and Ken Engel

Special to WJW

Once again, we find that members of the Jewish community are robbed of their rights as citizens. But this time, it is here in the United States.

Who was deprived? Holocaust survivors and their families. Of what right? To sue for what is justly theirs. Why? To satisfy Germany and other foreign governments.

Legislation is pending in Congress (HR 1746) that would correct this injustice and give Holocaust survivor families the right to sue European insurance companies for unpaid policies. This legislation does not put a penny into the pockets of survivors. It only gives them the right to have their day in court.

In 1998, several states passed legislation requiring European insurers who did business in those states to publish policyholder names on unpaid policies from the Holocaust era, to pay claimants based on relaxed standards of proof and to extend the time for bringing claims.

Congress was poised to pass similar legislation until insurers and foreign governments persuaded nonsurvivor Jewish organizations and insurance commissioners to create an "international commission" to standardize the process and avoid "costly, protracted litigation." The result was the International Commission for Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC).

ICHEIC completed its "mission" in March with catastrophic results. News reports disclosed that ICHEIC paid on fewer than 3 percent of the policies owned by Holocaust victims. Worse yet, a former New York State Insurance superintendent, who served as an ICHEIC arbitrator, revealed the existence of a secret policy established by ICHEIC supervisors to deny survivors' credible policy claims when the survivors could not produce documentary proof.

This violated ICHEIC rules and the entire spirit of the enterprise that promised survivors and heirs could present claims and receive payments if they had credible claims and anecdotal evidence, because very few survivors were able to keep insurance records after the nightmare of Auschwitz.

Fewer than 18,000 (2.7 percent) of 870,000 policies were satisfied. In terms of unpaid value, ICHEIC resulted in offers on $260 million of the conservatively estimated $17 billion value in today's dollars of policies owned by Jews at the beginning of World War II.

Even more outrageous was that ICHEIC offered insurers a deal it had no right to negotiate. To quote German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth in his Oct. 19 letter to Congress: "At ICHEIC's final session on 20 March 2007 there was overall agreement that German insurers have fulfilled all obligations under the ICHEIC trilateral agreement and have therefore deserved permanent and all-embracing legal peace."

Legal peace? No one has the moral authority to grant Germany ‹ or any country, company or organization enriched by participating in the Holocaust ‹ "legal peace." This peace makes Germany the permanent heir of its Jewish victims. It is unconscionable that anyone should even attempt to offer this forgiveness on behalf of the survivor community.

Who can forgive a wrong done to another person? To quote a survivor who was denied his claim even though he has documentation, "That deep inside of me I say Š the Nazis who finally did win!" Do the Germans deserve peace before the survivors have peace?

HR 1746 requires insurers doing business in the United States who ‹ directly or through affiliates ‹ sold policies during that era to publish the names of those policyholders. It also provides a right of action in federal courts for survivors and heirs when companies refuse to settle on acceptable terms.

The legislation provides a legally enforceable remedy that survivors and family members can exercise themselves, a remedy that can't be diverted by nongovernmental organizations such as the World Jewish Congress or the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. It puts survivors where they would have been in 1998 had state laws allowing insurance consumers to pursue traditional remedies against insurers been enacted at the federal level.

The time is long overdue for Congress to step up on behalf of the survivors and their families and to protect their right and access to legal recourse. Every other American has the opportunity to go to court to have insurance contract rights enforced. Survivors should have the same right.

Esther Finder is president of The Generation After in the Washington, D.C., area. Ken Engel is past president of CHAIM (Children of Holocaust-Survivors Association in Minnesota.)