[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 1876 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1876
To establish a National Foundation for the Study of Holocaust Assets.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
December 20 (legislative day, December 18), 2001
Mrs. Clinton (for herself, Mr. Smith of Oregon, Mr. Stevens, Mr.
Specter, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Schumer, and Mr. Dodd)
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To establish a National Foundation for the Study of Holocaust Assets.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Holocaust Victims' Assets,
Restitution Policy, and Remembrance Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The United States should continue to lead the
international effort to identify, protect, and return looted
assets taken by the Nazis and their collaborators from victims
of the Holocaust.
(2) The citizens of the United States should understand
exactly how the United States Government dealt with the assets
looted from victims of the Nazis that came into its possession.
(3) The United States forces in Europe made extraordinary
efforts to locate and restitute assets taken by the Nazis and
their collaborators from victims of the Holocaust.
(4) However, the restitution policy formulated by the
United States and implemented in the countries in Europe
occupied by the United States had many inadequacies and fell
short of realizing the goal of returning stolen property to the
victims.
(5) As a result of these United States policies and their
implementation, there remain today many survivors or heirs of
survivors who have not had restored to them that which the
Nazis looted.
(6) The Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust
Assets in the United States, established in Public Law 105-186,
found the following:
(A) The United States authorities generally
restituted those victims' assets that came under United
States control to the national government of their
country of origin. In these cases the recipient
government bore the responsibility to locate the
rightful owner and to restitute the property turned
over to it by United States authorities. The Commission
found little evidence of efforts by these countries to
effect restitution and no evidence that the United
States monitored the recipient countries' compliance
with these responsibilities.
(B) The policy explained in subparagraph (A)
excluded those who no longer had a nation to represent
their interests, or who had fallen victim to the
ruthless efficiency of Nazi genocide and whose property
had been rendered heirless and unidentifiable. For
those cases, the United States designated ``successor
organizations'' to sell heirless and unclaimed property
and apply the proceeds to the care, resettlement, and
rehabilitation of victims. The adoption of this policy
led to many assets being too hastily labeled as
heirless or unidentifiable, with the result that they
were assigned to the successor organizations rather
than to the individuals themselves.
(C) The United States military government
established strict deadlines that created narrow
windows for filing petitions for restitution and
prevented many rightful owners from asserting their
rights.
(D) Even when property was returned to individual
owners or their heirs, it was often only after
protracted, cumbersome, and expensive administrative
proceedings that yielded settlements far less than the
full value of the assets concerned.
(E) Better policy implementation in Germany and
Austria would have prevented identifiable victims'
assets from being stored in disorganized and poorly
secured military warehouses and facilities where they
were occasionally subject to theft and requisitioning
by United States servicemen and civilian employees.
(F) In 1953, a Senate judiciary subcommittee
delving into the activities of the United States Office
of Alien Property (OAP) criticized the agency for
lacking good business practices in the way it handled
the assets under its control. The subcommittee
particularly singled out the ``inefficient and
dilatory'' manner in which claims were processed. Of
approximately 15,000 title claims only about 6,000 had
been processed.
(G) Congress regarded frozen German assets as a
source from which to pay United States war claims for
damages suffered by American businesses and
individuals. The United States War Claims Commission
received more than $200,000,000 from liquidated German
and Japanese assets. Thus, United States war claims
were paid in part by German assets that likely included
victims' assets.
(7) The United States Government should redress and improve
upon the results that that occurred as a result of the policies
it established to assist the victims or their heirs to recover
property stolen from them during the Nazi regime.
(8) The best way to improve upon these results is to create
a single institution to serve as a centralized repository for
research and information about Holocaust-era assets.
(9) Enhancing these policies will also assist victims of
future armed conflicts around the world.
(10) The conference on Material Claims Against Germany has
worked since 1951 with the Government of the United States and
with other governments to accomplish material restitution of
the looted assets of Holocaust victims, wherever those assets were
identified, and has played a major role in allocating unclaimed
restitution funds, including funds contributed by the United States, to
the Nazi Persecutee Relief Fund.
SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT AND PURPOSES.
(a) Establishment.--There is established as an independent entity
of the executive branch of the United States Government the National
Foundation for the Study of Holocaust Assets (in this Act referred to
as the ``Foundation'').
