[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOLOCAUST ERA ASSETS_AFTER THE PRAGUE CONFERENCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE:
U.S. HELSINKI COMMISSION
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 25, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Available via http://www.csce.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
95-184 WASHINGTON : 2015
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
SENATE
HOUSE
BENJAMIN CARDIN, Maryland, ALCEE HASTINGS, Florida,
Chairman Co-Chairman
CHRISTOPHER DODD, Connecticut EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia New York
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire JOSEPH PITTS, Pennsylvania
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island ROBERT ADERHOLT, Alabama
TOM UDALL, New Mexico DARRELL ISSA, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
MICHAEL POSNER, Department of State
ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, Department of Defense
HOLOCAUST ERA ASSETS--AFTER THE PRAGUE CONFERENCE
----------
May 25, 2010
MEMBERS
Page
Hon. Benjamin Cardin, Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 1
Hon. Christopher Smith, Commissioner, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.......................................... 3
WITNESSES
Stuart Eizenstat, Partner, Covington & Burling LLP, former U.S.
Ambassador to the European Union............................... 4
HOLOCAUST ERA ASSETS--AFTER THE PRAGUE CONFERENCE
----------
MAY 25, 2010
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was held from 2:30 to 3:22 p.m. EST, 428A
Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, Senator
Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Chairman, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe, presiding.
Members present: Hon. Benjamin Cardin, a Senator from the
State of Maryland, Hon. Alcee Hastings, a Member of Congress
from the State of Florida and Hon. Chris Smith, a Member of
Congress from the State of New Jersey.
Witnesses present: Stuart Eizenstat, Partner, Covington &
Burling LLP, former U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.
HON. BENJAMIN CARDIN, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND
Mr. Cardin. Let me welcome you all to the Helsinki
Commission hearings. I've been informed that the House has a
series of votes so I assume that Congressman Hastings, who had
planned to be here, will be delayed as a result of that. And
he's asked that we start the hearing, knowing full well that
schedules are going to be difficult during this last week
before the Memorial Day recess.
I also want to welcome you to the recently renovated small
business committee hearing room. I serve on the small business
committee and this room was recently renovated to reflect the
importance of small business to our economy. And it's a
pleasure to have Ambassador Eizenstat with us, and I'll have a
little bit more to say about that.
Twenty years ago, the establishment of democratically
elected governments in Central and East Europe gave us hope
that at long last, we would be able to deal with property
restitution issues left over from the Nazi era, World War II.
With democratically elected governments, we thought that we
would be able to get these issues addressed in a more open and
transparent way, bringing justice to people who had waited a
long time in regards to property that was wrongfully taken.
The Helsinki Commission began to examine some of these
issues and convened its very first hearing on property claims
issues in 1996. And it's interesting that Ambassador Eizenstat
was our witness at that hearing, so it's nice to have
Ambassador Eizenstat back with us 15 years later.
Unfortunately, we still have some issues that are unresolved.
We were very heartened when the Czech government agreed to
host a conference to examine outstanding issues relating to
Holocaust-era assets. I introduced a resolution in the Senate
specifically condemning the Czech government and supporting the
goals of the Prague conference. Separately, I cosponsored, with
Sen. Nelson, a resolution on specific problems of restitution
or compensation for property seized in Nazi and Communist eras.
I do want to take a minute to express my concerns about two
countries that were mentioned by name in the Senate resolution.
First, let me talk about Poland. Successive governments in
Poland have promised to adopt an effective general property
compensation law, but no government to-date has been able to do
so.
I understand that this is a particularly complex problem in
Poland. Poland probably had greater border changes and more
population transfers or expulsions at the end of the war than
any other country in the region. And the confiscations carried
out during the Nazi occupation were compounded by confiscations
undertaken by the Polish Communist regime.
In other words, addressing this issue in Poland may be
especially challenging. But I do not believe it is impossible.
Indeed, the adoption of a limited property compensation law in
2005, for Poles who were originally from territories beyond the
Bug River, was a useful start to addressing private property
claims, but it should not be the end. Every major political
party in Poland has supported draft legislation on property
compensation and I hope the Prime Minister will be able to
carry through on his stated commitment to see a general
property law adopted.
Second, the resolution we introduced last year also drew
attention to the situation in Lithuania. Unfortunately,
Lithuania's 1995 law on the return of property to religious
associations is needlessly restrictive. I hope the Government
of Lithuania will fulfill promises it has made to revisit the
legal framework and ensure that community property--not limited
to houses of worship only, but also including, for example,
schools--is returned. I might tell you that last year, we
brought these issues directly up to the Lithuanian government
when our annual meeting was held in Vilnius.
We are honored to have before us today Ambassador Stuart
Eizenstat. His full bio is available and I will not go through
citing or embarrassing him on all of his accomplishments.
