Property Restitution Lack of Transparency Eizenstat
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Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II, by Stuart E. Eizenstat. 2002
Germans, Swiss, and French. Now the Holocaust Industry Targets Nazi-German-Victim Poland. Political Strong-Arm Tactics, and Lack of Transparency—Then and Now—in So-Called Property Restitution Claims
My review focuses on items largely untouched by the many previous reviewers.
NO HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY, HUH? THE AUTHOR CONFUSES THE ISSUE
Although author Stuart E. Eizenstat does not mention Norman Finkelstein by name, he would have us believe that there is no such thing as the Holocaust Industry because, according to him, very little of the Holocaust reparations monies went to the lawyers. He asserts that many lawyers worked pro bono in the Swiss bank case in which he was actively involved, while other lawyers got only about 1% of the settlements. He compares this with victorious mass-injury cases, in which the attorney gets 15%-30% (or more) of the settlement. [p. 345].
However, even if Eizenstat’s assertions are completely true and validly applicable, they constitute a red herring. Any profiteering by the attorneys (or lack of it) is—at most—a sideshow. The REAL issue is how much of the money actually was paid to Holocaust survivors—in this and in all previous Holocaust restitution settlements to date (including the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement).
—–The following [except the titles in CAPS, and comments in brackets] are direct quotes—–
THE FUNDAMENTAL UNFAIRNESS OF HOLOCAUST-RESTITUTION SETTLEMENTS
I also learned a great deal about the challenges of life in post-Communist Eastern Europe…I found a seething bitterness that their citizens, also Hitler’s victims, had never received compensation from the Germans comparable to the billions paid to Jewish Holocaust victims. [p. 28].
BELABORING THE OBVIOUS: TO WHAT DOES THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY OWE ITS SUCCESSES AS COMPARED WITH NON-JEWISH MASS-RESTITUTION CASES?
For the Holocaust suits, the combination of sympathetic victims in one of history’s worst tragedies, heavy political pressure, and serious foreign policy implications was unique. [p. 352].
…it is unclear whether the U.S. government will again devote the kind of time, energy, and resources it did here… [p. 352].
If they can galvanize public opinion and generate political support, as the Holocaust cases did, they may succeed despite their legal infirmities. [p. 352]. [And if a cow acquires wings, then it can fly, and fly as well as the birds.]
One of the most revealing aspects of this piece of history is what it suggests about the political influence of the Jewish community in the United States. [p. 354. No kidding].
THE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY IN THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY: KEEPING THE POLISH POPULATION IN THE DARK—COURTESY OF PRESIDENT KWASNIEWSKI’S GOVERNMENT
My first visit to Poland, on May 9, 1995, was considered so sensitive that the Polish government insisted that it receive no publicity. [p. 42].
No publicity in Poland: U.S. Department of State cable, “Polish Officials Express Concern About Eizenstat; Worry About Press,’ May 9, 1995 (Warsaw 6442). [Full text of reference 42 to pages 36-51; p. 384].
After several trips and meetings with President Kwasniewski…[a new law] became effective on May 11, 1997. [p. 42].
POLAND’S REMAINING JEWS (JRCP), AND THE WORLD JEWISH RESTITUTION ORGANIZATION (WJRO), IN CONFLICT
Here [Poland], more than anywhere else in eastern Europe, an unseemly power struggle between the WJRO and the tiny Jewish community of some 5,000 Poles [Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland], many recent emigrants from the former Soviet Union, stymied progress on communal property restitution with a receptive Polish government. [pp. 40-41].
SPECIAL EX POST FACTO TRIBAL RIGHTS FOR JEWS? (DO THE WORLD’S JEWS NOW APPOINT THEMSELVES THE COLLECTIVE OWNERS OF THE ONETIME BELONGINGS OF POLAND’S NAZI-GERMAN-MURDERED JEWS?)
The restitution of private property has been disappointing in most Eastern European countries…Poland, for example, is so traumatized by the prospect of returning or denationalizing large numbers of properties that it has enacted no private property laws at all. [p. 359].
CENSORSHIP FOR STATING UNWELCOME HISTORICAL FACTS: ONE STANDARD FOR JEWS AND ANOTHER STANDARD FOR POLES
Germany’s Christian Democratic Party expelled Martin Hohmann from the German Parliament after he stated that today’s Jews bear a collective responsibility for the actions of Jewish communists during the 1917 Russian Revolution. [p. 367]. [Notice the use of Communists in lower-case, as if to lessen their crime. Now shed some crocodile tears for the mere censure that Jan T. Gross has gotten from today’s PiS government in Poland. ]
HOLOCAUST SUPREMACISM: OK FOR THE POLOKAUST (NAZI GERMAN GENOCIDE OF ETHNIC POLES) TO BE MENTIONED AS LONG AS POLES “KNOW THEIR PLACE”
Was it indeed, as Wiesel and I believed, a distinctively Jewish event?…Aloysius Mazewski of the Polish American Congress did not see it that way. He told Rabbi Greenberg that the 3 million Polish victims of World War II shared the Holocaust with the 6 million Jewish victims. For over a year this debate raged…In the end, a more inclusive council and Holocaust definition, still recognizing the particular Jewish dimension, gave the [U. S. Memorial Holocaust] museum the broad support and moral force that have made it an unqualified success. [p. 19].
In 1973 only two universities offered courses on the Holocaust; by the 1980s the number had exploded to 210. [p. 16].
—–End of direct quotations—–
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