13 Spring 2023 persecution. While the return of Nazi-looted art has garnered the most media attention, and there have been well-publicized settlements involving stolen Swiss bank deposits and unpaid insurance policies, there is a larger piece of Holocaust injustice that has not been adequately dealt with: stolen land and buildings, much of which today remain unrestituted.4 Nearly eight decades after the Holocaust, the number of survivors of Nazi atrocities diminishes each year. Sadly, many have died before receiving restitution that they had sought for decades. Experts on the demography of the remaining Holocaust survivors believe that more than one-third live in poverty. In addition, a 2020 report from the U.S. State Department issued a troubling assessment of the state of Holocaust restitution. The report found that “[b]ureaucratic inertia has delayed the resolution of too many restitution claims.”5 Claims are often not considered in a timely manner, let alone making it to the correct agency. In some countries, the regulations are so stringent that it is nearly impossible for survivors no longer living in the country of their birth to receive any restitution. This is a particular obstacle for communities of survivors living in the U.S., Israel, and the UK. In November 2022, I joined diplomats from 46 other nations, gathered in the Czech Republic to take stock of the state of property restitution. Almost fourteen years have passed since 47 countries signed the 2009 Terezin Declaration and committed to right the economic wrongs from the Holocaust-era. There has been some progress. Many Central and Eastern European nations have adopted a special approach or enacted specific legislation to provide restitution of, or compensation for, confiscated assets. But sadly, this is not enough. Many Holocaust survivors have persevered for years, attempting to recover their family’s property with little evidence or hope that they succeed. One example is 91-year-old Leo Wiener, who came to London before the outbreak of war with his parents from what was then Czechoslovakia. Leo’s family had several businesses across Ostrava, all of which were confiscated by the Nazis. Leo’s grandparents, aunts and uncles were all murdered at Treblinka. After the war, Leo’s father returned to Czechoslovakia in an attempt to retrieve the family businesses and home. The family home was still standing but had been looted. Leo’s father was unable to retrieve any of the businesses and only managed to recover a few pieces that had been left behind. He tried over many years to retrieve the family’s property – first under the Communists and again when the Berlin Wall fell, but to no avail. Leo eventually adopted his father’s quest, but despite years of effort, he was told that he was not a close enough relative to his grandparents to claim compensation. This is a common “explanation” given to families trying to get their property returned. Leo’s circumstances are not unusual. Despite years of campaigning, Poland still lacks any compensation scheme for recovering private property. Poland was home to approximately 3,300,000 Jewish men, women and children prior to the Second World War, the vast majority of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. Scandalously, the Polish government still has not addressed the concerns of dispossessed Holocaust survivors and their heirs. Nor have they addressed the return of property taken from non-Jewish Poles. Imagine if we were to announce that henceforth, property rights would be determined by the Nazis’ Nuremberg laws – people would be rightly outraged. However, this is effectively what has happened in large parts of the world by putting so many obstacles in the way of restituting stolen property. The recent Terezin Conference brought home the fact that while the vast majority of signatories to the declaration have made excellent progress on Holocaust education and remembrance, there is still a long way to go regarding real property and looted cultural property. Ferdinand Trauttmansdorff, who was instrumental in drafting the original 2009 Terezin Declaration, told the Conference that “naming and shaming” is not the answer and that collaborative partnerships and highlighting best practice is more successful. It was hoped that the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI), which was established in 2010 and sought to establish systematic solutions on an international level, leading to the restitution of immovable property, art, Judaica and Jewish cultural assets stolen by the Nazis, would be the catalyst for change. However, Trauttmansdorff told the conference that ESLI was unable to secure the necessary follow-up concerning the restitution 4. Michael J. Bazyler, Kathryn Lee Boyd, Kristen I Nelson and Rajika I. Shah, SEARCHING FOR JUSTICE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST: FULFILLING THE TEREZIN DECLARATION AND IMMOVABLE PROPERTY RESTITUTION (Oxford University Press Inc., 2019). 5. The Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today Act (JUST Act) Report (2020), available at https://www.state.gov/ reports/just-act-report-to-congress
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