Ambassador Eizenstat is our former U.S. Ambassador to the
European Union. In the 1990s, he led the negotiations for the
United States with the Swiss, German, Austrian, and French
private sectors and their governments on Holocaust-era bank
accounts, slave and forced labor, unpaid insurance policies,
immovable property, and the restitution of or compensation for
stolen communal and private property. Last year, he led the
U.S. delegation to the Prague Conference and he has just
returned from follow-up discussions in the Czech capital.
As Lord Janner said of him at the conference in Prague last
year, Stuart Eizenstat has ``labored through the endless
complexities to secure tangible results.'' Ambassador
Eizenstat, it's truly a pleasure to have you once again before
the Helsinki Commission. And we are joined by Congressman
Smith, who is working his way up. And if you would just wait
for one moment, I would like to give Congressman Smith an
opportunity, if he would like, to make some opening comments
before we get started.
HON. CHRIS SMITH, A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW
JERSEY
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
you for calling this very important hearing. And I'd like to
welcome Ambassador Eizenstat and everyone and thank them for
joining us this afternoon.
I'm sorry to note that one of the witnesses from one of the
commission's earlier hearings on Holocaust assets, Jan Sammer,
passed away just a few months ago. He was a principled and
tenacious advocate for property rights in the Czech Republic.
And I, along with, I know, everyone in this room, am deeply
saddened that the Czech Republic did not resolve its unjust and
discriminatory practices before his death, and indeed, has not
done so yet.
Mr. Chairman, our government must pursue justice for those
robbed by the Nazis and their accomplices and still defrauded
by governments who connive at the Nazis' crimes by refusing to
make them right. Each year, we lose more Holocaust survivors
and that precious generation of witnesses will soon be gone.
The failure to return their properties is tragic proof of the
axiom, justice delayed is justice denied.
Very often, the failure to return properties is morally
incomprehensible and impossible to justify and reflects very
poorly on the government concerned. Let me mention just one
such case: Three years ago, I joined with other members of our
commission to write to the Hungarian foreign minister regarding
artwork looted from the family of Martha Nierenberg during
World War II.
The Hungarian government does not dispute that these
paintings were unjustly taken from the family. In fact, the
family's paintings had been on display in Hungarian museums
with signs stating as much. Yet, the Hungarian government
refuses to return the paintings to their rightful owner. This
is blatant and a gross injustice.
Mr. Chairman, many wrongs of the Holocaust can never, ever
be undone, but this one can. The Hungarian government has the
legal authority to return these stolen paintings and has the
moral responsibility to do so. Likewise, other governments in
Europe have a serious moral responsibility to return property
stolen during the Holocaust.
Really, is it hard to imagine how some people sleep at
night living in homes stolen from Jewish families during the
Holocaust, enjoying paintings and real estate stolen from those
victims while the victims' descendants are cut off and shut
out? How do the government officials that enable this injustice
sleep at night?
Ambassador Eizenstat, welcome again and I thank you for
your extraordinary leadership and vision in demanding justice
for those who are unjustly deprived of their property. Thank
you.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you very much, Congressman Smith. I
appreciate very much you coming by. Ambassador Eizenstat.
STUART EIZENSTAT, PARTNER, COVINGTON & BURLING LLP, FORMER U.S.
AMBASSADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION
Mr. Eizenstat. Thank you very much. I'm really honored to
be here but even more pleased with the fact that you and
Congressman Smith and Congressman Hastings and others are
elevating this issue again because it's very important to do
so.
I'd be remiss if I didn't begin by saying that the Office
of Holocaust Assets at the State Department, which was created
in the Clinton administration and continued in the Bush and now
Obama administration, does an enormous amount of work with very
few people. They're all excellent; they're dedicated.
Christian Kennedy is just ending a three-and-a-half year
tenure as special envoy of Holocaust issues; Douglas Davidson,
a very experienced and excellent career Foreign Service officer
is taking his place and Basil Squirellus (ph), John Becker
(ph), Liz Naikan (ph), Greg Matheson (ph), some of whom work
only part-time, get a tremendous amount done on this issue.
I have, as you mentioned, just come back from Prague for
follow-up negotiations to the fifth of five international
Holocaust-related conferences--the first being in London in
1997 on Nazi looted gold; the Washington Conference on
Holocaust-Era Assets, which focused on art in '98; the January
2000 Stockholm Conference; and the December 2000, Vilnius
Conference, all of which were aimed at belated justice for
Holocaust survivors and their families but also for other
victims of Nazi oppression.
All of these were in the context of negotiations I led
during the Clinton administration in which $8 billion in
revenues were obtained for Holocaust victims and other victims
of Nazi aggression--the majority, by the way, of that money
from non-Jews--from Swiss and French banks, German and Austrian
slave labor and forced-labor companies, insurance companies and
others, leading to the return of thousands of pieces of looted
art and many other properties.
