ࡱ> 02/% !bjbj%%,GG(l  $K k  9 fO ffffff D~j:e 0 Q |Q fPresentation by Ambassador JiY `itler, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Special Session on Caring for Victims of Nazism and their Legacy Holocaust Era Assets Conference, Prague, June 28, 2009 Ladies and gentlemen, In Central and Eastern Europe, the issue of compensation of Nazi victims and the issue of social care for them have always been interconnected practically all the money they received was legally considered to be of humanitarian, not of compensatory nature. The victims who survived and stayed in Czechoslovakia, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and other countries of the region were de facto excluded from post-war compensation payments by the German government, due to what is known as Hallstein Doctrine. Even after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the German government considered the era of compensations to be over, and it was ready to provide only limited humanitarian payments through newly established foundations. In addition, the Jewish Claims Conference managed to get some funds for Jewish survivors in the region. But this amounted only to about 2 or 3% of the total money paid out to Nazi victims in the post-war era (approx. 100 billion USD) the rest being paid mostly to victims living in Western Europe, the United States and Israel. Over 10 years ago, I was head of the Czech delegation at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets. At that time, I noted with regret the sad reality that by as late as December 1998, in spite of the fact that many programs and funds had been announced and many plans and promises had been made, almost none of the Central and Eastern Europe victims of the Holocaust era had received any significant compensation for the dreadful ordeals they had to endure. But the renewed interest in World War II legacy, as demonstrated by the conference, but also the class actions in US courts, gave impetus to the new and probably last round of talks on World War II reparations and compensations. An important part of the process were the long and difficult negotiations leading to the establishment of the Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future, endowed by 5 billion euros, from which the victims of forced labour, but also property and insurance claims and other Nazi wrongs (art was explicitly excluded) were to be compensated. During these negotiations, it was very difficult for us to be heard as equal partners. I remember that we had to fight hard for the inclusion of the symbolic paragraph into the Joint Statement signed in Berlin in July 2000, acknowledging the fact that the victims living in Central and Eastern Europe had benefited only little from German compensation programs and stating that the foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future was a sign of solidarity with and a means of providing funds to these victims. The mistrust was so great, that even after the signing of the Joint Statement we did not believe it was going to be implemented. But the complicated and sometimes very emotional negotiations gave us an opportunity to learn to respect each other. Solidarity between victims representatives from Central and Eastern Europe and the Jewish Claims Conference developed, also due to personal qualities of men like the late Karel Bro~k and Noah Flug. But I also have a great deal of respect for the German chief negotiator Otto Graf Lambsdorff. I am glad to see here many of those who participated in the negotiations at this conference, among them Stuart Eisenstadt as the head of the US delegation, and Michael Jansen leading the German delegation. I am sure that they will confirm that we have gone a long way since 1998. As a result, a substantial sum of money has been rightfully distributed to 1.6 million victims, many of them in Central and Eastern Europe, Jews and non-Jews alike, including 76,000 Czech citizens. These payments from the German government and German industry were supplemented by payments by Austria. In this context, I would like to express my appreciation for Austria which specifically acknowledged the genocide of Slavic nations in the preambles to its bilateral agreements with the Central and Eastern European countries. In the European and German memory (Erinnerungskultur), we remember first and foremost and rightfully so - the uniqueness of the horrible crime of Shoa, the attempt to exterminate physically the entire Jewish population. Also the persecution of the Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, handicapped people, and political opponents of the Nazi regime is widely acknowledged. But the knowledge of plans such as the Generalplan Ost, the fact that also Slavic populations were considered inferior and destined to perish, is limited more or less to the academic circles and is not an integral part of the European and German Erinnerungskultur. Although the payments surely helped to alleviate the difficult social situation of many of their recipients, they surely did not represent a compensation for the hardships and horrors suffered something that cannot be compensated by any sum of money anyway. But the victims accepted these payments as a sincere gesture of regret. The survivors are our citizens, they suffered for us or fought for us. It is also our moral duty to support them. Based on several specific acts that the Czech Parliament adopted between the years 1994 and 2005, we have been settling claims of these deserving people on either a lump-sum basis or on the basis of monthly allowances and bonuses to their already existing entitlements. These acts pay tribute not only to the direct victims of the Nazis and to those who fought for our freedom, but they also pay tribute to their surviving relatives who often suffered the consequences as well. As of March 2009, the number of qualified claims amounted to 71,467 while the aggregate sum of money awarded to these claims amounted to 2,532,872,627 Czech crowns, which is over one hundred million Euros (see Appendix). It is important that the Foundation continues to focus on humanitarian programs for victims in Central and Eastern Europe, especially now in the time of economic crisis which affects, of course, also them. We hope that Germany will also satisfactorily resolve the outstanding problems, like the ghetto-pensions, and will continue to support victims where necessary and possible. As long as the survivors are still among us, they will need not only our moral acknowledgement, but in many cases also our assistance and help. This is now our shared responsibility of Germany, of European institutions, of the governments of the countries where the survivors reside, of NGOs and charities alike. }!!6B*]ph B*ph B*CJphR8  ./#$QR!$dha$ $dh7$8$H$a$ $dh7$8$H$a$!/ =!"#$% i<@< NormlnCJ_HaJmH sH tHBA@B Standardn psmo odstavce(,)[. / CDqr*000000000000000000000000!!! & D N }*H N Zc*3333([-* P izDr@*u1)H:\@prac\PracW\ASIE\obeti_nacismu_kor.docu10H:\@Prac\PracDoc\korektury\obeti_nacismu_kor.docu1XQ:\Profile\AppData\Microsoft\Word\ukldn pro automatickou obnovu obeti_nacismu_kor.asdu1XQ:\Profile\AppData\Microsoft\Word\ukldn pro automatickou obnovu obeti_nacismu_kor.asdu1XQ:\Profile\AppData\Microsoft\Word\ukldn pro automatickou obnovu obeti_nacismu_kor.asdu1XQ:\Profile\AppData\Microsoft\Word\ukldn pro automatickou obnovu obeti_nacismu_kor.asdu10H:\@Prac\PracDoc\korektury\obeti_nacismu_kor.docOIT8C:\Documents and Settings\mzv\Plocha\presentationHEA.doc@ y4 (`` @``(@UnknownGz Times New Roman5Symbol3& z Arial"qֆֆ .!20d|2QYPresentation by Ambassador JiY `itler, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republicu1OITOh+'0 ,@ LX t  ZPresentation by Ambassador Ji itler, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republicoresu1s1s1s Normal.dotnOIT2TMicrosoft Word 9.0a@G@/U@/U՜.+,0@ hp|  "MZV. | ZPresentation by Ambassador Ji itler, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Nzev  !"#$%&()*+,-.1Root Entry FǓj31TableWordDocument,SummaryInformation(DocumentSummaryInformation8'CompObjjObjectPoolǓjǓj  FDokument Microsoft Word MSWordDocWord.Document.89q