OPINION:
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday in support of H.Con.Res. 129 — a resolution I introduced with my South Florida Democratic colleague, Rep. Ted Deutch, which urges the German government to honor its obligations to Holocaust survivors and to reaffirm its financial commitments to survivors to ensure they are able to live out their remaining years in dignity, comfort and security. Germany has a historic and moral responsibility to all survivors worldwide, and I commend our partner’s acknowledgment that the “responsibility for this crime against humanity is German.” However, while Germany’s culpability is its own and undeniable, injustices against survivors continue to be perpetuated by others who have thus far managed to elude accountability.
Over the years, Congress has been in a unique position to help survivors seek the long overdue justice that, for many, has managed to still evade them almost three-quarters of a century since the end of World War II. In late 2014, thanks in large part to pressure from legislation Rep. Carolyn Maloney, New York Democrat, and I introduced over several Congresses, the French rail company, SNCF, finally was made to compensate its victims — the tens of thousands of Jews it deported on its trains to Nazi death camps — and accept responsibility for its role in the Holocaust. And while this compromise may not have been the best agreement for survivors — or their heirs — it was a victory for justice and a step in the right direction for all survivors who still have hope of winning their much-owed redress. And there is much more to be done.
Congress can still work on behalf of survivors by seeking the return stolen artwork and property to their rightful owners, and we can help them win the compensation from insurance companies that have opted to place onerous burdens on claimants in a shameless ploy to run out the clock to avoid honoring survivors’ claims. For years, many of my colleagues and I have sought to restore the rights of Holocaust survivors and their heirs to sue insurance companies that owe them from policies sold before the Holocaust but were subsequently dishonored after World War II. We have sought to remedy this situation through legislation that I have introduced over several Congresses with the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act. This bill aimed to allow survivors to pursue their justice in federal court, the same avenue available to other citizens in similar situations.
Unfortunately, this action is necessary because the United States has failed survivors by continuing to block them from seeking legal remedies against those who were either complicit in, or those who benefited directly from, the atrocities committed against them. Conservative estimates place the sums owed by insurance companies — many of which are still in existence and have thriving businesses here in America — to these families at $20 billion in today’s dollars. And that number doesn’t even include the billions in unpaid policies of heirless victims.
This is not about reparations for the crimes of the Nazis; this is about giving survivors the opportunity to bring their cases before a federal judge to win their long-overdue justice. This is about righting the continued injustices of the past, and this is about restoring the rights and the dignity to so many Holocaust survivors and their heirs. These insurance companies have a moral obligation to compensate their victims and the families of their victims.
Imagine all that these survivors have suffered and endured, never able to be free of the indelible memories of humanity’s darkest period, only to suffer the indignity of not being able to enjoy their rights as U.S. citizens that they have so dearly earned. Their continued victimization is being compounded; first, by the insurance companies that refuse to pay out Holocaust-era claims and place onerous burdens on survivors, then by the opaque bureaucracies, red tape and egregious shortcomings, fraud and abuse of international mechanisms intended to address survivor claims, and finally by their own government, which continues to bar them from seeking redress in civil and federal courts.
These survivors have scars that will never heal and horrifying memories that will never be forgotten. Time is of the essence, but this fight will not be over until justice for all survivors is realized.
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida, is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and is a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.