[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 40 (Monday, March 15, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E431-E432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               PROPERTY RESTITUTION IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 15, 1999

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my 
concern over recent setbacks in the return of expropriated properties 
to rightful owners in the Czech Republic. As Chairman of the Commission 
on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I have followed property 
restitution issues in Central and Eastern Europe over the past several 
years with an eye toward determining whether the restitution and 
compensation laws adopted in this region are being implemented 
according to the rule of law and whether American citizens' interests 
are protected under the laws. While restitution and compensation 
programs in several East-Central European countries have aspects of 
concern, today I want to bring attention to the status of restitution 
in the Czech Republic because of recent troubling developments there.
  Since the Velvet Revolution, the Czech Republic has adopted laws that 
provide for the return of private property confiscated by Nazi or 
communist regimes. When the actual return of property is not possible, 
these laws offer former owners the right to receive alternate 
compensation. Regrettably, the Czech laws limit these rights to those 
who had Czechoslovak citizenship when the restitution law was adopted 
or who acquired citizenship before the deadline for filing restitution 
claims. As a result, former Czechoslovak citizens who fled to the 
United States seeking refuge from fascism or communism earlier this 
century, and are now American citizens, have been precluded from making 
restitution claims unless they renounce their American citizenship. 
Ironically, had these same individuals fled to Canada, Israel, or any 
country other than the United States, they would not have lost their 
Czech citizenship and would today be eligible to receive restitution or 
compensation. This result stems from a treaty signed in 1928 by the 
United States and Czechoslovakia that automatically terminated a 
person's citizenship in the United States or Czechoslovakia if that 
person became a citizen of the other country. That treaty was 
terminated in 1997, but its impact remains: under Czech law, Czech 
Americans are not eligible for dual citizenship in the Czech Republic. 
Therefore, without abandoning the citizenship of the country that took 
them in during their time of need, the law denies them the right to 
receive restitution or compensation as others have. In other words, the 
citizenship requirement in the Czech property restitution laws 
discriminates against American citizens. Moreover, it is difficult for 
me to think that this discrimination was simply an unintended 
consequence.
  In the 105th Congress, the House adopted my resolution, H. Res. 562, 
that urges the formerly totalitarian countries in Central and Eastern 
Europe to restore wrongfully confiscated properties, and specifically 
calls on the Czech Republic to eliminate this discriminatory 
citizenship restriction. In this regard, the resolution echoes the view 
of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) which has 
concluded in two cases that these citizenship restrictions violate the 
anti-discrimination clause (art. 26) of the International Covenant on 
Civil and Political Rights. I recently learned that the UNHRC has 
agreed to hear at least four more cases that challenge these 
restrictions.
  The persuasiveness of the UNHRC's reasoning, when it determined that 
the citizenship restriction in the restitution law is discriminatory, 
was compelling. Unfortunately, the Czech Parliament last month debated 
and rejected a proposed amendment to the law that would have eliminated 
Czech citizenship as a condition for property restitution claims. This 
approach was widely considered the most effective remedy to a serious 
problem. In rejecting the amendment, the parliament missed an excellent 
opportunity to resolve this long-standing and contentious issue between 
the Czech Republic and the United States.

  While I deeply regret the parliament's decision, I hope that the 
Czech Government will now seek alternative means to end the 
discrimination against Czech Americans. In January, several weeks 
before the parliament voted down the restitution amendment, Deputy 
Foreign Minister Martin Palous assured me that his government planned 
to propose a new citizenship law that would permit dual citizenship for 
Czech Americans. I was heartened to learn that last month the Czech 
Government introduced this amendment and it is my hope that its early 
passage will be followed by a reopening of the claims filing period for 
those individuals who, by virtue of acquiring dual citizenship, will 
become eligible for property restitution or compensation.
  Another disturbing situation involves the case of restitution to the 
``double victims'' in the Czech Republic--those individuals, primarily 
Jews, whose properties were confiscated during World War II by Nazis 
and then again by the communists that swept the region in the postwar 
era. One case, for example, is that of Susan Benda who is seeking 
compensation for an expropriated house in the town of Liberec where her 
father and his brother grew up. Susan's grandparents were killed by the 
Nazis and her father and uncle fled their homeland in 1939. The family 
home was ``sold'' in 1940 to a German company in an transaction 
subsequently invalidated by a 1945 Czech presidential decree.
  In 1994, the Czech Parliament expanded its earlier restitution law to 
allow individuals whose property was originally confiscated by Nazis 
between the years 1938-45 to join those whose property was taken by 
communists in claiming restitution. Under the amended laws, Susan Benda 
is theoretically eligible to receive restitution of, or compensation 
for, the home in Liberec. Notwithstanding the Czech Government's 
purported intention to restore Jewish property seized by the Nazis, 
However, the Czech Ministry of Finance has arbitrarily imposed 
additional onerous and burdensome conditions for restitution that do 
not appear in the law and which, in fact, appear designed to defeat the 
intent of the law.
  Beyond the citizenship requirement in the law, the Ministry of 
Finance has declared that claimants must prove that they were entitled 
to file a claim under a postwar 1946 restitution law, that they did 
file a claim, and that the claim was not satisfied. Remarkably, Susan 
Benda found a record in the Liberec town hall which establishes that 
her uncle returned to Czechoslovakia and filed a restitution claim in 
1947.
  Next, the Finance Ministry requires claimants to prove that a court 
expressly rejected the postwar claim. In a country that has endured the 
political and social turmoil of the Czech Republic over the past half-
century, the notion that claimants in the 1990s must prove, not only 
that a court considered a certain case more than fifty years ago, but 
also must produce a record of the court's decision in the case, is 
outrageous. Susan Benda was able to produce a claim of title showing 
that the house was stolen by the Nazis in 1940, confiscated by the 
communist Czech Government in 1953 and purchased from the Czech 
Government in 1992 by its current owner-occupant. While Susan cannot 
produce a document showing that the court actually considered, and then 
rejected, her uncle's postwar claim, the chain of title and the witness 
testimony confirm that the Benda family never got the house back--in 
itself simple, dramatic proof that the postwar claim was not satisfied. 
Apparently, however, this proof was not sufficient for the Czech 
authorities and Susan Benda was forced to sue the Ministry of Finance.
  Last September, more than three years after filing the claim, Susan 
Benda was vindicated when a Czech court agreed with her assertion that 
the Finance Ministry should not have attached the extralegal 
requirements for restitution. The court ordered the Finance Ministry to 
pay the Benda family compensation for the value of the expropriated 
house.

