The Jewish Trust Corporation (JTC) was established in 1950 in the former British zone of occupation in northwest Germany as a Jewish body to pursue claims for the restitution of heirless property of murdered persons and dissolved organizations that had been pursued on racial grounds under the Nazi regime. It was based on the model of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, which had been established in the American zone in 1948. [1] By the end of 1967, the JTC had recovered about 169,500,000 DM (approx. $42,375,000), and it wrapped up its operations by 1980. [2] Many of the JTC's records are held by the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People. [3]
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) is an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations, founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936. 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.
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.
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.
Aryanization was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" or non-Jewish hands.
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.
JTC may mean:
Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II in Europe and North Africa. There is no universally accepted definition of the term, and it has been applied variously to Jews who survived the war in German-occupied Europe or other Axis territories, as well as to those who fled to Allied and neutral countries before or during the war. In some cases, non-Jews who also experienced collective persecution under the Nazi regime are considered Holocaust survivors as well. The definition has evolved over time.
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.
The Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief, formerly Central British Fund for German Jewry, (CBF) which currently operates under the name World Jewish Relief (WJR), is a British charitable organisation and the main Jewish overseas aid organisation in the United Kingdom.
The Bavarian State Painting Collections, based in Munich, Germany, oversees artwork held by the Free State of Bavaria. It was established in 1799 as Centralgemäldegaleriedirektion. Artwork includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, video art and installation art. Pieces are on display in numerous galleries and museums throughout Bavaria.
Secondary antisemitism is a distinct form of antisemitism which is said to have appeared after the end of World War II. Secondary antisemitism is often explained as being caused by the Holocaust, as opposed to existing in spite of it. One frequently quoted formulation of the concept, first published in Henryk M. Broder's 1986 book Der Ewige Antisemit, stems from the Israeli psychiatrist Zvi Rex, who once remarked: "The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz." The term was coined by Peter Schönbach, a Frankfurt School co-worker of Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, based on their critical theory.
The Jewish Restitution Successor Organization Inc. was founded in 1947 in New York by various American and international Jewish organizations. Originally, it was incorporated on May 15, 1947, as the Jewish Restitution Commission, but in 1948 changed its name to the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization at the request of American military authorities.
Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. was an organization established by the Conference on Jewish Relations in April 1947 to collect and distribute heirless Jewish property in the American occupied zone of Germany after World War II. The organization, originally named the Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, was originally proposed in 1944 by Theodor Gaster of the Library of Congress, and one of its cofounders.
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.
Many priceless artworks by the Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh were looted by Nazis during 1933–1945, mostly from Jewish collectors forced into exile or murdered.
The Vugesta for "Vermögens-Umzugsgut von der Gestapo" was a Nazi looting organization in Vienna that from 1940 to 1945 seized the possessions of 5,000-6,000 Viennese Jews. It was a key player in the aryanization of Jewish property, redistributing private property stolen from Jewish Austrians to non-Jewish or Aryan Austrians during the Nazi reign in Austria.
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.