Restitution Deadlines Approaching

From Aach to Zywietz, hundreds of thousands of names are waiting to be rediscovered on the Web site of the International Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.

The list of 363,232 names, on the Internet since April 30, represents unpaid insurance policies belonging primarily to Jews in Nazi Germany. It is the most comprehensive such list ever publicized, “unprecedented in the world of Holocaust-era restitution,” commission chairman and former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger said in a statement.

Application forms can be downloaded from the Web site, www.icheic.org. For information in the United States, call 1-800-957-3203. The deadline for applications is September 30.

Meanwhile, applicants for another restitution fund have less than one week to file an application.

The Austrian General Settlement Fund is accepting claims for immovable property, movable property, liquidated businesses, stocks, mortgages, insurance policies, bank accounts and other claims for losses and damages. The deadline is May 28.

Application deadlines for other Austrian restitution funds have been extended but are still only months away.

The deadline for the Austrian National Fund for Victims of Nazi Persecution, for those claiming apartment leases and household property, is December 31, 2003. The same deadline applies to the Austrian Slave and Forced Labor Fund.

A fund for those seeking a return of their property is accepting applications until January 27, 2004. This only applies to property that belonged to the Austrian government until January 17, 2001. The fund covers immovable property as well as movable Jewish communal property.

Application forms can be downloaded from the Web site www.nationalfonds.org. For information in the United States call the Austrian consulate in New York at: 212-737-6400, ext. 210; the Austrian embassy in Washington at: 202-895-6700; the embassy in Chicago at: 312-222-1515, or the embassy in Los Angeles at: 310-444-9310.

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