Holocaust Compensation Promised

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” European nations have promised billions of dollars to victims enslaved and robbed in the Holocaust. What's next? To make sure they pay. <br><br>The United States signed the last

Thursday, January 18th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” European nations have promised billions of dollars to victims enslaved and robbed in the Holocaust. What's next? To make sure they pay.

The United States signed the last of a series of settlements Thursday that in recent years set compensation for survivors of Nazi-era forced and slave labor, families whose insurance policies were never honored and those whose bank accounts and other property were confiscated by Adolf Hitler's Germany and European collaborators.

``Now we have to see that the money flows to the victims before it's too late,'' said Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton administration's lead envoy in the campaign.

Eizenstat negotiated the latest agreement in which France promised to pay for bank accounts confiscated by its World War II collaborationist Vichy regime.

Overall, more than $7 billion has been pledged in European settlements over the last few years. Payments are supposed to start in the coming months.

``But very little, virtually none, has actually flowed to survivors,'' said Elan Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress. He estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 elderly survivors have died as negotiations wore on, distribution plans were figured, foundations were set up.

Eizenstat has urged the new Bush administration to follow through to ensure the settlements are implemented. Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell told his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday that he would look into the issue immediately.

Steinberg said he expects a vacuum in the interval between administrations, during which a campaign to implement the settlements should be waged by the New York-based Executive Monitoring Committee. That group, commonly known as the Hevesi commission after New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi, consults with 900 fiscal officers from cities and states around the country.

Steinberg credits the commission's threat of sanctions against Swiss banks in 1998 with forcing the settlement that started the settlement process moving to the later series of European packages.

Several state financial officers announced in the summer of 1998 that they would bar investments with the Swiss banks and take other actions unless the banks settled a U.S. class-action lawsuit by people who said banks refused to turn over accounts of Jews slain in the Holocaust.

Soon, the banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion to families whose accounts had been dormant for decades.

Later, Eizenstat negotiated large settlements, in which Germany, Austria and others promised to pay compensation and the United States promised to discourage further lawsuits in U.S. courts.

``When all is said and done, this is all because of the Hevesi commission, (whose) sanctions ... forced the issue,'' Steinberg said. ``Now we are asking them to move into the implementation phase, to wield their clout again to speed up the process.''

Hevesi said after a hearing of his commission Thursday that the group will do that.

Among the largest settlements were these:

â€”Germany's government and private companies promised $5 billion to pay people forced into labor to keep the economy going and free men to fight the war. The figure was negotiated in deutschmarks and now amounts to more like $4.4 billion.

â€”Austria and its industry will pay about $900 million, including $400 million to forced labor survivors and $500 million for apartments and other property seized by its pro-Nazi government. Some money will go for unpaid insurance policies and for health care and pensions for people forced to flee the country.

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On the Net: A Holocaust compensation program guide: http://claimscon.org/RestitutionGuide.html