To this day, the government refuses to give up Jan's half of the house.
It's still rented out for a pittance, still falling apart, and without doubt, there are a number of local operators who are waiting to buy Jan's half from the government as soon as the case is dead, as soon as Jan is dead.

This is an especially unattractive aspect of the Czech government's
approach, the barely concealed wish for the victims to die. Well, Jan, who was my father, did die four months ago.

My mother inherited everything. She wants to pursue the case in the Czech Republic where she inherited nothing but this claim. So but there his will has to go through probate.
This will take some time, certainly months, maybe years, maybe decades.

Another case, very similar, was that of George Hartman. George, many of whose relatives perished in the Holocaust, came to the United States after the communist putsch in 1948. He tirelessly lectured about the misdeeds of the communists. After 1990, the house that he owned with his brother was also only half returned. His brother, who lived in France all these years and whom the Czech's recognized as a citizen, got his half.

George never got his half only because the Czech government declared him
ineligible on account of his U.S. citizenship, and George also died this spring.

And parenthetically, I would like to note that over the years, the
governments of Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic have abused the 1928 Bancroft Treaty with the sole objective of depriving U.S. citizens of their property rights.

So what can be done now going forward? First of all, we hope that this
commission will continue and indeed deepen its activities on property rights in post-communist countries. Only Western pressure will help.

The victims have been protesting -- and I would like to introduce for the record some of the protests that we have issued over the years, but nobody seems to pay attention or nobody seemed to pay attention.

Now that the Czech Republic is in NATO, officials there feel that there's not so much U.S. government interest in how the country is run. It is important for the U.S. government to impress on the Czech government that it has obligations to conduct itself in line with international agreements on human rights in a non-discriminatory way.

The U.S. government should object when high government officials, like Mr. Rychetsky, the deputy prime minister in the most recent government and the author of the discriminatory restitution laws, when he claims that everything that U.S. citizens should have received has already been returned to their Czech relatives.

The two examples I just described show that this is just not true. The U.S. government has been largely silent as far as the Czech public is concerned. Not a single press release has been issued by the U.S. Embassy in Prague in the last 10 years.

Ending of the arbitrary discrimination should be at the top of the
administration's agenda for the planned visit to Washington of the Czech President Vaclav Havel on September 18 this year. The U.S. authorities should demand that the Czech government respond to the two binding decisions of the U.N. Committee on Human Rights.

We are members of that committee. The United States is a member. The Czech government is obliged to respond. It has not responded for seven years. And they should respond by a deadline.

Nobody seems to care so the Czech government is content. The U.S.
government should impress upon the Czech authorities that those being denied property are not simple beggars who can be put through countless bureaucratic hoops in order to prove that the property that is theirs should be returned.

Instead, it is the obligation of the Czech government to speed up this
process, to make it easy for the claimants, to return property as soon as possible and to pay compensation, first, for the delays that the present government has caused and, second, for the period when the predecessor regime denied the victims the use and enjoyment of their assets.

The Czech state did not just take over the assets of the predecessor
communist state; it also took over all its obligations. It should matter to U.S.-Czech relations whether the Czech government treats the victims of the Nazi and communist regimes with respect and civility.

Second, I would like to encourage this commission to hold hearings with
responsible Czech officials in the Czech Republic, with the Czech press and public having access. As Senator Clinton mentioned, public education is a very important aspect of this process.

As you may know, Czech officials, notably Vaclav Klaus, have openly
dismissed the appeal of the Helsinki commission. This was reported in the Czech press. It would be harder to do so if the hearings were held in the Czech Republic. And besides, its a lovely country to visit and the people are really very kind, that is people other than the officials.

(LAUGHTER)

Even some of the officials who may have been former dissidents but they seem to have forgotten about human rights now that they are in power.

