I would look forward to working with you, Mr. Bell and others to try to see how we can put some teeth into the recommendations and to try to provide this repository of information and continuing efforts in our own government.

I guess finally, you know, one of the issues that we keep coming back to -- and I first got involved in this through Edgar Bronfman and his pioneering work back in the late '90s -- is this point again that Congressman Cardin made. We have to constantly be creating an atmosphere in which these claims are viewed as appropriate, legitimate and justiciable. And there must be some way we can better establish, especially in Europe, but really universally, the entitlement to these claims that should exist.

And whether there should also be a public education component, a, kind of, public outreach effort here, because we have to change the public environment in which these political decisions are made.
And perhaps there could be some concerted effort on the part of the administration. And I know members of the commission and other members of Congress would be interested in working with you to determine how we could lay the ground work for that. Because year after year, we basically make the same arguments, we hear the same issues time and time again.

And I know we're going to hear from some witnesses, and three of those witnesses are from New York, and I won't be able to stay for all of their testimony. And I wanted to thank Mr. Evron and Mr. Meyer and Mr. Singer for their continuing commitment.

And I would just end by remembering someone who's not here, and that is a great champion of Holocaust survivors, Rabbi Israel Miller, who really put so many of these issues into the public's consciousness and he demonstrated such leadership in, you know, really helping the aging community of Holocaust survivors arrive at a just destination after a very long and painful journey. And I think we owe him a debt of gratitude, as well as everyone who's here today.

And, Mr. Chairman, I think we should continue to look for ways that we could follow up.

And I would certainly welcome support for the legislation that Mr. Sherman has introduced on this side of the Hill to try to create some institutional memory and focus for the ongoing efforts for individual claimants to realize the benefits of whatever legislation and judicial processes are eventually agreed to by these various countries.

SMITH: Your response?

BELL: Yes, I'd like very briefly, if I could.

Certainly, the Department of State and anyone else in the administration would want to cooperate with you, Senator Clinton, in realizing the objectives you've laid out. And I think that it will be important for the Senate, the House and the executive branch to look carefully at additional ways of bringing this closer to our shared objectives.

You may recall, I just observe for a moment that the approaches that we have taken so far, and Stu I'm sure has talked with you about this, I recall that he has, have turned on a number of incentives in the past. When it gets to arrangements such as those we have with Germany, Austria and France, it has to do with some very specific things that the Department of Justice and the Department of Justice only can do, combined with some very specific diplomatic undertakings which we, in the State Department, try very hard to maintain. So there will be specialized roles of various areas of the government that would need to be carefully balanced in the way forward.

Just a few of the other points that you raised. With regard to the public environment, one of the things that I do is, with my colleagues at the Department of State and at the Holocaust Museum, work hard to see that the international Holocaust education task force is an active and vibrant organization. It goes a long way these days toward raising
consciousness.

We just had a meeting in Paris a few weeks ago of the whole 14-member organization. It started as 11 that day and ended up as 14, and it is growing and we are quite forward about getting many of the countries we're talking about here today into that institution, which not only works on textbooks and what is said in schools on issues of the Holocaust, including, in some instances, restitution but also, you know, about issues of tolerance and anti-Semitism. It is a very practical organization also that gives new entrance into the task force special projects to undertake under the tutelage and with the sponsorship of others. So, that's one of the instruments that we undertake.

Another matter I would raise is, of course, what this administration, and, frankly, I would hope any American administration, has said with regard to anti-Semitism in the world and in Europe, where the president and the secretary and all the rest of us who've spoken very clearly.

When I was in Paris two weeks ago -- three weeks ago I guess it was -- I read a formal set of remarks in Paris on that subject and others have spoken to it.

I think one last little point I'd raise, yes, to be sure it's very frustrating, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that we're not all just toothless talkers, you know. From our various vantage points, we have achieved something. And it is the case that over the 1990s, while often it was slower than many of us could wish, properties do get reinstituted, laws do get framed, you know, negotiations do succeed. If you looked at the amount of property and money and valuables and art works that were reinstituted in the 1990s, it's the proverbial, you know, glass half-full, half-empty. We must redouble our efforts on behalf of the empty part of it. That aspect of what you say we, of course, all I hope share.

SMITH: Thank you very much.

