The New York Times reports today from Frankfurt that the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, fearful that increasing German political sovereignty may nullify restitution claims on behalf of Jewish victims of Nazism, is negotiating most bulk-sum settlements with the individual West German states.
The Jewish Restitution Successor Organization represents the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency. It is the claimant of heirless Jewish property. In the American zone alone claims have been instituted for about $6,500,000. A restitution group is now functioning also in the British zone, but not yet in the French zone.
Indicating the modesty of the settlements, the N. Y, Times correspondent says that the J.R.S.O. was to sign an agreement today with the State of Hesse accepting 25,000,000 German marks, largely in utility bonds, in settlement of 54,000,000 marks in claims. “We are selling under duress because we are afraid of what will happen when the Germans take over,” Benjamin B. Ferencz, director of the J.R.S.O., told the Times correspondent. He indicated that he expects to eign an agreement soon with the Bremen State Government. He added that resistance to Jewish claims is strong in Bavaria where the claims amount to 53,000,000 marks.
Until now the J.R.S.O. has managed to obtain 10,000,000 German marks worth of various types of assets, of which only 3,000,000 marks were in cash. How ever, because of Allied financial regulations the money was blocked and could be used only for a small number of surviving Jewish victims still in Germany. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, who in now on a visit in Germany, expects to meet tomorrow with John J. McCloy, U.S. High Commissioner, and discuss the possibilities of unfreezing the money obtained as restitution.
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.
