When the new Supreme Restitution Court of West Berlin officially begins its work Wednesday it will have on its calendar an initial group of 450 cases involving claims by victims of the Nazis–mostly Jews now living abroad–for the return of real estate, businesses and personal property. The court is composed of one judge each from the three Western occupying powers, three German judges and one “neutral” presiding justice from Sweden.
Since the West Berlin restitution statute went into effect, some 127,000 claims have been filed, 55,000 of them by the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization on behalf of the Jewish community in cases involving Jews who died heir less. Roughly half of the individual claims have been disposed of by the Berlin municipality and about 12 percent of the JRSO’s claims have been settled. Property compensated for thus far amounted to about $40,000,000.
Many of the cases which are now before the court–on appeal from the decisions of the West Berlin courts–hinge on the fact that the Soviet authorities have not participated in the restitution program and property lost in the Eastern zone or in East Berlin cannot be recovered through West Berlin. In some instances bank accounts were confiscated from banks which now have branches in the Western zone and their main offices in the Soviet sector, a factor which led the West Berlin lower courts to rule against the claimants.
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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.