  I wish Susan Benda's story could end here but it does not--the Czech 
Government has appealed the court decision apparently fearful that a 
precedent would be set for other claims--that is, out of a fear that 
property might actually be returned under this law. Thus, while the 
Czech Government proclaims its desire to address the wrongs of the pat, 
those who, like Susan Benda, seek the return of wrongfully confiscated 
property are painfully aware that the reality is much different.
  Another case that has come to my attention involves Peter Glaser's 
claim for a house in the town of Zatec. After the 1948 communist 
takeover in Czechoslovakia, Peter Glaser

[[Page E432]]

sought to emigrate to the United States. To obtain a passport, Mr. 
Glaser was forced to sign a statement renouncing any future claims to 
his home. In 1954, Mr. Glaser became an American citizen; in 1962, the 
communist Czech Government officially recorded the expropriation of Mr. 
Glaser's home in the land records.
  In 1982, the United States and Czechoslovakia signed an agreement 
that settled the property loss claims of all American citizens against 
Czechoslovakia. The U.S. Government agency charged with carrying out 
the settlement advised Mr. Glaser that, because he was a Czechoslovak 
citizen when his property was taken--according to the U.S. Government, 
this occurred in 1948 when Mr. Glaser was forced under duress to 
relinquish the rights to his house--he was not eligible to participate 
in the claims settlement program but must rather seek redress for his 
property loss under Czech laws.
  When the post-communist Czech Republic passed a property restitution 
law in 1991, Peter Glaser filed his claim. In a cruel irony, despite 
presenting documentation from the U.S. Government attesting to the fact 
that Mr. Glaser was not eligible to participate in the U.S.-
Czechoslovakia claims settlement program, the Czech Courts have 
repeatedly rejected his claim on the grounds that he was an American 
citizen at the time his property was taken--which, according to the 
Czech Government, occurred in 1962. The Czech Government asserts that 
Mr. Glaser's claims were settled and should have been compensated under 
the 1982 agreement. In other words, the current Czech Government and 
courts have adopted the communist fiction that although Mr. Glaser's 
property was expropriated in 1948, somehow the confiscation did not 
count until 1962, when the communists got around to the nicety of 
recording the deed.
  This rationalization by Czech authorities looks like a back door 
attempt to avoid restitution. The reality of what happened to the 
property in Zatec is clear: Peter Glaser lost his home in 1948 when a 
totalitarian regime claimed the rights to his house in exchange for 
allowing him to leave the oppression and persecution of communist 
Czechoslovakia. As the Czech Government knows, communist 
expropriations--whether effectuated by sweeping land reform laws, as a 
condition or punishment for emigration, or under other circumstances--
frequently went unrecorded in land registries, but that did not make 
the loss any less real for the victims. For the Czech Government today 
to cling to technicalities, such as the date the communists officially 
recorded their confiscation in the land registry, as a means to avoid 
returning Peter Glaser's home is a sobering indication of the Czech 
Government's true commitment to rectifying the wrongs of its communist 
past.
  Mr. Speaker, the issue of property restitution is complex. No easy 
solutions exist to the many questions that restitution policies raise. 
Nonetheless, when a country chooses to institute a restitution or 
compensation program, international norms mandate that the process be 
just, fair and nondiscriminatory. The Czech Government has failed to 
live up to these standards in the cases I cited.
  The Czech Government must end the discrimination against Czech 
Americans in the restitution of private property. Moreover, the rule of 
law must be respected. I call on the Czech Government to reconsider its 
disposition in the Benda and Glaser cases. Czech officials often say 
that aggrieved property claimants can seek redress in the courts for 
unfavorable decisions. However, when claimants do just that, as did 
Peter Glaser and Susan Benda, the Czech Government asserts outrageous 
or technical defenses to thwart the rightful owner's claim or simply 
refuses to accept a decision in favor of the claimant. Fortunately, Mr. 
Glaser, Ms. Benda, and others like them, have pledged to fight on 
despite mounting costs and legal fees that they will never recoup. The 
passion and determination of Peter Glaser and Susan Benda, as of all 
victims of fascism and communism in Central and Eastern Europe, reveal 
that what may look to some as a battle for real estate is ultimately a 
search for justice and for peace with the past.

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