Sounds like the Rooshins are perhaps a bit leery that there will be a call for restitution for the crimes against Russian Jews committed by the stalwart hero of the American Left, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili.43 states agree on property restitution to Holocaust victims
{CTK) - Forty-three countries have agreed in Prague on a set of recommendations concerning the restitution of the property of Holocaust victims and other victims of Nazi persecution that Czech PM Jan Fischer and U.S. Department of State adviser for Holocaust assets Stuart Eizenstat presented yesterday.
The document recommends the principles the restitution and compensation for the property of the Jewish victims of the Nazi persecution should be based on.
The states express in it their willingness to consider working out national programme and legislation on the still open restitution issues.
The recommendations concern not only the synagogues, cemeteries, schools and other buildings that served religious purposes before the Nazis confiscated them in 1933-1945, but also private real estate, Eizenstat said.
He said the recommendations also involve the property that has no more owners to be returned to. The revenues from it should serve the survivors with low income.
There are about 500,000 such survivors all over the world. About a half of them live below the limit of poverty, Eizenstat said.
He said the list of recommendations is not binding, nor does it break the law of the countries that have agreed with it.
Russia disagrees with the recommendations and would not follow them, the Russian embassy in Prague said in reaction to the disclosure of the document yesterday.
The Terezin Declaration, which EU representatives signed in Terezin (wartime Theresienstadt with a Jewish ghetto and a Nazi prison), north Bohemia, at the close of the Czech EU presidency in mid-2009, calls for the restitution of the Holocaust victims' property, including private, that was seized by the Nazis.
Ways to the implementation of the demand in individual states are outlined by the document that a commission of experts discussed in Prague in the past days.
A Russian delegation headed by Alexei Fedotov, the Russian ambassador to Prague, took part in the negotiations.
Fischer welcomed the states' agreement on the restitution principles yesterday. He said it is a "common shame" that the issue remains unsolved 65 years after the war.
"Nevertheless, it is better if justice is secured belatedly than never," he said.
Eizenstat said the recommendations are voluntary, not binding on the countries involved. In fulfilling them, the states should each respect its own law, Eizenstat said.
He praised the Czech Republic's leading role in this activity.
In its statement yesterday the Russian embassy says the approved document on the compensation and restitution methods does not reflect the approaches that Russia considers crucial.
A reference to "treaties and principles of the post-war arrangement of Europe" is missing in the document. That is why Russia has not joined the recommendations in it, nor does it feel bound by any commitments ensuing from it, including moral ones, the embassy said.
Eizenstat said Russia's reaction surprised him. He said Russia demanded a special reference to the post-war arrangement which a number of countries, such as Germany, would probably oppose as this does not directly relate to restitutions.
Apart from Russia, the Prague initiative has not been joined by Belarus, Serbia and Malta for the time being.
"We're addressing the remaining countries with a proposal to join [the initiative] additionally," said Tomas Pojar, Czech ambassador to Israel, who participated in the negotiations.
The Prague Jewish Community's former chairman Tomas Jelinek said Russia showed a reserved stand on the restitution talks in the past. Russia seems to be the first country to decide not to join the agreed-upon principles, Jelinek said.
"This reserved stand [of Russia] was known," he continued, adding that the restitution of the aryanised immovable property concerns Russia only marginally.
Helen Thomas and Jimmy Carter were unavailable for comment.
Via The Prague Monitor
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