The Augsburg Jewish Community, in spite of losing out in bitter litigation with the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, has now been allotted ample funds to finance a fuller community life for the next ten years and more, thanks to an amicable agreement concluded with JRSO.
The small present-day Augsburg Community fought a test case through the German courts, contending that it is identical with the pre-Hitler congregation and, therefore, entitled to the assets of the latter. At issue in the controversy were assets worth some $200,000 but, because the case served as a precedent, its ramifications went far beyond the immediate financial stake.
Although Augsburg won its suit in the lower courts, the property was eventually awarded to JRSO by the tribunal of last resort in such matters, the U. S. Court of Restitution Appeals in Nuremberg. The American judges held that the old Community had in fact and in law been dissolved and that its assets are therefore “heir-less property.”
Whereas the old Augsburg congregation consisted of 1,100 members, only a few score Jews live in the city today, among them no more than 15 old-time Augsburgers. The settlement now reached with JRSO provides that the present Community receives clear title to the synagogue and to two adjoining buildings rented to commercial tenants, the whole assessed at $125,000. It also assumes possession of a disputed bank account deriving from an earlier real-estate sale and it will further be entitled to half of future indemnification payments on account of destroyed communal property, up to a maximum of $12,000.
The JRSO, on its part, obtains two parcels of property worth $40,000 and the other half of the Community’s compensation claims. JRSO was set up in 1948 by 12 major international Jewish bodies, with the sanction and support of U. S. Military Government, to serve as trustee for the Jewish collectivity as a whole in taking over heirless Jewish property in the U. S. Zone. Funds accruing to JRSO are allocated principally to the Jewish Agency for resettlement work in Israel and to the Joint Distribution Committee for purposes of relief and rehabilitation.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
