[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 3, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                E X T E N S I O N   O F   R E M A R K S


                    HUGO PRINCZ'S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

                                 ______


                        HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR.

                               new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 3, 1994

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have been working to help Hugo Princz, a 
resident of Highland Park, NJ, and a survivor of the Holocaust, in his 
fight for reparations from Germany. I would like to submit for the 
Record an article which appeared in the Legal Times on September 5, 
1994. This article was written by Bill Marks, an attorney for Hugo 
Princz, and describes Mr. Princz's plight, Germany's refusal to make 
amends, and the efforts of this body and of the administration to right 
this wrong. To date, these efforts have not brought significant 
progress. The article that follows reminds us why we must continue to 
pressure Germany to resolve this case.

          The Case of Hugo Princz: Germany's Refusal to Atone

                         (By William R. Marks)

       Last Friday, the Library of Congress exhibit touting German 
     resistance to the Nazis ended its run, prior to a university 
     tour. The exhibit is reportedly part of Germany's campaign to 
     improve what it perceives as its tattered image in America in 
     the wake of the D-day commemorations and the stunning 
     successes of the film ``Schindler's List'' and the U.S. 
     Holocaust Memorial Museum. While controversy rages over the 
     show's content, a more fundamental point must be made: 
     Germany did not deserve such a prestigious federal forum in 
     the first place, given its continued denial of reparations to 
     the only known American survivor of the Nazi death camps, 
     Hugo Princz.
       Who is Hugo Princz? Why is he publicly supported by the 
     president, the vice president, the secretary of state, our 
     former ambassador in Bonn, and a unanimous Congress? Why 
     might the Supreme Court soon take up his case? And how does 
     Germany's treatment of him affect its efforts to portray 
     itself as a nation that has atoned for its terrible past?
       Princz was born to an American businessman in 1922 in what 
     is now Slovakia; he was a U.S. citizen of birth. In 1942, the 
     Princz family were arrested by the Nazi SS as Jews. Their 
     valid U.S. citizenship papers were ignored, even though these 
     papers should have made them part of a Red Cross civilian 
     prisoner exchange then under way. They were instead all 
     deported to the Maidanek concentration camp. Princz's parents 
     and sisters were subsequently sent to the Treblinka death 
     camp: he never heard from them again.
       Princz and his brothers were transported by cattle car to 
     Auschwitz, where they were ``registered'' as American Jews on 
     their ID cards. As a slave laborer, Princz initially stacked 
     dead bodies for incineration. His two brothers, one only 14 
     years old, were intentionally starved to death after 
     suffering work-related injuries. From Auschwitz, Princz was 
     sent to the Warsaw ghetto and then to Dachau via death march.
       Princz was liberated in 1945 by U.S. armed forces, who saw 
     the ``USA'' on his jersey and sent him to a U.S. military 
     hospital for treatment. He arrived in this country in 1946.


                            his just claims

       In 1955, Princz applied to the reparations and pension 
     programs for Holocaust survivors that Germany had established 
     after the war in recognition of its moral obligation to make 
     amends for Nazi crimes. His claims were refused, however, 
     because his status as a U.S. national when captured and 
     rescued rendered him ineligible under these German Holocaust 
     compensation programs.
       Germany has denied Princz his pension in the decades since, 
     even though he is the only known death-camp survivor to have 
     been interned as an American and seeks merely the same 
     reparations that Germany has already provided other victims 
     who were European nationals. This point must be clear: Princz 
     does not contend that his suffering makes him more deserving 
     than other Holocaust victims; rather, he argues that his U.S. 
     citizenship should not make him any less so.
       By 1992, Princz had reached a diplomatic dead end, so he 
     turned to the courts. Represented by D.C. solo practitioner 
     Steven Perles, he sued Germany in the U.S. District Court for 
     the District of Columbia. Germany's motion to dismiss on 
     sovereign-immunity grounds was denied. It appealed to the 
     U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled, 2-1, 
     in its favor on July 1, 1994.
       But Judge Patricia Wald wrote a stinging dissent:
       When the Nazis tore off Princz' clothes, exchanged them for 
     a prison uniform and a tattoo, shoved him behind . . . the 
     barbed wire of Auschwitz and Dachau, and sold him to the 
     German armament industry . . . Germany rescinded any claim 
     under international law to immunity . . . . Congress did not 
     intend to thwart . . . an American victim of the Holocaust 
     [from having] his claims heard by the [U.S.] judicial system 
     . . . [and I] cannot agree that the [law] requires us to slam 
     the door in the face of Mr. Princz.
       Princz will appeal the D.C. Circuit's decision to the 
     Supreme Court.


