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At the urging of the United States, governments and institutions worldwide have been conducting unpleasant research, facing long-suppressed facts and restituting assets belonging to Holocaust survivors. The test for the United States is now, as mediators attempt to conclude a three-year dispute before a federal district court hearing in Miami in a matter of days.
As is now well-recognized, Nazi persecution of Jews and other minorities involved theft on a breathtaking scale. Over the past decade, German, French, Austrian and Swiss firms and governments have paid $8 billion to victims. Relying on its own moral leadership, the United States urged other countries to create commissions to do the same; 17 nations did so. Our own government's response came in 1998 when, by statute that was demonstrably bipartisan, Congress created the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the U.S.
The commission, which I chaired, reported its unanimous analysis of those assets that had come under U.S. control during and after World War II. Thus it is dismaying that the Bush administration has been fighting hard against the interests of Holocaust survivors in the most recent struggle for restitution. In the matter of the Hungarian Gold Train, the United States refuses to compensate thousands of Holocaust survivors whose property was misused by the U.S. government itself.
Our work documented one instance, among others, that we specifically called 'an egregious failure of the U.S. to follow its own policy regarding restitution of Holocaust victims' property after World War II.''
In 1944, Germany's occupation of Hungary included the swift and systematic confiscation of property belonging to Jews, Romas and others, even giving receipts. A train loaded with more than two dozen boxcars of such stolen loot as art, religious items, Persian rugs and thousands of wedding rings was taken to Austria. After the war, this train was turned over to the U.S. Army, which was obligated by U.S. policy and law, to return its contents to their rightful owners.
Instead, as evidence has shown, the property was mishandled. U.S. officials declared the property's national origin and ownership ''unidentifiable.'' No inventory was made. There was widespread looting, including improper requisitions of property by senior U.S. military officers.
Eventually, with its value plummeting, the United States auctioned off the remaining items in 1948. Proceeds went to refugee organizations, but they did not go to the Hungarian owners, who were begging for their property's return.
Since publication of this particular study in 1999, more research brought new and confirming facts to light. Surely some feared that their disclosure would taint the Army's reputation. But the commission closed its doors in 2000 believing that we had provided the work for an historic moral reckoning, in the best traditions of our nation.
Unfortunately, since taking office, the Bush administration has ardently worked to block the Gold Train survivors from achieving restitution. Justice Department attorneys have deployed an array of technical devices -- asserting the same arguments of statute of limitations, sovereign immunity and proof of property that the United States so adamantly deplored and successfully urged other nations to forswear.
The department even conveniently questioned the bipartisan conclusions of the commission and has wrongfully claimed that we somehow backed away from our own findings, a claim whose inaccuracy I have addressed recently in the Congressional Record. The commission stands by its report: We never did retract it, undermine it or walk away from it. It is disgraceful that the administration now asserts otherwise.
It is not too late for the Bush administration to right this wrong. Officials should work in the current mediation with survivors to achieve a fair and immediate settlement, paying reasonable compensation. These Holocaust survivors are elderly, many frail and ailing, some dying. Continued delay is the enemy of justice. In this greatest of moral issues, courtroom antics, legal tricks and political posturing have no place.
The United States appears to be in retreat from a hard-won global consensus on the importance of historic justice. The idea that nations and corporations should look into their own pasts and act accordingly -- regardless of who might have been at fault, or how painful it may be -- was a proud achievement. Then, the United States had the standing to advance it. With its conduct in the Gold Train case, the U.S. government is at risk of squandering that moral standing.
Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, served as chairman of the President's Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States during its entire tenure from 1998 to 2000.
PUBLISHED IN THE MIAMI HERALD, OCTOBER 15, 2004.
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Topic: How the US looted $billions from the Jews
