United States and the New York Bankers' 
                Association;
                    (B) promoting the development of common standards 
                and best practices for research by United States 
                corporations into their records concerning whether they 
                conducted business with Nazi Germany in the period 
                preceding the onset of hostilities in December 1941;
                    (C) encouraging the International Commission on 
                Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) to prepare a 
                report on the results of its claims process; and
                    (D) promoting the study and development of policies 
                regarding the treatment of cultural property in 
                circumstances of armed conflict; and
            (4) other purposes the Board considers appropriate.

SEC. 4. BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

    (a) Membership and Terms.--The Foundation shall have a Board of 
Directors (in this Act referred to as the ``Board''), which shall 
consist of 17 members, each of whom shall be a United States citizen.
    (b) Appointment.--Members of the Board shall be appointed as 
follows:
            (1) Nine members of the Board shall be representatives of 
        government departments, agencies and establishments, appointed 
        by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the 
        Senate as follows:
                    (A) One representative each from the Department of 
                State, Department of Justice, Department of the 
                Treasury, Department of the Army, National Archives and 
                Records Administration, and Library of Congress.
                    (B) One representative each from the United States 
                Holocaust Memorial Council, National Gallery of Art, 
                and National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.
            (2) Eight members of the Board shall be individuals who 
        have a record of demonstrated leadership relating to the 
        Holocaust or in the fields of commerce, culture, or education, 
        appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent 
        of the Senate, after consideration of the recommendations of 
        the congressional leadership, as follows:
                    (A) Two members each shall be appointed after 
                consideration of the recommendations of the Majority 
                Leader of the Senate and after consideration of the 
                recommendations of the Minority Leader of the Senate.
                    (B) Two members each shall be appointed after 
                consideration of the recommendations of the Speaker of 
                the House of Representatives and after consideration of 
                the recommendations of the Minority Leader of the House 
                of Representatives.
    (c) Chairman.--The President shall appoint a Chair from among the 
members of the Board.
    (d) Quorum and Voting.--A majority of the membership of the Board 
shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. Voting shall 
be by simple majority of those members voting.
    (e) Meetings and Consultations.--The Board shall meet at the call 
of the Chairman at least twice a year. Where appropriate, members of 
the Board shall consult with relevant agencies of the Federal 
Government, and with the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and 
Museum.
    (f) Reimbursements.--Members of the Board shall serve without pay, 
but shall be reimbursed for the actual and necessary traveling and 
subsistence expenses incurred by them in the performance of the duties 
of the Foundation.

SEC. 5. OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES.

    (a) Executive Director.--The Foundation shall have an Executive 
Director appointed by the Board and such other officers as the Board 
may appoint. The Executive Director and the other officers of the 
Foundation shall be compensated at rates fixed by the Board and shall 
serve at the pleasure of the Board.
    (b) Employees.--Subject to the approval of the Board, the 
Foundation may employ such individuals at such rates of compensation as 
the Executive Director determines appropriate.
    (c) Volunteers.--Subject to the approval of the Board, the 
Foundation may accept the services of volunteers in the performance of 
the functions of the Foundation.

SEC. 6. FUNCTION AND CORPORATE POWERS.

    The Foundation--
            (1) may conduct business in the United States and abroad;
            (2) shall have its principal offices in the District of 
        Columbia or its environs; and
            (3) shall have the power--
                    (A) to accept, receive, solicit, hold, administer, 
                and use any gift, devise, or bequest, either absolutely 
                or in trust, of real or personal property or any income 
                therefrom, or other interest therein;
                    (B) to acquire by purchase or exchange any real or 
                personal property or interest therein;
                    (C) to sell, donate, lease, invest, reinvest, 
                retain, or otherwise dispose of any real or personal 
                property or income therefrom;
                    (D) to enter into contracts or other arrangements 
                with public agencies, private organizations, and other 
                persons, and to make such payments as may be necessary 
                to carry out its purposes; and
                    (E) to do any and all acts necessary and proper to 
                carry out the purposes of the Foundation.

SEC. 7. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.

    The Foundation shall, as soon as practicable after the end of each 
fiscal year, transmit to Congress a report of its proceedings and 
activities during that fiscal year, including a full and complete 
statement of its receipts, expenditures, and investments, and a 
description of all acquisition and disposal of real property.

SEC. 8. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES AND SUPPORT.

    The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Education, the 
Secretary of State, and the heads of any other Federal agencies may 
provide personnel, facilities, and other administrative services to the 
Foundation.

SEC. 9. SUNSET PROVISION.

    The Foundation shall exist until September 30, 2013, at which time 
the Foundation's functions and research materials and products shall be 
transferred to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or to other 
appropriate entities, as determined by the Board.

SEC. 10. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

    (a) Authorization.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the 
Foundation such sums as may be necessary to carry out this Act.
    (b) Limitation.--No funds appropriated to carry out this Act may be 
used to pay attorneys' fees in the pursuit of private claims.
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