Prague conference notes progress on Holocaust restitution
First Deputy Foreign Minister Jiří Schneider and Stuart Eizenstat, an adviser to the US Government on Holocaust questions, told journalists in Prague Thursday that an international conference assessing the options for the return of property stolen during the Holocaust has noted general progress on the issue of restitution. However, Eizenstat and Schneider believe the correction of wrongs committed during the Nazi era is not yet over and there is a need to accelerate the restitution given the advanced age of the victims.
Those attending the conference agreed that the resolution of restitution questions is primarily a moral matter. "We are not discussing mere property, but first and foremost, moral values," said Tomáš Kraus, secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic.
Representatives of roughly 40 countries have adopted a set of conclusions and recommendations aimed at future potentially successful resolutions to the restitution of property confiscated by the Nazis. The need to strengthen and support the activities of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI), which is based in the Czech Republic, was mentioned, as was criticism of the institute.
The ESLI was created in January 2010 on the basis of the Terezín Declaration. Two years ago, representatives of more than 40 countries met in Prague and agreed on recommendations intended to govern the restitution of property confiscated from Holocaust victims between 1933 and 1945 and from other victims of the Nazi regime. This concerns not only cemeteries, schools, synagogues and other buildings originally serving religious purposes, but also privately-owned real estate.
Holocaust victims and their descendants still striving to have property returned are being helped by the Project Heart institution, which is supported by the Government of Israel. Bobby Brown, director of that institution, said it is in the process of compiling people’s claims and creating a database of them. The Jerusalem-based organization said it has on record approximately 12 000 claims that have not yet been satisfied from the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. Just one of their databases stores a total of roughly 170 000 claims from all over the world.
Criticism of the ESLI
US lawyer Edward Fagan has not only criticized the activity of the ESLI, he has filed suit against the Czech Foreign Ministry and the institute itself. Fagan participated in the restitution conference this week in Prague and told journalists about his complaints.
First Deputy Foreign Minister Jiří Schneider admitted there have been difficulties around the institute’s activities, but also believes that Fagan mainly wants to get publicity with his lawsuits. Schneider said the start-up of the institute and its operations are a "painful" process. He is of the opinion that expectations of the institute before it opened were too high. "I warned everyone here at the conference back then that we should lower our expectations," he said.
The institute was established by the Czech Foreign Ministry, which contributes CZK 8 million to its work annually and has representatives on its various boards. The United States has also promised to finance it.
Fagan alleges that depending on the outcome of his lawsuits, the institute will either start meeting its goals or the USA will stop contributing to it.
He is pressing his civil suits in federal court in Palm Beach, Florida. In his view, the concept of the institute was good, but its intention has not been fulfilled and there are no indications that this will change in the near future. He said his lawsuits seek only declaratory judgments, not financial compensation of any kind.
Fagan made his name in the 1990s by running a media campaign about
the compensation of Jewish concentration camp prisoners for the slave
labor they performed during Nazism in Austria and Germany. After that he
lent his verbal support to aiding the Austrian opponents of the Temelín
Nuclear Power Plant in South Bohemia, but backed away from the issue in
the end. Last December, Fagan filed a lawsuit in a Florida court
against the Czech Republic and several individuals over bonds issued by
the town of Karlovy Vary, alleging discrimination against those who held
them.
Tomáš Jelínek of the Židovské listy (Jewish News) also says the institute has not done anything special since being opened: "I have the feeling it hasn’t accomplished anything." The director of the institute, Jaroslav Šonka, rejects this criticism.
The Terezín Declaration was signed by EU representatives during the Czech EU Presidency in 2009 and the institute was founded on its basis. It is supposed to serve as a forum for organizations representing Holocaust victims and states. However, it should also assist with matters such as tracking confiscated property.
In February 2011, Douglas Davidson, the US State Department’s Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, said that the activities of the ESLI did not seem to be very visible in the USA. The US had previously promised to contribute USD 750 000 to its activities.
