[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 55 (Friday, March 24, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E681-E682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                AMERICAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR HUGO PRINCZ

                                 ______


                        HON. CHARLES E. SCHUMER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 23, 1995
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring your attention and 
that of my colleagues to the case of Hugo Princz. Mr. Princz is the 
only known America survivor of the Nazi death camps. He has been denied 
Holocaust reparations by Germany for 40 years because of his U.S. 
citizenship while in the camps, despite numerous diplomatic entreaties 
on his behalf by successive administrations and Congress.
  During the 103d Congress, the House and Senate unanimous resolutions 
supporting Mr. Princz and took numerous other steps on his behalf, 
including unanimous passage last October in the House, and near passage 
in the Senate, of legislation I authored which would have permitted the 
lawsuit he filed against Germany in 1992 to proceed; the courts had 
found Germany immune from the suit. My colleagues and I are prepared to 
reintroduce that 
[[Page E682]] bill in this Congress should the latest diplomatic 
efforts to resolve the case founder.
  Much has been written about the Princz case, but a superb column by 
Eric Beindel, editorial page editor of the New York Post, describes the 
Princz story in especially eloquent and dramatic detail. Entitled 
``Germans stick to `principle'--and the price is decency,'' it was 
published in the Post on January 19, 1995. Mr. Speaker, I ask its 
inclusion in the Record and urge my colleagues to read it.
  I want to underscore one point made by Mr. Briendel. He rightly 
praises the key role in the Princz matter played by William R. Marks, a 
D.C. attorney, and his firm, Atlanta-based Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & 
Murphy. Mr. Marks and Powell, Goldstein--led in this effort by partner 
Simon Lazarus--have been tireless champions of Mr. Princz since they 
took the case on 20 months ago. They have so successfully raised its 
profile on the political, diplomatic and media fronts that a 
breakthrough may finally be possible. And that they accepted the case 
pro bono is a true testament to their commitment to resolving this 
unique humanitarian issue. I commend Mr. Marks, Mr. Lazarus, and 
Powell, Goldstein, and look forward to continued work with them and 
with Steven Perles, Mr. Princz' top-notch litigation attorney, as we 
try and bring this case to a successful conclusion.
                [From the New York Post, Jan. 19, 1995]

        Germans Stick to ``Principle''--and the Price Is Decency

                           (By Eric Breindel)

       Tuesday's refusal by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the 
     case of Hugo Princz--a 72-year-old Holocaust survivor who 
     wants to sue the German government in an American court--will 
     be hailed by well-meaning lawyers as a victory for the 
     ancient principle of ``sovereign immunity.''
       In fact, Hugo Princz's story represents a case study in the 
     abandonment of ordinary decency for abstract principle.
       The Princz affair is almost a Manichean morality play. 
     Princz himself, who endured the ultimate in barbarism as a 
     Jewish inmate at Maidanek, Auschwitz and Dachau, is driven by 
     a quest to realize some semblance of justice--to make his 
     tormentors pay, if only in a meager, monetary way, for 
     abusing him and murdering his family.
       The Germans are animated in part by parsimony and in great 
     measure by a determination to close the book on a past 
     they've never fully been willing to face. Meanwhile, 
     handicapped by an addiction to absolute order and an aversion 
     to creative problem-solving, Berlin refuses to recognize that 
     dealing with Hugo Princz as a special case would have spared 
     Germany a good deal of unhappy publicity.
       Notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling, the Princz 
     story isn't over--largely because the aging survivor has 
     managed to find vocal champions. Two of them stand out Rep. 
     Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and William R. Marks, a young, 
     Washington-based lawyer who's taken on Princz as a pro bono 
     client.
       Marks, a graduate of Harvard and Georgetown, persuaded his 
     law firm colleagues that Princz's struggle against the German 
     government deserved attention for humanitarian reasons. 
     Schumer, a powerful House Democrat and skillful 
     parliamentarian, means to introduce legislation that would 
     strip Germany of its sovereign immunity for ``acts of 
     genocide'' committed against American citizens. The bill, in 
     short, would apply only to Princz. There is not other living 
     American who survived the Nazi Holocaust as a U.S. citizen.
       Princz and his family were American nationals living in 
     Slovakia in 1942 when the German SS--assisted by Slovak 
     Collaborators--sent them to the Maidanek death camp in Poland 
     because they were Jewish. Twenty years old at the time, 
     Princz had been born an American citizen. The Princz family--
     blessed with valid U.S. citizenship papers--should have been 
     able to join a Red Cross prisoner-exchange transport. But in 
     the night and go of war, Princz, his parents and five 
     siblings were hustled onto Maidanek-bound cattle cars.
       It's well to note that Princz and his father tried many 
     times to secure appropriate papers for passage to America 
     during the course of 1938 and 1939; despite their desperate 
     circumstances--as Jews under impending Nazi rule--they were 
     rebuffed by the U.S. embassy in Prague.
       Apart from the curious fact of their nationality, the 
     Princz family's fate was akin to that experienced by most 
     East European Jews. Both his parents and his three sisters 
     were shipped to Treblinka from Maidanek and gassed on 
     arrival. Hugo and his brothers spent most of the war as 
     slaves at Auschwitz. Both brothers perished. Princz himself 
     was tasked with stacking the bodies of his fellow Jews after 
     they were murdered. Near the war's end, he was marched into 
     the German interior and wound up as a slave laborer at 
     Dachau--where he was liberated in 1945 by U.S. troops.
       As an American, Princz was spared interment in a Displaced 
     Persons camp: After recuperating in a U.S. military hospital, 
     he came to the U.S.--finally--in 1946.
       This circumstance caused the German government to reject 
     his original 1955 application for reparations: Insofar as he 
     hadn't been either a German national or a DP, Princz was 
     declared ineligible, notwithstanding Germany's professed 
     willingness to recognize its moral obligation to make 
     restitution to Holocaust survivors.
       After 37 years of humiliating application and 
     reapplication, Princz filed suit in federal court in 1992. 
     The German government had broadened its eligibility criteria 
     in 1965, but failed to notify Princz. When he finally 
     submitted new forms, the long-suffering survivor was told 
     that the statute had lapsed. Princz's lawsuit required him to 
     advance a serious damages claim--thus, he's seeking $17 
     million for ``false imprisonment, assault and battery and 
     infliction of emotional distress.'' (It's wrenching to see 
     the Holocaust reduced to the language of tort law.) He also 
     seeks payment from private German firms for the slave labor 
     he performed.
       The real debt may not be $17 million, if it's calculated in 
     accordance with what other survivors were awarded. (Princz 
     insists that his goal is retroactive parity.) Still, the debt 
     is a good deal larger that the $3,400 lump-sum payment, plus 
     a $340-per-month stipend, that Germany's lawyers offered 
     Princz Tuesday after the high court ruled against him.
       The Germans claim they can't strike an entirely separate 
     deal with Princz, lest doing so invite additional litigation. 
     (``The concern is groundless. Princz's circumstances are 
     entirely unique.'') On a less than compelling note, the 
     Germans contend that the settlement they're now offering is 
     ``all the German government can afford.''
       This sordid business has gone far enough. If Berlin can 
     find funds to pay military pensions to ex-members of the 
     murderous Latvian SS, it should be possible to locate money 
     to ``compensate'' Hugo Princz.
       Schumer's bill--which has lots of cosponsors and supporters 
     on both sides of the aisle and in both houses of Congress--
     may help concentrate Berlin's mind and promote a focus on 
     settling the case. After all, it's hard to imagine that 
     Germany wants to see a genuine Holocaust trial take place in 
     an American courtroom.
     

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