Lawmakers Push for Improved Holocaust-Era Compensation

Katherine Greenberg — May 28, 2010 – 10:00 am | Congress | Democrats Comments (0) Add a comment

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL) have called upon former communist nations to rapidly facilitate Holocaust-era property reclamation and compensation procedures. According to a Congressional hearing this week, Holocaust reclamation processes have remained inadequate and uneven, particularly in Poland, Lithuania, and Romania. Cardin said of this unfortunate reality:

Every major political party in Poland has supported draft legislation on property compensation, and I hope that the prime minister will be able to carry through on his stated commitment to see a general property law adopted. ... In Lithuania, the 1995 property law is needlessly restrictive. I hope the government will fulfill its promises to revisit that law and ensure that communal properties, including schools and places of worship, are returned to their proper owners. Making amends for such crimes and atrocities cannot and should not drag out for yet another generation.”

Hastings also called for nations to stop applying standard inheritance laws to Holocaust cases:

“There is something terribly perverse about applying the normal rules of inheritance to the extraordinary and tragic circumstances created by the Holocaust. It is just wrong that a government can prevent a man from retrieving his own uncle’s artwork because a law says that uncle has no direct heirs. When whole families were murdered in the Holocaust, I would think that such an exception should be made a part of the law.”

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