Monday, May 30, 2005
Long wait for restitution for Eastern Europe's Jews
The former "captive nations" of Eastern Europe re-emerged as independent states more than a decade ago, but the Jewish communal property left behind by their citizens who perished in the Nazi Holocaust remains beyond the reach of the victims' authorised representatives to retrieve.
It was confiscated by Hitler's SS immediately after the German Wehrmacht's conquests and was nationalised by the local communists after the Red Army's takeover. Since 1992, when the recovery process began, the former synagogues, hospitals, orphanages, cemeteries and ritual baths have been the subject of snail's pace negotiations and impenetrable bureaucracies.
The market value runs into hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the World Jewish Restitution Organisation, which was founded in 1992, shortly after Eastern Europe's bloc of Soviet satellite states passed into history due to the Soviet Union's collapse.
The organisation estimates the private property left behind in these countries by the Holocaust's 6 million Jewish victims is valued in the billions of dollars. But its focus is on the communal rather than the private assets at this stage.
Naftali Lavie, the organisation's deputy chairman, who has been trying to settle the outstanding communal claims for the past 12 years, admits that few of the valuable sites have been recovered.
"The Eastern European officials keep pleading poverty and tell me they cannot finance such a project," he said.
A death camp survivor who was born in Poland, Lavie reeled off the rationale given to him in all the former Soviet satellite states as if he had the words on tape.
"The war ended 60 years ago, they say, as if I didn't know. We also suffered from it," he said, paraphrasing his hosts. Lavie contended that much of the property in question was possessed for former Communist Party functionaries. "They still have a hold on it although many contend that it belongs to 'third parties' who refuse to let it go."
Poland, which had Eastern Europe's largest Jewish population – more than 3 million – has been responding to the WJRO's entreaties, but the restitution process has been agonisingly slow. At the current rate, it will take at least 60 years for the Jewish communal claims to be processed. By that time, few if any of the Holocaust survivors who might have benefited from the proceeds will be alive.
Poland's official policy is that the money granted as financial compensation for the communal property must be spent on Polish soil and cannot be converted into foreign currencies for allocation abroad. Its current Jewish population of 10,000-12,000, according to Polish officials (less than 8000 according to the WJRO), leaves relatively few institutional outlets for the restitution payments.
"The property should go to the former owners or their successors," said the Polish ambassador to Israel, Jan Wojciech Piekarski, a 40-year veteran of his country's diplomatic service. He asserted that the Foundation for the Protection of Jewish Property in Poland, a body established jointly three years ago by the WJRO and the Union of Jewish Religious communities in Poland, was the legal heir.
Piekarski said the restitution process was being conducted in accordance with the same procedures as those applied to property claimed by the Catholic Church.
"It is being treated on the very same level," he said. Catholicism, which is Poland's dominant religious faith, also sustained material losses during the half-century of Communist rule in Warsaw. Piekarski cited 5544 claims submitted to the regulatory commission set up by the Polish government to deal with the Jewish assets, of which 5346 were deemed valid. As of this month, 744 of these claims were settled.
Lavie said the response of the 10 other former Soviet satellites also has been bureaucratic and legalistic. In short, they, like Poland, have been "stalling", he said.
He thought he detected a ray of light for his effort eight years ago when the Czech, Hungarian and Polish government leaders believed that swift restitution would help them gain entry into NATO and the European Union. But once they were admitted, the situation reverted to what it had been before.
In his numerous discussions with the Polish Government, Lavie did not blame the Poles for the tragedy that befell their Jewish fellow-citizens, but held them accountable for the material assets left behind. "You did not kill," he said, "but you did benefit."
The former "captive nations" of Eastern Europe re-emerged as independent states more than a decade ago, but the Jewish communal property left behind by their citizens who perished in the Nazi Holocaust remains beyond the reach of the victims' authorised representatives to retrieve.
It was confiscated by Hitler's SS immediately after the German Wehrmacht's conquests and was nationalised by the local communists after the Red Army's takeover. Since 1992, when the recovery process began, the former synagogues, hospitals, orphanages, cemeteries and ritual baths have been the subject of snail's pace negotiations and impenetrable bureaucracies.
The market value runs into hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the World Jewish Restitution Organisation, which was founded in 1992, shortly after Eastern Europe's bloc of Soviet satellite states passed into history due to the Soviet Union's collapse.
The organisation estimates the private property left behind in these countries by the Holocaust's 6 million Jewish victims is valued in the billions of dollars. But its focus is on the communal rather than the private assets at this stage.
Naftali Lavie, the organisation's deputy chairman, who has been trying to settle the outstanding communal claims for the past 12 years, admits that few of the valuable sites have been recovered.
"The Eastern European officials keep pleading poverty and tell me they cannot finance such a project," he said.
A death camp survivor who was born in Poland, Lavie reeled off the rationale given to him in all the former Soviet satellite states as if he had the words on tape.
"The war ended 60 years ago, they say, as if I didn't know. We also suffered from it," he said, paraphrasing his hosts. Lavie contended that much of the property in question was possessed for former Communist Party functionaries. "They still have a hold on it although many contend that it belongs to 'third parties' who refuse to let it go."
Poland, which had Eastern Europe's largest Jewish population – more than 3 million – has been responding to the WJRO's entreaties, but the restitution process has been agonisingly slow. At the current rate, it will take at least 60 years for the Jewish communal claims to be processed. By that time, few if any of the Holocaust survivors who might have benefited from the proceeds will be alive.
Poland's official policy is that the money granted as financial compensation for the communal property must be spent on Polish soil and cannot be converted into foreign currencies for allocation abroad. Its current Jewish population of 10,000-12,000, according to Polish officials (less than 8000 according to the WJRO), leaves relatively few institutional outlets for the restitution payments.
"The property should go to the former owners or their successors," said the Polish ambassador to Israel, Jan Wojciech Piekarski, a 40-year veteran of his country's diplomatic service. He asserted that the Foundation for the Protection of Jewish Property in Poland, a body established jointly three years ago by the WJRO and the Union of Jewish Religious communities in Poland, was the legal heir.
Piekarski said the restitution process was being conducted in accordance with the same procedures as those applied to property claimed by the Catholic Church.
"It is being treated on the very same level," he said. Catholicism, which is Poland's dominant religious faith, also sustained material losses during the half-century of Communist rule in Warsaw. Piekarski cited 5544 claims submitted to the regulatory commission set up by the Polish government to deal with the Jewish assets, of which 5346 were deemed valid. As of this month, 744 of these claims were settled.
Lavie said the response of the 10 other former Soviet satellites also has been bureaucratic and legalistic. In short, they, like Poland, have been "stalling", he said.
He thought he detected a ray of light for his effort eight years ago when the Czech, Hungarian and Polish government leaders believed that swift restitution would help them gain entry into NATO and the European Union. But once they were admitted, the situation reverted to what it had been before.
In his numerous discussions with the Polish Government, Lavie did not blame the Poles for the tragedy that befell their Jewish fellow-citizens, but held them accountable for the material assets left behind. "You did not kill," he said, "but you did benefit."
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