                            resisting pleas

       Meanwhile, Germany's longstanding failure to accept its 
     financial responsibility to Princz simply because of his 
     American citizenship led to unanimous Senate and House 
     passage this past winter of resolutions--introduced by Sen. 
     Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J) and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-
     N.J.)--supporting Princz's claim for compensation, and to 
     a flurry of congressional letters to the Clinton 
     administration urging resolution of the case.
       In response, President Bill Clinton and Vice President 
     Albert Gore Jr. have personally appealed to German Chancellor 
     Helmut Kohl on Princz's behalf, while Secretary of State 
     Warren Christopher, Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen, 
     and Richard Holbrooke, assistant secretary of state for 
     European and Canadian affairs (and the former ambassador to 
     Germany), have each raised the case with their German 
     counterparts. the administration correctly asserts that 
     Princz's claims are ``legitimate and compelling,'' that he 
     deserves to be ``quickly compensated,'' and that this 
     ``tragic case'' will remain ``high'' on the U.S.-German 
     bilateral agenda until resolved.
       Germany has consistently rebuffed these overtures and 
     repeatedly communicated to the administration and the court 
     its lack of interest in equitably resolving the matter. It 
     remains unyielding even given its victory on immunity, which 
     it had represented as a major impediment to consideration of 
     a negotiated solution; a recent communication by the German 
     ambassador to a senior State Department official confirms 
     this latest rejection.
       When ``CBS Evening News'' aired a story on Princz in 
     February, correspondent Wyatt Andrews asked the obvious 
     question: Why won't Germany just settle? Germany's counsel in 
     the case, as quoted in Legal Times (``Survivor Can't Sue 
     Germany,'' July 11, 1994, Page 6), provided some answers. 
     Supposedly, the German government ``doesn't have the money'' 
     to pay Princz anything beyond a small lump sum and stipend. 
     ``That's all [the German government] can afford,'' insisted 
     Peter Heidenberger, counsel at D.C.'s Berliner, Corcoran & 
     Rowe, while implying that Princz should be satisfied with 
     what is ``on the table'' and also arguing that Germany cannot 
     risk setting a precedent by reconciling with Princz.
       Bonn's pleadings of poverty are preposterous. The concern 
     over precedent is similarly baseless.
       Fact: Germany has spent sums at least in the high six 
     figures--and quite possibly well over seven--defending the 
     case in court. There seems to be no shortage of funds for 
     this purpose.
       Fact: Germany has--to its credit--disbursed billions in 
     compensation to other death-camp survivors.
       Fact: Last year, as ABC News reported, Germany decided to 
     provide military pensions to veteran Latvian SS units, among 
     the most murderous of Adolf Hitler's minions. This suggest 
     that the German government has more sympathy, and deeper 
     pockets, for the SS than it has for an American death-camp 
     survivor.
       Fact: The amount allegedly ``on the table'' is a pittance 
     that would not even begin until 1995 and would not be 
     retroactive. It therefore differs, by several million 
     dollars, from what Princz would have received by now had his 
     pension begun when he timely applied in 1955.
       Fact: There is no precedent to be set regarding comparable 
     pension claimants because the trial court found Princz's 
     situation to be sui generis. There can, therefore, be no 
     flood of potential litigants claiming compensation as 
     American victims of the Holocaust. In addition, the situation 
     requires no admission by Germany, since Princz should have 
     received his pension beginning in 1955. He would simply be 
     made whole for the error.
       Perhaps Germany feels free to reject American entreaties 
     because the spate of stories surrounding the July NATO summit 
     about the close U.S.-German and Clinton-Kohl relationships 
     convinced Germany that the Princz issue would never, for the 
     U.S. government, brush aside traditional alliance concerns 
     like trade and troops. Or perhaps, as with its well-
     documented solicitude toward Iraq and now, apparently, Iran, 
     Germany simply has no qualms about spurning or undermining an 
     important U.S. foreign-policy objective. But Germany would be 
     wrong to assume that no incentive now exists to provide 
     restitution to Princz.
       First, it is precisely the intimate nature of the bilateral 
     relationship with the United States that gives Germany a 
     special obligation to resolve, reasonably and fairly, the 
     claim of this single American death-camp survivor. This is 
     particularly true at a time when Germany seeks U.S. support 
     for a Security Council seat at the United Nations.
       Second, the hardball tactics used against Princz only 
     undercut Germany's efforts to rehabilitate its reputation in 
     the United States. That reputation recently suffered a 
     further blow from a German court's decision--prominently 
     covered in this country--to suspend the sentence of a far-
     right leader convicted of inciting race hatred against Jews.
       Third, Germany's narrow victory in the D.C. Circuit will 
     not cause the political problem posed by this case to 
     disappear. The overwhelming support for Princz in Congress 
     and the administration should underscore that the continued 
     persecution of an American citizen will not be forever 
     tolerated. Indeed, the court ruling and German obduracy have 
     given impetus to legislation now moving through Congress--
     H.R. 934 and S. 825--to change U.S. law to allow American 
     victims of genocide, terror, and torture to bring suit in 
     U.S. courts against the foreign perpetrators. This change 
     would permit Princz's claim to proceed and also those of 
     former hostages Joseph Cicippio and David Jacobson, whose 
     suit against Iran was dismissed July 29 by the D.C. Circuit 
     on sovereign-immunity grounds.


                               duty-bound

       Ultimately, for Germany, it is a question of 
     responsibility--to Princz, to the United States, to itself, 
     and to the very purposes of its reparations programs. Instead 
     of fully facing that duty--as it generally has done in 
     dealing with other survivors and Holocaust matters more 
     broadly--Germany chooses here to do little more than hide 
     behind a legal technicality in order to exclude Princz 
     unfairly. As Rep. Lynn Schenk (D-Calif.) so eloquently stated 
     on the House floor, ``The Holocaust . . . was not a 
     technicality. . . . It is unconscionable that after once 
     depriving [Princz] of his family, his home, his dignity, and 
     his possessions, the German government is now attempting to 
     deprive him of the small amount he unquestionably deserves.''
       Such compensation would never bring back Princz's parents 
     and siblings; relieve his nightmares of Auschwitz, Dachau, 
     and the Warsaw ghetto; or erase the debilitating impact of 
     his 40-year fight upon his own family. But it would, finally, 
     help correct a terrible injustice inflicted upon an American, 
     whose citizenship should have protected him from the Nazis in 
     1942 but did not, and whose citizenship perversely continues 
     to be used by Germany as a shield to shirk its responsibility 
     today.

                          ____________________