[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 160 (Thursday, November 13, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H10943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HOLOCAUST VICTIMS REDRESS ACT
(Mr. LEACH asked and was given permission to extend his remarks at
this point in the Record and to include extraneous matter.)
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, the bill would authorize up to $25 million as
a U.S. contribution to organizations serving survivors of the Holocaust
living in the United States and an additional $5 million for archival
research by the U.S. Holocaust Museum to assist in the restitution of
assets looted or extorted from Holocaust victims. It would also declare
that it is the sense of Congress that all governments take appropriate
action to ensure that artworks confiscated by the Nazis--or in the
aftermath of World War II by the Soviets--be returned to their original
owners or their heirs.
The genesis for this proposal dates back to hearings which the
Committee on Banking and Financial Services held over the past year,
chronicling how the Nazis looted gold from the central banks of Europe,
as well as from individual Holocaust victims.
Following World War II, the Tripartite Gold Commission, consisting of
the United States, the United Kingdom and France, was created to
oversee the recovery and return of Nazi-looted gold to the countries
from which it was stolen. Most of the gold recovered during that period
was long ago returned to claimant countries. However, a small portion
of that gold remains to be distributed. The amount of gold in TGC
custody, amount to six metric tons, is worth anywhere from $50 million
to $70 million depending on the price of gold at a given time. Fifteen
nations hold claim to some portion of that gold.
The case for speedy final distribution of the remaining gold pool to
Holocaust survivors is compelling. The moral case for such a
distribution has been increased by the horrific revelation in the
recently released report from Under-Secretary of State Stuart Eizenstat
that Nazi Germany co-mingled victim gold, taken from the personal
property of Holocaust victims, including their dental fillings, with
monetary gold, resmelting it into gold bars which the Nazis traded for
hard currency to finance the war effort.
This bill would put the Congress on record in strong support of the
State Department's appeal to claimant nations to contribute their TGC
gold to Holocaust survivors and strengthen the Department's hand in
seeking this goal by authorizing the President to commit the United
States to a voluntary donation of up to $25 million for this purpose. A
voluntary contribution on our part would go a long way in facilitating
a similar gesture of generosity from others who may be claimants of the
gold pool or who may have reason to provide redress for actions taken
during the dark night of the human soul we call the Holocaust.
A contribution of this nature by the United States would also serve
as an act of conscience on the part of this nation. As the bill
indicates in the findings, there was an unknown quantity of heirless
assets of Holocaust victims in the United States after World War II. A
1941 census of foreign assets in the United States identified $198
million in German-owned assets in the United States as well as another
$1.2 billion in Swiss assets. Assets inventoried in the census included
bank accounts, securities, trusts, and other items. In the years
following World War II, Congress recognized that some of these assets
held in the United States may have in fact belonged to Jewish victims
of the Holocaust who had sent their assets abroad for safekeeping.
Given this circumstance, Congress authorized up to $3 million in
claims for such heirless assets to be awarded to a successor
organization to provide relief and rehabilitation for needy survivors.
However, the political difficulties associated with such a commitment
led Congress ultimately to settle on a $500,000 contribution. Although
the documentary record on asset ownership remains sparse, it is likely
that heirless assets in the U.S. were worth much more than the 1962
settlement figure.
A precise accounting of claims will remain unknowable, but the fact
that the United States committed itself to such a modest amount in
settlement for victim claims provides justification for the United
States to make an inflation-adjusted contribution today for victim
funds mingled with Nazi assets located in and seized by the United
States during the war.
In testimony before our Committee, Under Secretary Eizenstat urged
that a better accounting be made for the fate of heirless assets in
banks in the United States, and that the issue of World War II-era
insurance policies, securities and art work also be examined. To help
answer these questions, the legislation would direct $5 million to the
United States Holocaust Museum for archival research to assist in the
restitution of assets of all types looted or extorted from Holocaust
victims, and activities that would support Holocaust remembrance and
education activities.
The second title of the bill deals with Nazi-looted art. A witness at
our hearings noted that, `The twelve years of the Nazi era mark the
greatest displacement of art in history.' Under international legal
principles dating back to the Hague Convention of 1907, pillaging
during war is forbidden as is the seizure of works of art. In defiance
of international standards, the Nazis looted valuable works of art from
their own citizens and institutions as well as from people and
institutions in France and Holland and other occupied countries. This
grand theft of art helped the Nazis finance their war. Avarice served
as an incentive to genocide with the ultimate in governmental
censorship being reflected in the Aryan supremacist notion that certain
modern art was degenerate and thus disposable.
The Nazis purged state museums of impressionist, abstract,
expressionist, and religious art as well as art they deemed to be
politically or racially incorrect. Private Jewish art collections in
Germany and Nazi-occupied countries are confiscated while others were
extorted from their owners. Still others were exchanged by their owners
for exit permits to flee the country. As the Nazis sold works of art
for hard currency to finance the war, many artworks disappeared into
the international marketplace. Efforts following the war to return the
looted art to original owners were successful to a degree, but to this
day many items remain lost to their original owners and heirs.
It is interesting to note that when the French Vichy government tried
to object on international legal grounds to Nazi confiscation of art
owned by Jewish citizens in France, the Germans responded that such
individuals (including those who were sent to concentration camps) had
been declared by French authorities no longer to be citizens. Hence,
the Nazis claimed that the 1907 Hague Convention, which prohibits the
confiscation of assets from citizens in occupied countries, did not
apply.
This reasoning cannot be tolerated by civilized people and one
purpose of the legislation before us today is to underline that the
restitution of these works of art to their rightful owners is required
by international law, as spelled out in the 1907 Hague Convention. The
return of war booty ought to be a goal of civilized nations even at
this late date, long after the end of World War II. For that reason, I
have included in the legislation a sense of Congress urging all
governments to take appropriate actions to achieve this end.
The Holocaust may have been a war within a war--one fought against
defined individuals and civilized values--but it was an integral part
of the larger world war among states. Hence, the international
principles prohibiting the theft of art and private property during
wartime should be applied with equal rigor in instances of genocidal
war within a country's borders or conquered territory.
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