Israel sets Holocaust damages at $240 billion
New Feature
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Thursday, April 21, 2005 INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
JERUSALEM An Israeli government report that claims to be the first of
its kind has set material damage to the Jewish people during the
Holocaust at some $240 billion to $330 billion.
Although previous studies have estimated the value of looted Jewish
property, the Israeli government calculation includes lost income and
wages, as well as unpaid wages from forced Jewish labor.
The report estimates the value of plundered Jewish property at $125
billion, at current prices. It estimates the loss of income at $104
billion to $155 billion, and unpaid wages of forced laborers at $11
billion to $52 billion.
The new document is an extrapolation of information drawn from more
than 100 sources and involves no original research, said Aharon Mor, a
Finance Ministry official who headed a committee that spent seven
years compiling the report.
Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but the property of 9
million was looted or destroyed, the report said. The contents of
apartments and homes, real estate, bank accounts, businesses,
insurance policies, personal effects, gold, stocks and bonds, foreign
currency, jewelry and works of art were among the valuables plundered.
Some studies estimate that no more than 20 percent of the looted
Jewish assets, both private and communal, were restored to their
owners after the Holocaust. The restitution of private property, which
accounted for at least 95 percent of the total plundered assets, “is
the weakest link in the restitution process,” the report said. “A
great deal still needs to be done in this area.”
More than $8 billion of one-time payments to Jews and non-Jews were
negotiated in settlements between 1998 and 2001, and a substantial
part was paid and distributed, the report says.
But this represents just a small fraction of the Jewish material
damage during the Holocaust, and “there is much to be done in order to
achieve a measure of justice” for survivors and their heirs, the
report said.
“Restitution can successfully be dealt with only by exceptional legal
measures,” the report said. “In most countries, special, fast, and
simple legislation is badly needed.”
At the beginning of 2004, 1,092,000 Holocaust survivors were still
living worldwide, about half of them in Israel. About 10 percent of
survivors die each year, the report said.
“Any systematic delay in establishing settlement and disbursement
processes or resolving disputes is therefore not just another
bureaucratic hurdle, but the difference between a dignified closing to
a tragic period in their lives and unrequited sense of the permanent
denial of justice; between assistance for the needs of old age and
unabated suffering,” the report said.
The restitution process has been under way since 1948.