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Apres Chirac, French Jewry Setting Sights an Restitution
FORWARD, JULY 21,1995 By BRETT KLINE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT PARIS — The French government may owe the heirs of French Jews killed in Nazi death camps hundreds of millions of francs, experts here are saying amid preliminary speculation that the country's Jewish community might be in a position to demand restitution from its government for lost property as well as physical and emotional damages suffered during the Holocaust. That possibility was coming into focus in the wake of two developments last week: President Chirac's acknowledgment Sunday, the first Norway Vows to Examine Claims It Liquidated Jewish Holdings. ever on the part of a French head of state or high government figure, of official French responsibility for the deportation of up to 76,000 Jews to Nazi camps during World War II and the release to the press by lawyer and French Nazi-hunter Serge Klars-feld of documents showing that money and possessions seized from deported Jews had been kept by the government and never returned to survivors or their heirs. Greater Resonance "For years it did not seem so important," says Mr. Klarsfeld, referring to the issue of restitution. Observing that he timed the release of his documents to coincide with Mr. Chirac's speech in order to give it greater resonance, Mr. Klarsfeld told the Forward: "Our first priority for years was to identify the victims and the survivors, to put the families back together, to deal with all the people aspects. The second stage was to bring the executioners to trial. The matter of money and property came last." French Jews Set Sights on Restitution Mr. Klarsfeld, who so far has assembled copies of receipts for 12 million 1942 French francs in Jewish bank accounts taken over by the French government, says it is impossible to estimate exactly how much the French government may owe the heirs of French Jews. "I doubt very much that there is anywhere a list of the apartments, businesses, bank accounts, art collections and so on that the city of Paris or the French state took over from the deportees," Mr. Klarsfeld says. "To put together such lists now would be an incredibly huge job. One would have to burrow through the records of at least 15 different French ministries. I certainly couldn't do it alone." 'Criminal Madness' Mr. Chirac's admission of his country's guilt in the deportation of Jews during the Holocaust came on the anniversary of Vel d'Hiv, when Paris police participated in the roundup of thousands of Jews who were then shipped to concentration camps. "The criminal madness of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state," Mr. Chirac said at Sunday's ceremony. In the past, French governments have blamed the collaborationist Vichy regime for cooperating with the Nazis and have argued that the wartime government was illegitimate and did not reflect the will of the French people or French Republic. 'Lessons of History' In commenting on the French role in the Holocaust, Mr. Chirac drew an explicit comparison between the world's silence in the face of the Nazi extermination of Jews and its present policies regarding the war in Bosnia. "From the Shoah to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, let us learn the lessons of history. We cannot accept being passive witnesses or accomplices of that which is intolerable," the French president said in a clear reference to France's Western allies, particularly Great Britain and America, who do not share his wish for a more aggressive military posture toward the Serbs. Mr. Klarsfeld has been at the forefront of efforts to force the French government to confront its involvement with the Nazi party; for many years he criticized President Mitterrand for sending wreaths to the grave of Marsha' Petain, the head ol the Vichy govern ment. Mr. Klarsfeld made it clear, though, that he was not accusing the current French government of deliberately refusing to return Jewish property; in fact, he said, French Jews who have sought to claim family property lost in the war years have often succeeded in regaining it. Neither the French government nor the Jewish community, however, have actively sought to bring such an option to the attention of survivors or their heirs, or to provide them with legal counsel. George Saare, socialist mayor of Paris' llth arrondissement, notes that, although the roster of city possessions goes back centuries, it is difficult to gain access to it. "I have been making requests from the city (to clarify matters of lost Jewish property) for 20 years," he says, "and have gotten no answer. An inventory would have to determine what exactly is involved and who is still around to make claims. If the city ever gets going on this there will be surprises in store for everyone involved." Unanimous Approval The possibility was also raised this week that Mr. Chirac's acknowledgment will pave the way for French Holocaust survivors to sue the French government for compensation not only for lost property hut also for physical and emotional dam ages suffered as a result of being turned over to the Nazis. Although the president's admission of French responsibility is not legally binding, Mr. Klarsfeld says, it would "weigh heavily" if a reparations law like that passed after the war by the German Bundestag were ever brought be-fore the French parliament. Whether the Jew- ish community will now push far such a law remains to be seen. Approval of the Chirac speech by the French Jewish community was unanimous. "The Jews of France have been waiting to hear this for a long time," commented Henri Hajdenberg, president of the CRIF, the council of French Jewish organizations. . Child Survivor The reaction of 63-year-old Jeanette Shapiro was more personal. "I feel good about Chirac's admission of French responsibility," she says. Ms. Shapiro was 10 when she was rounded up with her parents, brothers and sisters, and was the only one of them to survive Auschwitz. After the war, she made no attempt to reclaim the family apartment at 18 rue Saihte Croix de la Bretonnerie, in Paris' heavily Jewish Marais district; and no one offered to restore it to her. "I was all alone and looking to sur-' vive," she says, telling a typical tale that may explain why many French' survivors made no effort to reclaim family property. "Beginning legal procedures was beyond my capacities. But if lists were to be drawn up and procedures started to regain such properly now, perhaps I could still do something." ' 'If the city ever gets going on this, there will be surprises in store for everyone,' the mayor of one Paris district says. |
