Clinton
Working on Holocaust Amends By PAULINE JELINEK Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Clinton
administration is working right up to the last
minute on an international campaign that has
dramatically changed the way the world has dealt
with the Holocaust. History
still will say Adolf Hitler's forces in the
1930s and 1940s slaughtered 6 million Jews and 5
million others, enslaved 12 million and plundered
Europe in one of the darkest chapters of the 20th
century. But an addendum written in the past several
years also will show private organizations and
governments worked in the late 1990s to "bring some
measure of justice" to more than a million
survivors, says Stuart Eizenstat, the top
U.S. envoy on the Holocaust. Compensation programs valued at billions of
dollars have been negotiated in the past several
years and may begin paying money this spring. As part of the process, President Clinton, on
Tuesday was to receive a report detailing U.S.
failure to make sure victims got back properties
such as gold, jewelry and art looted by Nazi
forces. "It's a searching self-analysis," Eizenstat
said. "It pulls no punches." On Wednesday, Eizenstat wants to finish
negotiating an Austrian plan to compensate for
stolen Jewish property and on Thursday France's
plan to pay for bank accounts confiscated during
the wartime collaborationist Vichy regime. All are part of an unprecedented half-decade
campaign to re-examine what happened in the
Holocaust -- and recalculate what's still owed its
aging victims. "It proved there's no statute of limitations on
the violation of human rights," Eizenstat said in
an interview. The Clinton administration ends
Saturday -- and
administration officials are
urging President-elect Bush to continue with
Holocaust restitution. Though a number of restitution programs were
started right after the war they have since been
judged to have left out categories of victims and
categories Holocaust abuses. For instance, Central and Eastern European
Christians soon are to receive compensation for
having been used as forced laborers, in the first
program of any substantial size to address the
suffering of Hitler's non-Jewish victims. Tuesday's report to Clinton will say the U.S.
government did "a remarkably good job" in trying to
return property that Nazis plundered from Europe
and that later came under American control. But it
says some victims were nonetheless "shortchanged,"
said Kenneth Klothen, executive director of
the panel, the Presidential Advisory Commission on
Holocaust Assets in the United States. Among problems, he said was that the U.S.
adopted the international legal standard that war
booty should be returned to countries from which it
was stolen, and things didn't always ultimately end
up in the hands of individual victims. The report echoes a preliminary report last year
which said that although U.S. military forces in
Europe "generally behaved in a commendable way," an
"egregious" exception was the suspected taking of
some looted items by five U.S. generals for the
European residences and offices they used during
the postwar occupation. Klothen said further study has not uncovered
what became of that property, including rugs,
silverware and other valuables. Tuesday's report
recommends follow-up action on that and other
findings. The new round scrutiny and demand for additional
compensation was made possible partly by the end of
the Cold War and release of long-secret
documents. The United States took a lead in the effort --
which sometimes strained relations with European
allies -- as did the World Jewish Congress,
Conference for Jewish Material Claims Against
Germany and U.S. lawyers who assembled class action
survivors' suits. The campaign was unwelcome in many quarters. It
was the lawsuits that forced the issue. Settlements
were made in return for legal peace -- the U.S.
government promised to discourage its courts from
entertaining future lawsuits. Swiss banks agreed to compensate for keeping
assets of slain Jews, German and Austrian
governments and businesses to compensate for having
used forced and slave labor, and some European
insurers for withholding payment on policies of
those who died in the Holocaust Some 20 nations have set up commissions to study
Holocaust issues. © Copyright 2001
Associated Press. Just a few of the related items on this
website: -
Madeleine
Albright's pa 'took war loot to America'
complains Austrian family
-
Madeleine Albright's outspoken demands
for return of Jewish war loot
-
The Great
Shakedown continues: Greed without end: "Why
us!"
-
180
Millionen Franken auf Schweizer Banken
eingefroren
-
Spain
to Give to Sephardic Holocaust Fund
-
Shakedown news: Nestlé
makes Holocaust settlement | WJC
says even innocent US firms must Cough Up
("donate")
-
National Post: Show
survivors the money
-
Upstream:
Finkelstein and More: An Ongoing Debate |
In
interview, he accuses Elie Wiesel and Jewish
leaders worldwide of a vast shakedown |
Basler
Zeitung: Ist Kritik an
«Auschwitz-Geschäftemacherei»
statthaft? | See too: Gabriel
Schoenfeld: "Holocaust Reparations -- A Growing
Scandal," in Commentary Magazine, Sept. 2000
| [and German translation in
Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sept.13, 2000:
"Der
Skandal um die Holocaust-Entschädigungen
wird immer größer"]
-
Who
Gets the Holocaust Restitution funds? |
Industry news: Another
Holocaust conference in Stockholm |
-
New York
Times: Holocaust Lawyer Fagan Faces Litany of
Complaints | ABCtv:
Fagan "neglected clients"
-
The great
"slave labour" shakedown of innocent German
firms runs into a snag: many refuse to cough
up
-
Nestlé
makes Holocaust settlement
-
WJC
says even innocent firms must Cough Up
("donate")
-
Finkelstein
accuses Elie Wiesel and Jewish leaders worldwide
of a vast shakedown
-
Finkelstein
index
-
Origins of
anti-Semitism index
|