[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 25348]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  VILNIUS INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON HOLOCAUST-ERA LOOTED CULTURAL ASSETS

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                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 26, 2000

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I want to call the attention of my 
colleagues to the four-day Vilnius International Forum on Holocaust-Era 
Looted Cultural Assets, which was held in Vilnius, Lithuania, earlier 
this month. Representatives of 37 countries, the Council of Europe, and 
17 non-governmental organizations participated in this important 
conference. The United States was very ably represented by our Deputy 
Secretary of Treasury, Stuart E. Eizenstat, who is our Government's 
representative on Holocaust restitution issues.

  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Government of Lithuania for hosting 
this important conference. I also want to pay particular tribute to my 
dear friend Emanuelis Zingeris, a former member of the Lithuanian 
Seimas (Parliament), who conceived and organized this outstanding 
Vilnius Forum, and served as the Chairman of the Forum Organizing 
Committee. Zingeris' parents were among the few members of Lithuania's 
once-flourishing Jewish community who survived the Holocaust. An 
estimated 95 percent of Lithuania's Jewish community were killed by 
Nazi murderers during World War II.

  Mr. Speaker, the Vilnius Forum was the result of a resolution on 
``looted Jewish Cultural Property,'' which was prepared by Emanuelis 
Zingeris and adopted last year by the Parliamentary Assembly of the 
Council of Europe. It called for the organization of a European 
conference to follow up on the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era 
Assets and give special attention to the return of cultural property 
and relevant legislative reform.

  In an outstanding address opening the gathering, Mr. Zingeris 
expressed the importance of the conference internationally and for 
Lithuania in particular: ``As long as a society fails to perceive the 
need to seek justice, it may not be called a civic society. The moves 
taken here in Lithuania like the Vilnius International Forum, are a 
significant contribution to the development of our civic society. These 
processes, including the Forum, are our ticket back to Europe.''

  The purposes of the Vilnius Forum, which it admirably met, were to 
review progress on the implementation of the statement of principles 
that was adopted at the Washington Conference, to provide a forum for 
the discussion of the process of compiling an inventory of cultural 
assets looted during the Holocaust and their restitution to their 
rightful owners, and to establish legislative and other guidelines for 
the implementation of a process for the return of such Holocaust-Era 
assets. In particular, the Forum focused discussion on the legal, 
historical, archival, and museum-related problems related to the 
search, identification, and restitution of plundered cultural property. 
The declaration issued at the conclusion of the Forum called upon 
governments to work together to achieve these objectives.

  Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that important progress was made at the 
Vilnius Forum. The Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament), on the eve of the 
opening of the conference, voted to turn over 370 Torah scrolls to 
Jewish groups in a gesture consistent with the objectives of the Forum. 
These scrolls, which have been kept in the Lithuanian state library, 
will be turned over to Jewish organizations and Jewish synagogues 
within Lithuania.

  A second important result of the conference, Mr. Speaker, was the 
breakthrough agreement reached by the governments of the United States 
and Russia on opening Russian archives to assist in the recovery of art 
and cultural treasures looted by the Nazis during the World War II. The 
agreement includes the establishment of a U.S.-based foundation which 
will help identify plundered cultural assets by creating a register of 
such cultural items. Christie's Auction House in the United States 
secured an initial $500,000 contribution from my dear friends Ronald 
Lauder, the President of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish 
Organizations, and Edgar Bronfman, President of the World Jewish 
Congress, to establish this register.

  Mr. Speaker, access to Russian archives has long been a crucial 
concern of Jewish communities and others concerned about the 
restitution of art and other property stolen from Holocaust victims by 
the Nazis. This new agreement is an important step forward with the 
effort to catalogue seized property in Russian museums, and it follows 
the adoption of legislation by the Russian Duma last May establishing 
the legal right of Nazi victims to claim assets removed to the Soviet 
Union at the end of World War II.

  Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in expressing 
gratitude and appreciation to the Government of Lithuania for hosting 
the highly successful Vilnius Forum, to Stuart Eizenstat for his 
outstanding efforts in representing the position of the United States 
at this conference, and particularly to Emanuelis Zingeris for his 
enthusiastic leadership in bringing this important event together.

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