Mr. Crowley?

CROWLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I didn't think that Mrs. Clinton's microphone was off, actually. I heard her loud and clear the first time. So it was the second time that I realized that she had it off.

Mr. Bell, in your prepared remarks you mentioned that the legislation that passed in Poland in its parliament was vetoed by the president because of its budgetary implications. Was that the reason...

BELL: Well, I said it was a complex political situation. I believe Polish politicians at the time cited budgetary aspects of it. I would not want to speak authoritatively to the motivations of the Polish president at that time. I can only note that we, the United States government, were, in fact, in some measure relieved that he vetoed it because it would have been citizenship discriminatory.

CROWLEY: I appreciate that.

BELL: Now, some people look at that and say, "Oh well, you know, gee, you could have encouraged your citizens to go ahead and become dual nationals." And, in fact, strictly legally speaking, under Polish law it probably would be possible for Americans who used to be Polish and are now American to try to reobtain their Polish citizenship, and, therefore, apply under the provisions of dual nationality. Needless to say, many Americans probably would not want to do that. So we, as a government, have, you know, favored the process that's put that formula aside and is now looking at another one.

CROWLEY: And the target being early 2003. Any specific idea...

BELL: Their commitment.

CROWLEY: Any specific date in terms of production?

BELL: I don't think anybody has mentioned a calendar date, but we will take them at their word.

CROWLEY: The reason why I say that is the importance of it is though the earliest is six months I guess you can say between now and January or February. When a young person is 20 years of age, that's a relatively insignificant amount of time. When one becomes 30 and 40 like myself, we begin to take note of time a little bit more often, so forth and so on -- 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 -- that is an often long time to have to wait to have these issues resolved.

In fact, unfortunately, I would predict that many of the individuals who are alive today will not be alive when a bill is actually passed in Poland and signed into law that would once again give them rightful ownership of the property that is rightfully theirs.

And I would ask again -- I know you've been asked a number of times and
maybe just one more time for myself -- that you do all you can. I know you work incredibly hard on these issues and I appreciate that. To impose on our administration the need to work in an emergent fashion as soon and as quickly as possible to bring about the resolution of this issue.

Let me just ask another question as it pertains to the EU and Poland's
desire to be a full member within the European community. I would imagine that property rights would be a major issue in the EU and any desiring countries wanting to be a full participant in that. Has there been any pressure been brought to bear by our administration or our State Department on the EU in trying to pressure Poland to move more expeditiously in these issues?

BELL: We discuss property restitution issues throughout Central and Eastern Europe directly with the European Commission and have a very close dialogue with the European Commission -- of the European Union specifically on these issues. The European Union is, of course, in charge of its own enlargement process. They are fully informed of what we know and what we think, I can assure you. Beyond that, they come at this issue, as I earlier mentioned, to my knowledge at any rate, through the prism of economics and law. And I believe it's fair to say that the European Union would make sure through any application -- any applicant for membership that part of having adequate laws and having adequate property laws is having a situation that can clarify disputes and provide clear title. And they, to my knowledge are doing
that.

So while we come about it -- probably come at it from a somewhat different perspective than the European Union, there is a large functional overlap there, and we have to build on that and we have to make it more, and we have to make it part of this sort of, you know, catalogue of leverages that we can use.

CROWLEY: Just finally, Mr. Chairman, I guess timing is everything and it's maybe fortuitous that the president of Poland will be visiting with our president tomorrow.

Time is of the essence. I know that this government -- the democratic
government of Poland is a little over a decade old. It is, in my opinion, long overdue that these issues be addressed, and it's unfortunate that they have not been addressed up until now. But it's my hope and I know the hope and dream and aspiration of many people here today that they move as quickly as possible, and I thank Mr. Bell for your testimony.

BELL: Well, I can only add to that, sir, that timing in all the issues I deal with is of the essence because if you look at any of the restitution issues that fall to me and to my colleagues to try and expedite, which is what we're doing, albeit, you know, the expenditure of monies out of the German foundation or out of the Austrian agreements or the French bank agreement, or albeit the settlement of outstanding insurance claims, everything has to take account of the fact that survivors, and sometimes even the heirs of survivors, are dying, and we don't have the time to stretch these processes out. That's true with respect to victims of the Holocaust. It's true increasingly with respect to victims of the communist era. So we share that perspective.

SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Crowley.

And let me just ask two very brief questions; one on the Czech Republic. I
and others repeatedly over the years have met with Czech leaders including their now current ambassador when he was a deputy foreign minister, and I know you have had numerous conversations as well over the years with him.

Obviously, for American citizens the invite to get dual citizenship, that deadline has come and gone. The issue of filing deadline has come and gone. Is there any effort being made to reopen the filing deadline? And added to that, if you can give any kind of indication as to the numbers of -- you know, we expected, and we had heard previously, there were anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 potential Americans who would seek to reclaim properties. There was not that rush that we expected or anticipated. What were the numbers of those who actually followed through?

And secondly, on the Croatian issue. The Croatian law back in 1999 was
ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. They ordered the parliament to take remedial action which it has not done three years later. Perhaps, like all parliaments, they don't like to be ordered around, but they certainly have not taken action. That has had an impact, obviously, on Yugoslav citizens but also to some extent on American citizens. What is your take on the Croatian situation, please?
BELL: With respect to your question about the Czech Republic, yes, the
Czech ambassador is a man with whom in the past I have attended human rights trials when he was a dissident. And so, we have a very good and close relationship, and I have stressed to him the need for additional action on restitution cases in the Czech Republic.

That 1928 agreement, that's called a Bancroft agreement, and at that time -- I know this from my work in Prague -- the United States government back in 1928, for whatever reason, was trying to have these agreements with numerous countries. It wasn't just the Czech Republic, it was a sort of one-size-fits-all approach to a question which was important to our own government at the time.

The number of people who have applied is something which the Czech
authorities themselves keep, and on which our statistical base varies. I think I would like to take the question and try to get the most refined response to that that I can.

With respect to the filing date, yes, we share your perspective, very much so, and have continually communicated that we share your perspective with regard to the need to
extend it.

You know, now that we're off the hook of the Bancroft agreement, it would be a shame to have gotten that and have no practical effect of it, or too little practical effect of it. And, you know, we represent that.

On Coatia, it is my understanding that after a long delay, finally on the 5th of July, just last week, the Croatian parliament amended the discriminatory clauses to extend to foreigners the right to claim expropriated property or receive compensation in accordance with existing bilateral agreements. The amended law pertains, unfortunately, to the communist era only and not to the Holocaust era or to the civil unrest, which immediately followed the fall of communism. We need to study the matter further, figure out what we know and think about the law and what we want to advise our citizens to do. But I can report that progress at any rate.

SMITH: Mr. Bell, I thank you for your testimony, and we will have some
additional questions we'd like to tender to you.

Any further comments from my colleagues?

Again, I want to thank you for your great work and look forward to working with you going forward.

BELL: Thank you very much, and thanks to all the commissioners and we look forward to your continued support.

SMITH: And may the Senate complete its work regarding you soon.

Our second panel of witnesses will address more specifically the status of property restitution in several East European and Central European countries and will provide some additional and specific examples of how a few individuals have succeeded and failed in their efforts to recover property.

Our first witness will be Israel Singer, who is president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and co-chairman of the World Jewish Restitution Organization. As co-chairman, Mr. Singer has negotiated on behalf of Holocaust survivors and heirs of Holocaust victims. His background in academia include professorships at the City University of New York, teaching political science and Middle Eastern studies, and at Bar Elan University in Israel teaching political theory.

Our second witness, Yehuda Evron, will testify regarding the status of
property restitution efforts in Poland. Mr. Evron serves as the U.S. president of the Holocaust Restitution Committee, a non-governmental organization advocating for restitution of confiscated property in Poland to Holocaust survivors and their heirs. Mr. Evron was born in Romania, has spent much much of his life living in Israel and the United States. He holds degrees from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Long Island University in New York. Prior to retiring in 1999, Mr. Evron had a distinguished career as a computer scientist.

Our next witness will be Mr. Marc Meyer, who represents clients with
property claims in Romania, as a partner with the international law firm of Hirschfeld and Ruben, for whom he chairs the Central and Eastern European practice group. Mr. Meyer has authored several articles analyzing Romania's property restitution legislation and he serves as chairman of the Rumanian American Chamber of Commerce.