Finally my third suggestion is to begin to hold accountable the specific
officials who have been active in denying the basic rights of U.S. citizens for the last decade.
They should not be eligible to receive visas to visit the United States. They are engaging in arbitrary and discriminatory persecution of U.S. citizens and their families. Maybe this proposal could be taken into consideration in the ongoing review of U.S. visa policy.

Before I stop I want to acknowledge on behalf of all the Czech exiles the very, very helpful work that Erika Schlager and Maureen Walsh have been doing on these matters over the last years. And there are many people on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Chairman, who are very grateful that this commission exists and continues its work for human rights.

(APPLAUSE)

SMITH: Thank you Ms. Jonas for your testimony and for signaling out two of our -- and we do have many, many staffers who are walking institutional memories who care deeply about these issues. And Maureen and Erika do an outstanding job on this, and thank you for making note of that at this hearing.

I do want to ask just a few questions and I yield to Mr. Cardin for any
questions he might have. As we all know, President Kwasniewski last year vetoed that bill, claiming that it had a residency, a citizenship requirement and also a 50 percent or it did include a 50 percent restitution model, but he has -- and I think Ms. Evron, you did point out in your testimony -- about the idea of using the court system.

We anticipated that in our letter to President Bush that we sent to him,
that this is a surface appeal argument that will be used probably tomorrow when he meets with the president to say, "Oh the courts, use the courts, avail yourself with the courts."

And I hope, especially with the press that are here and any way we can
amplify it, that the president not buy into that subterfuge. It has not worked. You pointed out, not a single return of property has occurred under that, and again, I want to use whatever means we have.

There will be a meeting with the House leadership with the president. There is no Foreign Affairs Committee or International Relations Committee meeting
contemplated. If I -- attempting to get myself invited to that, to raise that very question -- I am invited I'm just told -- to raise that very question at least within our own leadership in our meeting with the president, that the courts are not the means, certainly the competence of the courts, the justices, what kind of sympathy or empathy for the rule of law in this regard do they have, what kind of training, and it hasn't worked. Bottom line. There needs to be a new and a comprehensive law and then swift and incomprehensive implementation.

So, basically, that's more of a statement than a question, but I did want to respond further on that.

And Mr. Meyer, you mentioned the astonishing number of 188,297 claims that the remaining government reports as of February 14th, 2,268 claims have been resolved. I wonder if you might be able to tell us or inform us how many of those remaining claims are truly active, perhaps even close to resolution, what's the cost? I mean is it an exorbitant cost? What kind of competency do those justices and judges have in dealing with those cases as well?

MEYER: Sadly, I can't answer you other than to say that, of those 188,297 claims, 113,543 involve in-kind restitution. And that's as of July, 2002. Those are the only statistics I have, and those are the only statistics that the Romanian government has supplied.

SMITH: OK. I appreciate that.

And I again want to thank you, Mr. Singer, Mr. Evron. If there's something else we ought to be doing -- you've made a number of recommendations -- over and above what you've already suggested, please feel free to tell us because we really want -- Poland needs to move on this.

It needs to move quickly.

I know that you met with Prime Minister Miller or at least was there, Mr. Singer, and sent a letter to him. Have you gotten a response back? Is it the same deal that the president suggested, "Use the courts," or is there a different response?

SINGER: I think that most of the suggestions that we made, Mr. Chairman, are really almost as effective as one can make them, and I think the most effective thing that can happen is that, tomorrow, when you speak to President Kwasniewski, you tell him that you heard Yehuda Evron pour his heart out. And you heard from Yehuda Evron that, frankly, the record is poor.

I know President Kwasniewski. He's a very fine man. He didn't just not
sign that law.

I think he wants to do the right thing. I even think Prime Minister Leszek Miller wants to do the right thing. The question is, how can they be encouraged? You can encourage them. They're waiting to be helped. Help them. If I can put it that clearly.

EVRON: I would like just one thing to mention, and I mentioned already, the fact that we have to look into the new law, the new draft of the law, which seems to be the same as the that we have a law, doesn't say anything.

