Administration, Major Jewish Groups Oppose Holocaust Insurance Bill

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration lined up with leading Jewish organizations Thursday in urging Congress to reject a bill requiring insurance companies to disclose Holocaust-era records and allowing Holocaust survivors and heirs to sue the companies in U.S. courts.

Adopting the bill would "undermine the current voluntary cooperation" with European insurance companies established by an international commission, said J. Christian Kennedy, the special U.S. envoy for Holocaust issues.

Kennedy told the House Financial Services Committee that in exchange for "legal peace" — meaning the U.S. government would oppose suits filed against the European companies' U.S. subsidiaries — the companies would work with the commission to resolve claims on policies written before 1939 and never paid.

Passing the bill, however, would result in an adversarial relationship between the companies and people filing claims, Kennedy said.

"In the end, the survivors and heirs would suffer because they would be left with only one recourse for resolving their claims — the filing of a lawsuit with all the risks and costs that would entail," he said.

But Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., who sponsored the bill, said it would give Holocaust survivors and descendants "one last chance" to recoup assets held by insurance companies that for decades have refused to honor the claims because there was no death certificate for many Holocaust victims.

"What we are being presented with today is the ultimate injustice," Wexler said, noting that roughly 85 percent of the pre-Holocaust insurance assets have never been paid.

Wexler said his bill was prompted because the international agreement expired last March.

Wexler blasted major Jewish organizations, including B'nai B'rith, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, for opposing the bill. In letters to the committee, the organizations warned that the legislation would hinder efforts to voluntarily resolve claims and cause more delays by throwing the claims into court.

"How is it that they can sleep at night?" Wexler asked.

Kennedy noted that there is nothing to prevent U.S. citizens from suing insurance companies in U.S. courts, but he said that under the agreement worked out with German, Austrian and other insurers, the U.S. government would actively oppose such suits.

Although the international commission has expired, Kennedy said the companies have agreed to continue processing claims under the same framework as established by the commission.

Stuart Eizenstat, who represented the Clinton administration on Holocaust issues, said the commission was established to resolve claims quickly by using less stringent rules of evidence than would be required in a court.

Eizenstat noted that the commission paid out more than $8 billion to 1.5 million Holocaust survivors and heirs, including those subjected to slave labor.

But in exchange for insurance companies and other private firms agreeing to fund payments, Eizenstat said the U.S. agreed to the "legal peace" to protect the companies from a barrage of court cases.

Israel Arbeiter, president of the Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston, said Wexler's bill would "restore the basic rights of survivors."

"Is it too much for Holocaust survivors to have the right of access to American courts to sue insurance companies who cheated our families out of our insurance proceeds?" Arbeiter asked. "Is it too much for Holocaust survivors to make decisions for themselves about their property rights? ... I don't think it is asking for too much to have the same rights as any other American citizen to hold insurers accountable."