Our final witness, Olga Jonas, has been dedicated to the issue of
confiscated property returned since 1990. Her interest in the issue stems, in part, from her father's efforts to reclaim confiscated property in the Czech Republic. She was born in Prague and with her family fled communist persecution to the United States, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1974. Ms. Jonas is an economist and has worked on economic policy for a number of international organizations. She has degrees from Williams College and Princeton University and has also studied at the University of Paris and Harvard Business School. In her personal time she works with several non-governmental organizations with a focus on the Czech Republic, including the Free Czechoslovakia Fund, the Czech Coordinating Office, the Czech Society for the Preservation of Human Rights, the International Association of Czechs for Dual Citizenship, Restitutions and Voting Rights, and finally the Union for Citizens' Self-Defense.

If we could begin with Mr. Singer?

SINGER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was very nice. I appreciate very much what you said about me and it's also very hot, we don't deserve that either.

I would like to tell you that I am appreciative of the fact that you gave us Several minutes and I'd like to, therefore, ask you if I could include in the record my full written statement.

SMITH: Without objection, your full statement and that of all your...

SINGER: I would like to add to that several items: Policy dispatch number 72 of October of this past year of the World Jewish Congress, of which I am also the chairman. It is described as Moral and Material Restitution, a summary report. It describes an update to some of the things that we have heard from the special envoy, Mr. Bell.

And I'd like to add to that one more item, something which actually probably is in your record, but it's the item I am going to begin with and it is a leadership letter from the United States Congress, and it was dated April 10, 1995. It was signed by the then speaker and by Senator Dole, by Mr. Gephardt, Mr. Daschle, Mr. Gillman, Mr. Helms, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Pell, and was a wall-to-wall statement. Just about every member signed it and it said, "The collapse of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe presented the Jewish people with the opportunity to reactivate efforts to reclaim lost property. For the most part, Jewish properties --communal and individual -- plundered by German occupation authorities, satellite governments and local populations were later seized by communist regimes before they could be returned to their survivors as well as to the heirs."

In 1992 the World Jewish Restitution Organization was created in order to coordinate Jewish claims on behalf of the world Jewish and the local Jewish communities in these respective countries and to negotiate with the appropriate authorities. Although the particulars vary in every country, governments have enacted restitution legislation with cut-off dates that have the effect, whether intended or not, of restricting the rights of Jewish communities and others with legitimate claims to reclaim their property.

Moreover, laws are being passed that communities and others with legitimate claims to reclaim their property have difficulties in making claims through. It should be made clear to the countries involved -- to Beloruss, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine -- that their response on this matter will be seen as a test of their respect for basic human rights and the rule of law and could have practical consequences on their relations with our country.

It is the clear policy of the United States that each should expeditiously enact appropriate legislation providing for the prompt restitution and/or compensation for property and assets seized by the former Nazi and/or communist regimes. We believe it is a matter of both law and justice. Time is crucial for these survivors who suffered such grievous loss, righting this historic wrong is the very least that can be done. The U.S. Congress, and many of you commissioners today, Chairman Smith, participated in writing this letter. Little has changed from April 10 1995 to today. We still have most of the points that we made then outstanding today, although we have added some properties, some laws, in some countries.

And as chair of the various organizations that deal with this problem -- and I don't deserve that either -- I'd like to tell you that I'm unhappy and I come to you today not to make you unhappy but to tell you that if I can't sleep, I'd like to have you stay awake from time to time as well. I've come to tell you that this is the 50th anniversary of the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany this week and anniversaries are important. Next Tuesday we will be commemorating the signature that was signed with the German government. And I want you to know that although I am not here to compliment any government, particularly not the German government, I want to say that we take notice of the fact that in the last 50 years, the German government has paid over 100 billion marks, or today some $60 billion Euros or dollars, or whichever one is more important, and higher in value today, and I'm not sure.

(LAUGHTER)

But I would like to tell you that this is a very serious amount of money that has changed the lives of many individuals and we take note of that because successes with regard to decisions made in theses halls should not be overlooked, and marginal or more failures should be. But when we state things on April 10 1995 and we meet in the middle of July in the year 2002 and still have outstanding questions, we do not do so because we don't thank you, Mr. Chairman and your colleagues, because we don't thank Secretary Eisenstat who strived to make this his almost life's work for a period of two administrations. And then we want to thank Mr. Bell, who follows in his footsteps and has sleepless nights, and we give them to him and he takes them kindly.