(b) Purposes.--The purposes of the Foundation are--
(1) to serve as a centralized repository for research and
information about Holocaust-era assets by--
(A) compiling and publishing a comprehensive report
that integrates and supplements where necessary the
research on Holocaust-era assets prepared by various
countries' commissions on the Holocaust;
(B) working with the Department of State's Special
Envoy for Holocaust Issues to review the degree to
which foreign governments have implemented the
principles adopted at the Washington Conference on
Holocaust-era Assets and the Vilnius International
Forum on Holocaust-era Looted Cultural Property, and
should encourage the signatories that have not yet
implemented those principles to do so; and
(C) collecting and disseminating information about
restitution programs around the world;
(2) to create tools to assist individuals and institutions
to determine the ownership of Holocaust victims' assets and to
enable claimants to obtain the speedy resolution of their
personal property claims by--
(A) ensuring the implementation of the agreements
entered into by the Presidential Advisory Commission on
Holocaust Assets in the United States with the American
Association of Museums and the Association of Art
Museum Directors to provide for the establishment and
maintenance of a searchable central registry of
Holocaust-era cultural property in the United States,
beginning with European paintings and Judaica;
(B) funding grants to museums, libraries,
universities, and other institutions that hold
Holocaust-era cultural property and adhere to the
agreements referred to in subparagraph (A), to conduct
provenance research;
(C) encouraging the creation and maintenance of
mechanisms such as a computerized, searchable database
of Holocaust victims' claims for the restitution of
personal property;
(D) funding a cross match of records developed by
the 50 States of escheated property from the Holocaust
era against databases of victims' names and publicizing
the results of this effort;
(E) assisting State governments in the preservation
and automation of records of unclaimed property that
may include Holocaust-era property; and
(F) regularly publishing lists of Holocaust-era
artworks returned to claimants by museums in the United
States;
(3) to work with private sector institutions to develop and
promote common standards and best practices for research and
information gathering on Holocaust-era assets by--
(A) promoting and monitoring banks' implementation
of the suggested best practices developed by the
Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in
the United States and the New York Bankers'
Association; and
(B) promoting the development of common standards
and best practices for research by United States
corporations into their records concerning whether they
conducted business with Nazi Germany in the period
preceding the onset of hostilities in December 1941;
and
(4) other purposes the Board considers appropriate.
SEC. 4. BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
(a) Membership and Terms.--The Foundation shall have a Board of
Directors (in this Act referred to as the ``Board''), which shall
consist of 17 members, each of whom shall be a United States citizen.
(b) Appointment.--Members of the Board shall be appointed as
follows:
(1) Nine members of the Board shall be individuals
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate.
(2) Eight members of the Board shall be individuals
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate, after consideration of the recommendations of the
Congressional leadership, as follows:
(A) Two members each shall be appointed after
consideration of the recommendations of the Majority
Leader of the Senate and after consideration of the
recommendations of the Minority Leader of the Senate.
(B) Two members each shall be appointed after
consideration of the recommendations of the Speaker of
the House of Representatives and after consideration of
the recommendations of the Minority Leader of the House
of Representatives.
(c) Chairman.--The President shall appoint a Chair from among the
members of the Board.
(d) Quorum and Voting.--A majority of the membership of the Board
shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. Voting shall
be by simple majority of those members voting.
(e) Meetings and Consultations.--The Board shall meet at the call
of the Chairman at least twice a year. Where appropriate, members of
the Board shall consult with relevant agencies of the Federal
Government, and with the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and
Museum.
(f) Reimbursements.--Members of the Board shall serve without pay,
but shall be reimbursed for the actual and necessary traveling and
subsistence expenses incurred by them in the performance of the duties
of the Foundation.
SEC. 5. OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES.
(a) Executive Director.--The Foundation shall have an Executive
Director appointed by the Board and such other officers as the Board
may appoint. The Executive Director and the other officers of the
Foundation shall be compensated at rates fixed by the Board and shall
serve at the pleasure of the Board.
(b) Employees.--Subject to the approval of the Board, the
Foundation may employ such individuals at such rates of compensation as
the Executive Director determines appropriate.
(c) Volunteers.--Subject to the approval of the Board, the
Foundation may accept the services of volunteers in the performance of
the functions of the Foundation.
SEC. 6. FUNCTION AND CORPORATE POWERS.
The Foundation--
(1) may conduct business in the United States and abroad;
(2) shall have its principal offices in the District of
Columbia or its environs; and
(3) shall have the power--
(A) to accept, receive, solicit, hold, administer,
and use any gift, devise, or bequest, either absolutely
or in trust, of real or personal property or any income
therefrom or other interest therein;
(B) to acquire by purchase or exchange any real or
personal property or interest therein;
(C) to sell, donate, lease, invest, reinvest,
retain, or otherwise dispose of any real or personal
property or income therefrom;
(D) to enter into contracts or other arrangements
with public agencies, private organizations, and other
persons, and to make such payments as may be necessary
to carry out its purposes; and
(E) to do any and all acts necessary and proper to
carry out the purposes of the Foundation.
SEC. 7. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.
The Foundation shall, as soon as practicable after the end of each
fiscal year, transmit to Congress a report of its proceedings and
activities during that fiscal year, including a full and complete
statement of its receipts, expenditures, and investments, and a
description of all acquisition and disposal of real property.
SEC. 8. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES AND SUPPORT.
The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Education, the
Secretary of State, and the heads of any other Federal agencies may
provide personnel, facilities, and other administrative services to the
Foundation.
SEC. 9. SUNSET PROVISION.
The Foundation shall exist until September 30, 2011, at which time
the Foundation's functions and research materials and products shall be
transferred to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or to other
appropriate entities, as determined by the Board.
SEC. 10. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
(a) Authorization.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the
Foundation such sums as may be necessary to carry out this Act.
(b) Limitation.--No funds appropriated to carry out this Act may be
used to pay attorneys fees in the pursuit of private claims.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S13965)
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
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