We are indebted to the Czech government for hosting and
providing leadership for the historic Prague conference, which
is by far the most ambitious of the five conferences in which I
have participated. It has covered the widest array of issues,
some of which, remarkably, were not considered before, like the
social welfare needs of survivors and private property
compensation or restitution. It also has provided new momentum
on issues such as art recovery.
And it's the first, Mr. Chairman, of the Holocaust-related
conferences to provide a follow-up mechanism. The Czechs have
just created, and in Prague, I helped inaugurate with the
foreign minister, the European Shoah Legacy Institute, which
will ultimately be located in Terezin.
During the conference, we also managed to build a consensus
around a series of non-binding moral commitments for action.
Embodied in something we call the Terezin Declaration, of which
all 47 participating states accepted and which we're now trying
to develop specific private property guidelines and best
practices. I'd like to submit a copy of that declaration for
the record and focus on three of those commitments: improved
social welfare benefits for survivors, private property
compensation and art restitution.
On social welfare: Elderly Holocaust victims have unique
social welfare needs. Many survivors lost their entire families
in the Holocaust and have no family support network in their
old age. Recent studies by the Jewish Claims Conference
indicate that some half of the world's 500,000 Holocaust
survivors live in poverty--35 percent of those in Israel do so;
25 percent of Holocaust survivors in our own wealthy country
live in poverty; in New York City, our greatest financial
center, over 33 percent do.
This is an unacceptable situation: that those who suffered
so grievously in their youth should now have to sustain in
their declining years deprivation and poverty. Hundreds of
thousands of survivors around the world face significant health
problems and they are in such dire financial circumstances that
they simply cannot live out their remaining years in dignity.
They need many things--in particular, home care.
As the Terezin Declaration noted, focusing for the first
time on their social needs, several states have begun to use a
variety of creative mechanisms to provide assistance both to
those needy Holocaust survivors and to other victims of Nazi
persecution. This includes, for example, special Social
Security benefits to nonresidents.
Austria provides for all of its survivors regardless of
where they live, special homecare benefits; the use of assets
from heirless property. And some countries are also proposing
to adopt other methods of support, such as making all
concentration camp survivors eligible to receive a pension as
war veterans. I believe France is doing that.
The Federal Republic of Germany, of course, provides
perhaps the most prominent example. It designated in 1951 the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany as a
successor organization for unclaimed property in former East
Germany and to negotiate what is now $100 billion of payments
over the past 60 years for the benefit of Holocaust survivors.
That is by far the single-largest source of funding. It goes
through the claims conference to meet unmet social needs.
The second issue is property restitution, to which you
referred in your eloquent statement, Mr. Chairman. And let me
turn to that. In 1994, then-Assistant Secretary of State
Richard Holbrooke, when I was ambassador to the European Union,
asked me to take on a dual role as a special representative on
Holocaust issues to try to encourage the new democracies to
which you referred in the former Soviet/East bloc to restitute
communally owned property for Christian and Jewish communities.
They are communities that were unable to practice their
religion either because they were devastated during World War
II or because of restrictions under Communism, and they needed
the physical infrastructure to rebuild not just religious but
also their cultural life. And so we encouraged the return of
churches, synagogues, schools, community centers, even
cemeteries in order to give them that physical infrastructure
to rebuilt their shattered lives, shattered by the twin
tragedies of the 21st century, Nazism and Communism.
I found in going through virtually every country in Central
and Eastern Europe that there was a complete lack of a
comprehensive, systematic way of handling immovable property
claims except in the Federal Republic of Germany. We're going
to submit, with your permission, in the next several weeks, a
country-by-country analysis of where things stand. But let me
focus on three countries where long-overdue improvements are
necessary.
The first is Poland, to which you referred, Mr. Chairman,
whereas you mentioned for several years, governments have been
making efforts to enact legislation governing private property
restitution. After several attempts, the Polish government, we
understand, has now prepared new legislation, which in due
course it intends to submit to parliament.
This new law would benefit not only current residents in
Poland, but also all those living abroad who were either
themselves or their family residents in Poland at the time of
the taking both by the Nazis and by the Communists thereafter.
Unfortunately, in our view, the proposed legislation still
falls short in certain ways. For example, it does not include
property in Warsaw, which is home to the largest pre-war Jewish
population in Poland. And we hope that this draft law can be
improved.
However, we do understand that there is a plan which has
some promise for the city of Warsaw to fill this void with a
city law that will provide a compensation program funded by the
sale of city-owned property. And we're hopeful that the best
practices that we're now negotiating and which the Czech prime
minister has indicated he will declare if our negotiation is
successful on June 9th, will add an additional impetus.
Poland has been participating in these talks and we hope
that this will encourage them. It is, as you say, an extremely
difficult issue. They were victims themselves as well as the
Jews. They suffered a double loss because of the Communist
taking. And we understand and support the notion that non-Jews
whose property was taken by the Communists should also benefit.
Another area of potential progress in the near future is
communal property in Lithuania, a country where not enough has
been done to return communal property. And we understand the
government, with the tacit agreement of the local Jewish
community, may be submitting a communal property proposal to
the parliament soon.