People are now, as I mentioned, in their 80s, and to find that in 2003, they get the same piece of useless legislation is going to be outrageous. And I want really to thank you and Maureen and (inaudible)for organizing it and I hope that it will have really positive results finally after waiting so many years.

SMITH: Thank you. Is that about . . . yield to Mr. Cardin because that may be a vote.

CARDIN: Thank you Mr. Chairman. First, let me tell you how important I
think all of your testimonies have been to what we're all trying to do. It's important that we get beyond just the numbers. The numbers are shocking, but it's the individual cases that get the attention. So, I want to thank you for being here pursuing justice for each of the individuals that you have mentioned.

I must tell you that I was involved in these issues for a long time, but it was the case that I mentioned in my opening statement, the Waldman case, which patterns some of the issues that you mentioned, Mr. Meyer, and that was mentioned by others, where she had a clear claim to the property. It was a nice villa on the sea. It was being used by the Romanian government for governmental purposes. They liked using the facility, and they didn't want to give it back.

So, originally, the courts ruled that it wasn't appropriate to give it back, so the government agreed with the courts. And then the courts said it was appropriate to give it back, and then the government disagreed with the courts.

And we were bounced around for a long time. But it wasn't until the
spotlight got on it, it wasn't until the Romanian government realized that, just as you've mentioned Mr. Evron, until they realized that we were going to continue to raise these issues, that they decided they would get rid of us and give back the property.

And again, we shouldn't have to do that with every single case, but I think, as we raise the individual cases, we achieve the overall objectives of getting the laws on the books that we need.

So, I think it's so important to work with us. And as I talked to Mr. Bell, I want I government to pursue on a bilateral basis the proper laws. I want us to work on the international organizations for these standards. I personally believe that there are uniform objectives that should be included in restitution laws.

I don't think it's that complicated that you have to go to every state and develop a different law. I think there are principles that need to be achieved, and the states need to achieve those as principles.

But I do think that we will achieve that by working together and we need
your help in doing that. So, I just want to encourage you to keep up your efforts. I can assure you that we will do that here in this commission. We are determined that there be progress made and justice received by all.

Mr. Meyer, I think you're absolutely correct. Restitution in-kind is the easiest way to solve the problem. It should be the preferred course, unless there is a good reason why it cannot be done, rather than trying to have to establish a good reason why it should be done. And it is less expensive, and it's better justice, and then you don't have to argue about all the facts, a value or etcetera.

So I think that clearly should be the preference in how you deal with these property restitution cases. I also agree that it's broader than just the real estate, and we have to look at that. But we need to make progress on establishing the principle that each of these countries must have an effective way to deal with restitution.

So I can assure you that this is a continued interest for this commission.
I hope that, in three or four or five years, we won't have to have these hearings anymore Mr. Chairman. I really hope this issue will be behind us.

I think, however, it's going to be a long effort. I regret that but I
think, by our work, we can make it a shorter period of time and we can give more justice to more people, so let's continue our work. Thank you all.

SMITH: Mr. Cardin, thank you very much.

I have one final question, Ms. Jonas. If the filing deadline for claims
were to be reopened now, in your opinion would that be sufficient? And did, in your opinion, the Czech-Americans fully understand in 1999 that an opportunity to file property claims might depend on using the one-year window of opportunity to regain their Czech citizenship?

JONAS: No. I think...

SMITH: We have three votes pending on the floor. That's what that's all about.

JONAS: Basically, the Czech government offered an opportunity for people to get citizenship restored but not retroactively. The citizenship would be restored as of 1998. And the filing deadlines for citizens were in 1993/94. Right.

So I mean the whole point was the keep the properties away from these
people. So, it's just a charade with the citizenship laws. I know that the new law has been offered to you as a big advance, but really, it isn't.

SMITH: I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for your
outstanding input. It helps us. It obviously helps those who have been victimized, and we will do everything we humanly possible can do to follow up aggressively.

Hearing is adjourned.

END