Holocaust and artworks

Recently, Holocaust survivors, Jewish Groups and experts gathered in Prague to assess efforts to return property and possessions stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or heirs.

The five-day conference, which brings together delegates from 49 countries, is a follow-up to a 1998 meeting in Washington that led to agreements on recovering art looted by the Nazis.

Stuart Eizenstat, head of the U. S. delegation, called it the most ambitious international meeting ever on the recovery of such stolen possession or compensation for their loss.

One goal is to produce international guidelines on this, but they would not be compulsory for the governments involved.

"There's no political will to have a binding treaty," Eizenstat said.

During the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler and his followers killed 6 millions Jews and seized billions of dollars of gold, art and private and communal property across Europe. But while countries such as Austria have stepped up restitution in recent years, critics claim some Central and Eastern European states still have a long way to go.

"Many governments in Central and Eastern Europe have not found a way to implement a process to resolve outstanding real property issues that is both consistent with national law and incorporates basic principles such as nondiscrimination treatment of non-citizens and a simple, expeditious claim and restitution process," said conference delegate Christian Kennedy, the U. S. special envoy for Holocaust issues.

How frustrating for these survivors and their heirs that this still has not been resolved decades after the war. One wonders if some governments simply hope that the survivors will pass on and there will be no traceability.