And finally, Romania, which has established a fund to pay
compensation for property claims. But that fund, Mr. Chairman,
was created in 2005; it's still not operational. At the same
time, there is some modest array of hope because they've hired
a major-fund manager, and that fund manager is there to manage
the fund. Presumably, that indicates their willingness to move
forward.
The Terezin Declaration urged participating states to
implement their own national programs to address these
unresolved immovable property issues and recommended an
intergovernmental effort to develop nonbinding guidelines and
property processes for the return of communal and private
property, something that has not been done in any of the
previous conferences. And this is all being done under the
auspices of the newly created European Shoah Legacy Institute,
which will be at Terezin.
Last is artwork: Since the adoption of the Washington
Principles on Nazi Looted Art, in 1998, which I helped
negotiate, the major art markets have radically changed. Art
auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's have established
their own full-time, in-house experts to look at the provenance
of any art they handle from the 1933-to-1945 years passing
through Europe.
Our own American museums have created a central search
engine so a claimant can put a particular claim through that
search engine and it goes to scores of museums around the
country. There have been hundreds of pieces of art returned.
Austria, for example, has actually incorporated the Washington
Principles into domestic legislation. So has Russia but they
have not implemented their own lay.
The Terezin Declaration reiterated national commitments to
the Washington Principles and also emphasized two issues of
particular importance since those original principles were
negotiated in 1998, and that is the need to develop the
provenance of artworks through careful research and
scholarship, and to resolve disputes based on the available
records about the location and ownership of works during the
Holocaust period whenever possible through alternative dispute
resolution processes.
It urged the courts, Mr. Chairman, and other fora that
decide art restitution cases to base their cases on the facts
of the individual case rather than relying on technical legal
grounds such as a statute of limitations. And here, permit me
to be very frank: The momentum following the 1998 Washington
conference to return looted art to its rightful owners has
significantly dissipated.
It has generated into lengthy, costly litigation in which
the holders of art increasingly use technical defenses like
statutes of limitation rather than making a decision on the
merits. For sure, every claimant is not making a just claim but
those claims ought to be considered. And that's what the
Washington Principles and Terezin encourage; based on the
merits and not on technical defenses.
The Washington Principles called for the establishment of
commissions or other fora to handle these cases rather than
going to court. The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Austria
and the Netherlands all have established such commissions; we
in the United States have not. To try to address that issue,
the State Department has held a series of what we call town-
hall meetings with all the stakeholders in the American art
world.
We have not yet come up with a model for a commission--what
qualifications commissioners should have, how they would be
appointed, who would pay for their cost, how it would be
structured, what their responsibilities would be--but we're
still studying it; we're very interested in continuing to look
at it and we certainly would welcome your ideas and those of
the commission on this matter.
Let me conclude with the following: Where do we go from
there? Our job in the State Department is to work with the
states that participated in the Prague Conference to convert
the moral commitments in the Terezin Declaration into action.
That's what we're doing with the best practices that we're now
negotiating. That is the job that the European Shoah Legacy
Institute has likewise committed itself. They are, for example,
talking about having a possible conference in 2012 to look at
the implementation.
But I want to close with two issues that I feel very, very
strongly about. The first is that elderly survivors or their
families are often at wit's end in knowing how to seek the
return of their real, immovable property; their artwork or
other possessions brutally taken from them; so by force, say,
by the Nazis or their collaborators. They're simply stymied.
There is only one place in the United States of America
where anything systematically is being done to try to help
them. They can't hire lawyers; they don't know the language
abroad. And so the only place is the New York Banking
Commission's Holocaust Processing Office under the inspired
direction of Anna Rubin with a small, paid staff with whom I've
met, paid for by the taxpayers of New York.
It does afford a venue to help claimants navigate foreign
records and judicial or administrative proceedings but it's a
very tiny office. It's funded with the generosity of New York
taxpayers and, by the way, they handle claims all over the
world; not just New York residents. We do not have any other
vehicle to do this. I call on the Helsinki Commission and your
leadership to consider how to establish a process similar to,
or augmenting, or supporting the New York office with the
resources to research and facilitate claims.
Just again on a personal basis, you cannot imagine how many
poor people call me asking for help: Where do I go, who do I
see, how do I understand the local language, what lawyer in
Poland or the Czech Republic or Slovakia can help me? We need
to have a method of doing it. The State Department, Mr.
Chairman, cannot do it because of the espousal doctrine. We do
not espouse claims for people who were not American citizens at
the time of the taking. That's a long-established fact. So we
need to try to find ways, perhaps, building on the New York
office, to support that. Time is running out and the hourglass
is fast ending.
Second and last, as a former U.S. ambassador to the EU, I
want to say something. I am a great supporter of the European
Union. It's one of the great exercises in shared sovereignty.