And I would like to say to you that we shall continue to be vigilant and
appear every time you call us and give you lists like this, which are report cards, as they were described by the Congress of the United States of America, as to the behavior of the countries, that we are now admitting that we have now admitted and that we might admit -- in fact, some members of the Congress have already recommended that they should be admitted despite the fact that they have not till now behaved -- well, some with provisos that they should and others with provisos less clear.

We've come here to ask you for three discrete things: The first is that in the area of communal property, and you heard that some countries have and have not yet passed full laws -- some with the gold standard and others with another standard -- some that have met the standards very well like Estonia and we cannot apply those because the amount of property and the problem isn't the same as it is in other places, so we don't really want to compare apples and elephants, but we do need to look at those who have passed laws and have followed what they passed, and those who have not, and we give you a list and that report card should be followed.

You should call those ambassadors in because they take that seriously and they know that we are looking and you are looking and that's why we come here and that's why we thank you, and that's why the situation in 2002 is different from the one that existed in 1942, where nobody cared and nobody was looking. And that's why most of my family had already been killed. The hearings weren't hearings with teeth, and the follow-up wasn't as clear as it could have been.

And we don't do that by holding up any kind of recriminations but we do feel that today those few who survived should be given an opportunity to live their lives in dignity and conceivably to receive what they deserve.

So we're here to ask you; (a) to follow our report card and look at it
carefully and to call in those ambassadors and ask them why, and more importantly, why not. And second; to ask them how can you allow in your countries, NATO countries, members for a long time, for a short time and aspiring NATO members, to allow anti-Semitism to occur in your countries as a result of creating justice? We're not talking about anti-Semitism at large, hatred racisms, xenophobia at large.

But this Congress of the United States and the sense of the congress'
resolution suggested that as a matter of law, as a matter justice and as matter of human rights certain things should be done. And if those things are merely raised, could they conceivably be one more time the cause of the very crimes that caused the theft of this property and the environment in which that theft took place, and could we be blind to that?

These aren't two separate unrelated issues. We, today, see that while
property restitution -- a right which we and which you have promulgated -- is in most places we are discussing causing anti-Semitism and being used as an excuse for it.
Unconscionable, incontrovertibly insensitive on the part of those governments that don't respond to it and on the part of those members that don't raise it. Because we're here today to tell you that anti-Semitism and justice should not be relatives and they're directly related.

And the last point that I've come to ask you to do if I can as a citizen of the United States of America and as a permanent annoyance, there is a moral issue here, not only a material one. Over 50 countries, and I include in the record the background at issue more than five decades after the Shoah collective memories being refreshed and revised, a quest for moral restitution has been part and parcel of the quest for material restitution. More than 50 historical commissions have been established to deal with various aspects of the property question in addition to investigating the truth about the fate of these assets that we're discussing.

These commissions, as you heard before from various commissioners throughout the world, tell the truth. That needs to be repeated, reprinted, reported and needs to be reviewed, educationally, and most importantly, from the point of view of human rights because those truths which we hold to be self-evident aren't at all.

Many countries still feel that these have been agreements arrived at, laws promulgated under duress, feel that those people in the U.S. Congress and those persons pushing you are blackmailers and worse. We wish that human rights be part of the pattern of those new countries being introduced into a community of nations in which certain values and certain educational principles be part and parcel of the justice that's being done. It's not only about the money.

I repeat that time and time again, and I want to repeat it one more time today.

It's true that in Germany much money was paid, but a de-Nazification program took place as well, and that de-Nazification program took place because we made it happen, and this body has a special duty not just to get back the property, but to get it back on terms that we, who understand what truths get that property, make the methods through which that property is given back and the way it's given back as self-evident as we in these halls understand
them to be.

That plea is the plea with which I come to you today with the aging
Holocaust survivors who are dying at the rate of 15 percent a year. So that in three or four years the issue that we'll be discussing will be moot. So that the laws which aren't being passed will be written for those who will not be able to make claims, will be the grist only for people who studied law like myself to deal with, and that's not what we're here to ask for alone.