[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.

                          ____________________