It has united East and West Europe in a harmonious, democratic
and free-market project. It's really quite amazing.
But, while some individual members of the EU have done good
work in restituting property and providing compensation and
social justice for survivors of the Holocaust and other victims
of Nazi oppression, the EU as an institution which regards
itself as a moral power in the world has done very, very little
collectively to right particular wrongs of the past.
It was, after all, not in the United States, it was in
Europe where these heinous crimes against Jews and non-Jews
were perpetrated. It is in Europe, not the United States, where
property was confiscated. It was in their member-states. Even
so, they continue to take a hands-off approach to those member-
states who do not live up to obligations, some of which they
voluntarily accepted in acceding to membership; nor has the EU
committed any funding, for example, to the European Shoah
Legacy Institute.
It seems to me that it's time for the European Union not to
simply leave Holocaust-era issues to the United States, but to
deal with them as well with their own member-states and with
their own financial resources in the European Commission, and
to assume their proper place in a partnership with us and other
countries to resolve the many outstanding Holocaust-related
problems that still confront the continent 70 years after the
Shoah.
Again, with your permission, we would like to submit,
later, a country-by-country assessment of where the property
restitution issue lies. Thank you again, and thank you, again,
for your leadership.
Mr. Cardin. Well, Ambassador Eizenstat, thank you for your
testimony. Your entire testimony, along with the supplements
and country-by-country will be made part of our record. I just
want to underscore the difficulty that people have in pursuing
claims. My office was contacted many years ago concerning a
claim in Romania for the return of property that was wrongfully
taken.
And they had been through the Romanian courts several times
with successful results, but no property. And this was going on
for many years, and the only way we were able to get it
successfully handled was putting a spotlight on it, causing a
lot of international attention, and ultimately, the property
was returned.
I mention that because I don't know how many people, how
many families can go through that type of a process. It was
very costly. It took a lot of travel, a lot of time. And there
needs to be a more streamlined approach. So we certainly will
take a look at your concerns, and we applaud the state of New
York for what it's doing on processing claims for their
citizens. But there should be some process here in the United
States to deal with so many of our citizens who have open
matters. And we'll take a look at that and see whether we can't
help that along.
You mentioned the Terezin Declaration several times, and I
just came back from a follow-up meeting. There was originally,
I think, either 46 or 47 countries, I believe that were a part
of it. In the follow-up conference, it is my understanding,
only 30 states participated. Is there anything to be read into
the fact that you didn't have quite the same level of interest
in your most recent meeting?
Mr. Eizenstat. I don't think so. It's a good question, but
I don't think so. And the reason is that when I look back to
the run-up negotiating sessions that we had to the Prague
conference, and then the ultimate Terezin Declaration which
came from it, we did not have all 47 countries in the working
group. There is a core group that we call friends of the
chair--the chair being the Czechs.
There have been four or five negotiating sessions with the
friends of the chair. And then we had the broader negotiation
with 30 countries just last week in Prague. Again, that's
basically the same number we had in the run-up sessions before.
The Czech prime minister, Prime Minister Fischer, is personally
going to send a letter to the heads of government and heads of
state of all 47 countries asking them to come to Prague, or
send a representative, for the declaration of these principles.
And I would hope to get very close to the full complement of
these countries.
Mr. Cardin. Well, that's encouraging. Do you want to just
explain to us what is meant by--legally non-binding and without
prejudice to applicable international laws and obligations,
which is, I understand, the language in the Terezin
Declaration?
Mr. Eizenstat. Yes, sir. Senator and Chairman, going back
to the Washington principles on art, we learned a very hard
lesson in negotiating those principles, and that is that if we
tried to establish what in effect would be an international
treaty--a binding, legal document--that we would never get
anywhere. We made these, therefore, moral principles, legally
nonbinding.
It's a sort of contradiction of terms, but it is meant to
mean that each state can act within its own national laws, as
it sees fit, but that these are moral principles that should
guide it.
Now the fact is, one would say, well, if that's the case,
what good is it? I can assure you that the Washington
principles, although not legally binding, have, as I mentioned
in my testimony, dramatically changed the entire art world.
It's created a context. Everything we've done has been non-
binding. The $8 billion we negotiated wasn't done by fiat or by
mandate; it was done by using the moral force of the United
States of America to help mediate these disputes.
That's what we're trying to do, together with the Czechs
and the other friends of the chair countries, with property
restitution. I believe once we have these principles
outstanding, it will give us a litmus test, a standard, by
which to judge actions that will allow you, as chairman, and
the Helsinki Commission, to ask countries to live up to those
standards, even though they're not legally binding. If we
tried, again, to make them legally binding, we wouldn't get to
first base.
Mr. Cardin. No, I agree with the strategy. It is an anomaly
to say non-legally binding. I mean, it just seems, as an
inconsistency, to use those terms--legally non-binding.
Mr. Eizenstat. It's meant to reinforce the fact that
they're non-binding.
