Survivors’ group wants answers

A survivors’ group wants to know why it did not have access to a cache of Holocaust-era documents from Vienna in its effort to settle insurance claims.”We do not understand how this valuable and pertinent documentation on Austrian Jewry was ignored,” the Miami-based Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA said in a statement, noting that the information might have affected negotiations with insurance firms that took place earlier this year, according to The Associated Press.Eight hundred boxes of documents, including deportation lists and emigration documents, were discovered in 2000 at an apartment building owned by the Vienna Jewish Community. The documents were revealed to the public last week at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. They go on display next month in Vienna at the Jewish Museum.A New York federal judge approved a settlement involving Holocaust victims, their heirs and the Italian insurance company Assicurazioni Generali in February after families struggled for a decade to obtain compensation. Generali paid $135 million to settle previous claims.”Life insurance policies looted by the Nazis that remain unpaid to their original owners are estimated to be valued in the billions of dollars,” the statement said. “Yet the recently concluded claims process administered by the International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims resulted in just 3 percent of these policies being settled or compensated.”