West German authorities today announced that May 8 is the last day on which individuals can file suit in German courts for the “external restitution” of jewelry, silverware, antique furniture and cultural property taken to Germany illegally during the war by Nazi army and government agencies or by individual Germans, provided the property has been located in Germany and can be identified there.
The “Paris Accords,” which the three Western Allies and West Germany concluded several years ago, state that anyone who was dispossessed of his property through larceny or through duress, during the wartime German occupation of non-German territory, or anyone whose predecessor in title was so dispossessed, may file a claim against the present possessor of such property for its restitution in kind.
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