Mr. Cardin. Right, right. You've mentioned several times
the European Shoah Legacy Institute. I believe the United
States has committed to making a contribution to that
institute. You've indicated Europe has--EU has not been willing
to do that. Can you just explain how the European Shoah Legacy
Institute fits into the framework of what was accomplished in
the Czech conference?
Mr. Eizenstat. Let me first say that this was entirely, at
its inception, a Czech initiative. They wanted to have what
would be the first follow-up institution from any of our
conferences. There's never been a connective tissue between
London in 1997 and Prague in 2009.
So their notion was to create an institute--ongoing--
staffed by the government, and contributed to by other
countries. We have indicated we would contribute $150,000 a
year for five years; the state of Israel, I think, $75,000 a
year for the next several years; and they're looking for other
contributions. It would have a permanent staff. It's now
temporarily in Prague; it will be in Terezin.
And its job is to see to it that it acts as a voluntary
forum by which survivors, survivor groups and other Nazi
victims and NGOs can look at the latest developments in the
area. They will encourage the implementation of the commitments
in the Terezin Declaration--in particular, private and communal
property principles. They will have central databases that will
be available. So it's really a very thoroughgoing effort.
I met, when I was in Prague just a few days ago, the new
executive director and the chairman of the board, who, the
chairman is himself a Holocaust survivor from Auschwitz. It's
really a quite remarkable undertaking. They're going to also
encourage, in cooperation with the Holocaust Education,
Remembrance and Research Taskforce, Holocaust education. So
it's a very thoroughgoing, across-the-board effort to really
put meat on the bones of the Terezin Declaration.
Mr. Cardin. Do any other European countries, other than the
Czech Republic, indicate a willingness to help and support
this? Germany and Austria have indicated that they would help
on a project-by-project basis. They've not yet made a decision
on whether to commit general funds for staff, but they have
indicated that they would consider project-by-project support.
And this is where the European Commission comes into play.
The European Commission has a very, very large cultural
budget. This is a perfect thing for them to support, as well as
to do more to encourage member states on property restitution.
But I really hope that they will do so. They came to the Prague
Conference. One of the commissioners gave an eloquent statement
about the importance of what we were doing. And I would hope
that eloquence would be translated into funds and to support.
And we'll follow up with our contacts with the European
community. You mentioned several times this country-by-country
analysis. Who prepared that?
Mr. Eizenstat. The country-by-country analysis was prepared
by, again, the small-but-excellent staff of the office of
Holocaust assets, now under Doug Davis, and previously,
Christian Kennedy. And it's done by a quite exhaustive effort
going to groups like the American Jewish Committee, to the
Jewish Claims Conference, to others who work on the ground,
touching base with local Jewish communities in those countries,
touching base with the governments, looking at what state of
the law exists in those countries.
So it's a major effort. I don't want to, frankly,
exaggerate this. If you look at other reports the State
Department does--the human rights reports, for example--these
are, oftentimes, much more detailed with a much larger staff.
But given the very small staff--and at that, some are working
part time--it's quite remarkable how much they can turn out. So
they go through all of these efforts to try to develop a
country-by-country analysis.
Mr. Cardin. I'm just curious as to whether it may have more
attention if it were sponsored by an institute or a group
coming out of the Terezin Declaration so that it gets more
acceptance among the European capitals. But is this report
going to get--is this country-by-country analysis going to get
the attention it needs in Europe?
Mr. Eizenstat. I hope so. I mean, one of the things that
the European Shoah Legacy Institute can do is serve as a
repository for that kind of a report, disseminate it to
countries and urge that they take action based on that report.
So that would be, actually, something quite interesting for us
to propose to the Shoah Legacy Institute.
Mr. Cardin. It's also a matter of the credibility of the
report. And I'm not at all challenging the quality of this
country-by-country report, but it needs to have international
credibility. When the State Department issues its reports on
the status of human rights or on trafficking issues, it is
taken very seriously in the capitals around the world because
they know the quality and objectivity that is being put into
this.
And I think it's important, also, if this country-by-
country report is going to be used as the yardstick to measure
progress being made in capitals that still have yet to do what
is necessary.
Mr. Eizenstat. I agree with that. There is one difference,
however: For example, the human rights report gets much more
press attention. It's very difficult to get press to focus on
this issue. So that's, again, why I'm so grateful that you're
holding this hearing.
Mr. Cardin. Well, I have another suggestion on that, and
that is, you talk about best practices, and we all like to use
best practices. I guess that's our human nature, to showcase
what countries are doing well. But I've found, in Helsinki, the
way you get the most attention is to bring out those that are
the worst cases, rather than the best cases, and calling them
out by name.
And it seems to me that if we expect to make progress, it's
the way we made progress on violations of human rights, by
calling out specific countries and practices against specific
individuals--that's necessary in regards to these issues. That
we also have to bring out those countries that are not doing
what other countries are doing, and are deficient.
