Nemo dat quod non habeat You cannot give what you do not have. My father began collecting Egon Schieles in the 1950s, his apartment filled to overflowing with near-pornographic images of cadaverous men and women, many with red hair like Ilona, my new stepmother, a childless, childlike woman as different from my accomplished, emancipated mother…
An automated email response awaits those trying to contact Project HEART, an ambitious Holocaust restitution program set up by Israel’s government to help survivors and their heirs regain properties seized by the Nazis. “We are no longer responding to email inquiries, and until further notice, Project HEART’s call center will not be operational,” the message…
The Czech Republic’s highest court rejected the restitution claim of descendants of a Jew whose button factory had been nationalized. The Constitutional Court published its ruling on the factory of Zikmund Waldes on Friday, the Associated Press reported. The ruling confirmed a 2010 verdict, which overturned a 2009 decision by the Supreme Court that found…
(JTA) — When a 2009 Holocaust-era assets conference concluded with a landmark statement of principles on Holocaust restitution, many restitution advocates had high hopes that a corner had been turned in the struggle for survivor justice. The Terezin Declaration, which had the support of 46 countries participating in the conference in the Czech Republic, outlined…
Families of Serbian Jewish victims of the Holocaust have until March 1 to file claims for property restitution. Serbia passed a law in October 2011 enabling restitution of Holocaust-era property or compensation in lieu of restitution for people whose property was confiscated by the Nazis or the Communist regime that followed. This week, the World…
It was hard not to be moved by the plea for financial support made to the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee in April by Dora Roth on behalf of her fellow Holocaust survivors. “What have you done with the money? What? The sight on television of Holocaust survivors who don’t have heat in the…
In 1988, Yehuda Evron received a memorable letter from Lech Walesa, the first post-communist president of Poland, on the eve of the country’s transition to democracy. “He wrote that within a few months we would get my wife’s property back,” recalled Evron, now 80. His wife was the only Holocaust survivor of a family that…
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