The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress's main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people". Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Stuart Elliott Eizenstat is an American diplomat and attorney. He served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. For many years, and currently he has served as a partner and Senior Counsel at the Washington, D.C.–based law firm Covington & Burling and as a senior strategist at APCO Worldwide.
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of "resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees" after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution.
Wiedergutmachung after World War II refers to the reparations that the German government agreed to pay in 1953 to the direct survivors of the Holocaust, and to those who were made to work at forced labour camps or who otherwise became victims of the Nazis. The sum would amount, through the years, to over 100 billion Deutsche Mark. Historian Tony Judt writes about Wiedergutmachung:
In making this agreement Konrad Adenauer ran some domestic political risk: in December 1951, just 5 percent of West Germans surveyed admitted feeling ‘guilty’ towards Jews. A further 29 percent acknowledged that Germany owed some restitution to the Jewish people. The rest were divided between those who thought that only people ‘who really committed something’ were responsible and should pay, and those who thought ‘that the Jews themselves were partly responsible for what happened to them during the Third Reich.’ When the restitution agreement was debated in the Bundestag on March 18th 1953, the Communists voted against, the Free Democrats abstained and both the Christian Social Union and Adenauer’s own CDU were divided, with many voting against any Wiedergutmachung (reparations).
Nazi plunder was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents the world's Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. According to Section 2(1)(3) of the Property Law of Germany, the Claims Conference is a legal successor with respect to the claims not filed on time by Jewish persons. This fact was reasserted in decisions of some lawsuits which attempted to redefine the Claims Conference as a "trustee" of these assets. These lawsuits were dismissed. The Claims Conference administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish property, and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Julius Berman has led the organization as chairman of the board, and currently president, as of 2020.
The World Jewish Congress lawsuit against Swiss banks was launched in 1995 to retrieve deposits made into the three largest Swiss banks by victims of Nazi persecution during and prior to World War II. WJC negotiations were initiated with the Government of Switzerland and Swiss banks, and later expanded to cover Swiss insurance companies, over burdensome proof-of-ownership requirements for accounts and insurance policies. Strong support from both federal and state United States politicians and officials, threats of sanctions against the three Swiss banks, as well as leaked documents from a bank guard pressured a settlement of the suit in 1998 in a U.S. court for multiple classes of people affected by government and banking practices. The Swiss government itself was not a signatory to the deal. As of early 2020, US$1.29 billion has been disbursed to approximately 458,400 claimants.
The Holocaust had a deep effect on society both in Europe and the rest of the world, and today its consequences are still being felt, both by children and adults whose ancestors were victims of this genocide.
Anya Verkhovskaya is a Moscow-born consultant, chief operating officer, Expert Witness, and Human Rights Activist. She is the founder of Class Experts Group, LLC. and former Managing Director of DRRT. Verkhovskaya currently serves as the President of Class Experts Group, LLC.
TheAssociation of Jewish Refugees (AJR) is the specialist nationwide social and welfare services charity representing and supporting Jewish victims of Nazi oppression, and their dependants and descendants, living in Great Britain.
Marilyn Henry was an American author, columnist, journalist, historian and archivist for matters pertaining to Holocaust reparations, survivor benefits and art looted by the Nazis.
The European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI) was a public-benefit corporation based in Prague, in the Czech Republic whose purpose was to oversee the return of Jewish art and property seized by the Nazis during The Holocaust.
The Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, formally the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and sometimes referred to as the Washington Declaration, is a statement concerning the restitution of art confiscated by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during World War II. It was released in connection with the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, held in Washington, D.C., United States, on 3 December 1998.
The Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues is an diplomatic office of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. Established in 1999, the office develops and implements U.S. policy to ensure Holocaust property restitution, secure compensation for Nazi-era wrongs, and promote Holocaust commemoration.
The General Government was the German zone of occupation in Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, at the start of World War II. The General Government represented the middle portion of occupied Poland, with originally the West being under German control and the East under Soviet control. The basis for this split was to eliminate the Polish state and to turn all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, disregarding international law.
The Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017 is US legislation that requires the State Department to report to Congress on steps that 47 countries in Europe have taken to compensate Holocaust survivors and their heirs for assets seized by Nazi Germany and post-war communist governments.
The Terezin Declaration is a non-binding declaration that issued by 47 countries in June 2009, agreeing on measures to right economic wrongs that accompanied the Holocaust against the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution in Europe. It is neither a treaty nor legally binding international agreement The Holocaust Era Assets Conference took place in Terezín, Czech Republic, the site of the Theresienstadt Ghetto. A year later 43 of the signatories endorsed a companion document, the 2010 Guidelines and Best Practices for the Restitution and Compensation of Immovable (Real) Property, which set best practices for immovable property. According to the guidelines restitution of the property itself is preferred, however when that is not possible payment or substitute property that is "genuinely fair and adequate" is possible. The declaration has no legal power and does not define how countries involved should act to fulfill it.
The Holocaust in Austria was the systematic persecution, plunder and extermination of Jews by German and Austrian Nazis from 1938 to 1945. Part of the wider-Holocaust, pervasive persecution of Jews was immediate after the German annexation of Austria, known as the Anschluss. An estimated 70,000 Jews were murdered and 125,000 forced to flee Austria as refugees.
After World War II and coming to power of the communist government in Poland, large scale nationalization occurred. Following the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, some of the formerly nationalized property have been subject to reprivatisation and restored to previous owners, their heirs or other claimants.
Yossi Katz is professor emeritus at the Bar-Ilan University, an expert in historical geography. His main research interests include Jewish settlement in towns and villages in the new era, settlemental, economic, political and cultural aspects of the history of Palestine and Israel, including Zionism, land laws, kibbutzim, and communal settlements in Canada.