Mr. Eizenstat. But if I may--that's a very good point--if I
may offer one other thought, and that is that you and Co-
Chairman Hastings consider a joint resolution in which you
attach the report, call attention to it, urge that countries
take it seriously. It would be a way of also elevating
congressional attention, but also the attention of the
countries mentioned here.
I think if Congress were to do that, it would be very much
appreciated. And you could also attach the Terezin Declaration.
Hopefully, by then, we will have our best practices and
guidelines completed for immovable property, and that would
form the basis, perhaps, of something that could be referred to
in a joint resolution.
Mr. Cardin. We'll certainly try to give it higher
visibility. You mentioned Lithuania's moving forward with
communal property laws; are they going to correct the concerns
by the Jewish community on the returns of educational
facilities?
Mr. Eizenstat. This is as issue I've been working on for 15
years. At Prague, and I think induced by the Prague Conference,
they did make a specific monetary proposal to try to monetize
this so it wouldn't be just a property-by-property issue. The
figures that they mentioned at that time were conditional,
spent over many, many years, and at that point, at least, there
wasn't a broad acceptance among survivor groups and Jewish
organizations.
I can't speak for them in terms of their views now, but I
think that there is some willingness to try to come together
with the government of Lithuania and reach an agreement. And I
think Lithuania's interested in resolving this issue, finally.
And again, hopefully, our new best practices will be a further
encouragement for Lithuania to complete this.
Mr. Cardin. I think our expectations are that Lithuania
will get this job done. I mean, they're taking on major
responsibilities in international organizations. In the OSCE,
they're taking on a leadership position--the leadership
position. And they have been very forthcoming in acknowledging
that they have to do better, and now, it's time for them to get
the law passed and implement it.
Mr. Eizenstat. I agree, and there's someone who's been very
interested in these issues who is now in the parliament in the
ruling party--Emanuel Zingeris--and I hope that his leadership
will also help.
Mr. Cardin. Well, we'll be following that carefully. I want
to just underscore the point you raised about the
impoverishment of Holocaust survivors. I mean, it's absolutely
heart-wrenching when you see the status of so many people who
were victimized during World War II living in extreme poverty,
including in wealthy nations. And what is the strategy? I mean,
time is running out. Congressman Smith, in his opening
statement, pointed out that the victims are getting old.
And if we don't act now, it's going to be too late. What
can we do to really make an impact--a significant impact on the
quality of their life so that they can at least get some of the
benefits from these restitution issues?
Mr. Eizenstat. Well, I appreciate the sense of urgency,
which we certainly share with you. For one thing, if we can
deal with the immovable property issue, particularly communal
property, and that can be sold, it will create a real
opportunity for funds, because almost 100 percent of the Nazi
victims who are living in Central and Eastern Europe are in or
close to poverty level.
And so this would be a very excellent way of dealing with
it. There are other ways. For example, in Austria, they have a
very creative program in which they've now located, in their
national library, several thousand Holocaust-era books which
were stolen. They're selling it to their national museum. The
national museum is paying money, which will then be distributed
through their national fund for victims.
It's very difficult to deal with the social issue, given
budget constraints. But if I may, just to give a sense of
urgency to this, as of--and this is taken from the November,
2009 report of the conference on Jewish material claims against
Germany. I think these figures are valid. The total Jewish Nazi
victim population, as of December 31, 2010--end of this year--
is expected to be 516,700. It is estimated that, at the end of
this year, of that number, 259,000 will be living in poverty.
That includes 73,000 in Israel, 25,000 in Central Europe,
90,000 in the former Soviet Union, and 45,800 in our country.
This is very difficult. The question of whether there should be
special compensation funds for victims here--we've talked to
members of the House--former Congressman Wexler. It would be
very difficult, at a time when there's a lot of poverty here,
to say that there should be an extra complement of funds for
these victims. Again, I think the best thing we can do is to
try to provide things like home care.
The Germans, at the last negotiations in March of 2010,
agreed to $55 million in home care, worldwide. That is a crying
need. If you can keep people from being institutionalized and
giving them help with their daily medicines and their daily
needs, that would be a very good thing. And again, if we can
make progress on property restitution, that is one real area
where, by selling those properties, something can happen. Let
me give you an example, if I may.
There are several hundred synagogues that, to its credit,
Poland have returned. They've actually done a commendable job
on communal property. There are several thousand claims that
have been made. They've processed about 30 percent of them. We
hope they'll do it faster and more. But they are at least going
through a process. Hundreds are returned, but they're returned
in areas and in a dilapidated state where there are no people
to keep them up.
If a process could be developed by which those properties,
which are on real property and which have some value, could be
translated into cash, rather than burdening the community with
the upkeep of synagogues that won't be used and that they can't
maintain, it would be an enormous contribution. And if one
could do that for not just Polish survivors in Poland, of whom
there are a couple of thousand, but Polish survivors around the
world, of whom there are tens of thousands, that would do
wonders.
So trying to be creative with the use of communal property
would be one excellent way of dealing with this problem. But as
you know, we're talking about people whose average age is well,
well over 70. Thousands are dying every year--in fact, really
hundreds every month. So we all have to have a sense of urgency
and creativity about this.
Mr. Cardin. Well, I thank you and I agree with that
conclusion. You have obviously made this one of your priorities
in life, and we appreciate that, and you raise this issue at
every time you can. You're a person of principle.
I get the feeling that the priority of this issue is not
always shared by everyone in the government--our government--
that when bilateral meetings take place between world leaders
and the United States, property restitution issues may never
get on the agenda, even though it's an issue of importance in
that country.
Do you have any advice for us--to the Helsinki Commission--
as to how we can make this a higher priority among those who
set up the agenda in the State Department so that we can follow
up on some of these things? It seems to me if you got a
friendly push from the administration in some of these
countries that are close to enacting law, it would certainly
expedite things. But at times, it sort of gets pushed down to,
as the administration believes, more urgent issues. How can we
make this a higher priority?
Mr. Eizenstat. May I say first that Secretary Clinton has
raised this issue with Lithuania herself.
Mr. Cardin. And I didn't mean to make this to this
administration.
Mr. Eizenstat. No, I understand.
Mr. Cardin. I mean, this has been a historical problem that
predates the Obama administration.
Mr. Eizenstat. But just for the record, I think it is
important that she did raise this with Lithuania.
Undersecretary Hormats' successor, plus the undersecretary of
economic affairs has raised this very directly with Poland.
You're quite right: The more it's raised, the more it will be
paid attention to, and when it's not raised--when there are
other issues which take priority--and you know, with Poland,
they're a major contributor to NATO troops, and so forth--we
understand that. So the more it can be raised, the better, even
if it's the last talking point in a long list of talking
points.
In terms of what role the Helsinki Commission can play, it
is encouraging senior members of every administration to raise
this issue when they are meeting with their counterparts.
Again, it doesn't have to be the number one issue; it's not
going to be the number one issue. But if it can be raised, it
will have an impact. And I think, perhaps, Secretary Clinton
raising this with Lithuania, Bob Hormats with Poland--
hopefully, that will begin to give the signal that the Obama
administration is very, very serious about this issue.
Mr. Cardin. Well, it's certainly helped that Secretary
Clinton, not too many years ago, was sitting on this side of
the dais asking witnesses the same questions I'm asking about
property issues. So I think she's extremely sensitive on this
issue and has been a great friend of the commission, as a
former member of the commission. And we do raise these issues.
It's on our agenda in every meeting that we have with
parliamentary officials and government officials from the
relevant countries.
Mr. Eizenstat. Let me suggest one other thing, again, and
to come back to my last point: We have a new EU ambassador,
who's just come. Either publicly or privately, if he could be
encouraged to get a message to Brussels that this is of great
importance to the Senate of the United States, to the Helsinki
Commission--House and Senate--by letter or otherwise, and urge
him to intervene with the European Commission to support these
efforts--if the Commission--you know, it's not just always the
United States--if the Commission, the European Union, the
European Council, would go to their member states and say, this
is an issue which has to be resolved.
We believe in the rule of law, under the EU; we believe in
private property rights in the EU; we believe that European
citizens--European citizens--were deprived of their rights when
they were European citizens. European property is involved;
European principles and moral values are involved. I think that
it would make a difference. They have gotten a pass on this
issue.
Mr. Cardin. Well, I think that's good advice, and we will
certainly follow through on that. You've given us a lot of good
advice, particularly in working with our counterparts in
Europe. Let me say I know this has been frustrating that it's
been a long time and too many people have been denied the
restitution and compensation that they're entitled to, but I
must tell you, I give you a lot of credit for the progress that
we've made.
It is encouraging to see that this is being taken seriously
by 47 countries and that they're coming together in a strategy,
an action plan, to bring about results, and they're prepared to
have a process for review to share best practices. I can assure
you this commission will work very closely with the various
countries and with the leaders of this effort to offer our
encouragement and do what we can to put a spotlight on it, and
particularly to work with our government leaders to continue to
make this a priority. Thank you.
Mr. Eizenstat. It's much appreciated, and thanks again for
your leadership.
Mr. Cardin. Thank you. With that, the commission will stand
adjourned.
This is an official publication of the
Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe.
< < <
This publication is intended to document
developments and trends in participating
States of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
< < <
All Commission publications may be freely
reproduced, in any form, with appropriate
credit. The Commission encourages
the widest possible dissemination
of its publications.
< < <
http://www.csce.gov @HelsinkiComm
The Commission's Web site provides
access to the latest press releases
and reports, as well as hearings and
briefings. Using the Commission's electronic
subscription service, readers are able
to receive press releases, articles,
and other materials by topic or countries
of particular interest.
Please subscribe today.