International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Deech]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their priorities during their chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2014.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, this morning Chancellor Merkel referred to the events of the Second World War as a break with civilisation and declared that she bowed her head to the victims. She referred to the hand of forgiveness and reconciliation stretched out by European nations to Germany. In this spirit I address the question of Holocaust remembrance 75 years after the start of the war.

Few countries in the world have as noble a record as the UK when it comes to Holocaust remembrance. This is the month in which the Government assume the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which is very fitting. The Government are to be congratulated on the recent establishment of the Holocaust Commission, on legislating for the return of stolen art, including Holocaust education in the national curriculum and appointing a special envoy for post-Holocaust issues. They have also housed the Holocaust Archives at the Wiener Library in London and participated in the online publication of the global catalogue of looted art. For all this, I and thousands of others are immensely grateful.

However, in this special year for the UK I have to tell the Minister that survivors need action as well as memorials. They need action to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe and they need help to reclaim their cultural heritage. The Holocaust was not only genocide; it was the greatest theft in history. The Nazis, and in some countries the communists, took not just people’s lives but their religious heritage, their property, their professions and their assets.

Most people are aware of the issue of looted art, most recently through the discovery of a hoard of art in a Munich apartment. But it is not just art. Before the war, Poland was home to more than 3 million Jewish citizens, 90% of whom were killed and their properties occupied by others. There are thousands of properties in plain sight—houses, synagogues and factories—that have not been returned to the survivors and their heirs, of a value that dwarfs the art.

But the price is not all. As Chancellor Merkel said, Europe is bound together by respect for the rule of law. Yet there is one big wound on the body of Europe that must be tended to, otherwise it will fester for ever. Poland is a success story of modern Europe but more than two decades after it became a democracy, the failure to make restitution still blights it. An entire people—killed or forced out—was dispossessed. Poland’s success is built in part on the property of others. This is a property issue like no other. The stolen homes stand for the remembrance and recognition of the history of the Jewish population of Europe and the contribution of Jewish people to the culture and businesses of the countries they once lived in. Museums and tourism to the sites of former concentration camps do not begin to restore that memory. Survivors living in poverty may well ask why Governments contribute to the preservation of the Auschwitz site but not to the relief of their situation. The claims of the survivors need attention to demonstrate that Europe was not made lawless by the atrocities of the Second World War but upholds the law.

Poland is isolated as the only European country not to have enacted comprehensive legislation and settle the claims; indeed, it has retained communist nationalisation laws despite urging by international organisations and, most recently, by US Vice-President Biden. Many survivors live in poverty while their property is inhabited by the now free and democratic citizens of their former country of residence. The fact that Poland was a victim country itself does not remove the obligation to restore stolen property from which its citizens continue to benefit. But ultimately, it is not just about art or property; it is about recapturing people’s history. The art that hung on their walls and the houses where they lived are part of the legacy. If we allow the theft of an entire generation of a people’s culture, it is as if they had never existed. That is why the achievement of restitution must be the Government’s priority this year.

In making this a priority, the Government will be fulfilling their obligations under the terrorism declaration and guidelines of 2009 and 2012. The declaration was signed by 47 countries and called for support for the welfare of 500,000 Holocaust survivors and restitution of wrongfully seized property. This was the culmination of many post-war international conferences on this issue. However, progress is slow in central and eastern Europe, for example Romania. The greatest failure is Poland. There are about 90,000 surviving claimants to property of whom the majority are non-Jewish. On at least 13 occasions, Poland has drafted legislation and then shelved it. It puts every obstacle in the way of claimants in its own courts and makes unrealistic demands of proof, given that those who were killed were unlikely to have left title deeds behind. Its Government are acting in rejection of Council of Europe, US Congress and European Parliament resolutions, in contravention of the first protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights and of hopes held out prior to it entering the European Union. There are survivors here listening to us as we speak and they would say that their experience of claiming and being rejected has led them to believe that Poland is waiting for all the survivors to die out. They do not want total compensation. They do not want the eviction of present inhabitants, but a restitution and reconciliation commission to be set up by Poland modelled on the one that worked well in Austria. Such a commission could distribute a small percentage of the lost value from a fund donated by the Polish Government, with realistic requirements of proof carried out expeditiously.

This is nothing new. In 2001, Austria established a general settlement fund to resolve all remaining issues. The Government set up a three-person claims committee to receive claims using relaxed standards of proof—for example, the 1938 property records, witness statements and birth certificates. The Austrians put $210 million into the fund and more for insurance claims. Claimants no longer had to take legal action at their own cost. The committee dealt with 20,000 claims relating to 240,000 individuals before closing its work. Bulgaria had a good scheme, utilising government bonds and settled private claims.

This year, Holocaust remembrance needs to be refreshed and remodelled for future generations. There are already countless memorials around the world. There is a veritable tourist industry in trips to the sites of former concentration camps. In this country we have three Holocaust museums, memorial days and sophisticated education programmes. There is much to be gained by viewing “Schindler’s List” and reading The Hare with Amber Eyes and The Diary of Anne Frank, but these efforts are not an excuse for not taking the more difficult actions that survivors need. Moreover, all the conferences and education have failed signally to hold back the resurgence of anti-Semitism that we now see on the continent of Europe: the Islamist attacks on French Jews; the rise of Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece; the marches in Lithuania; the resurrection of the blood libel; the antics of footballers and Dieudonné; and Holocaust denial and sales of the forged text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Although the number of incidents reported by the Community Security Trust is down a little this year, it has only returned to the levels of 10 years ago and the totals cannot take account of the anti-Semitism so evident on social media.

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reported on Jewish experiences of anti-Semitism in eight European nations in 2013: 76% said that there had been a deterioration in the past five years and 21% had experienced an incident. I suggest to the Government that we need a vigorous search for, and return of, looted art, and use of the remedies that already exist in law to stamp on the anti-Semitic actions and words that are suffered every day. As chair, they should call on Poland and other countries to honour their commitment to the democratic principle of property rights. There is a case for the creation of a European commissioner for post-Holocaust issues modelled on Sir Andrew Burns’s role, and a pan-European effort to provide some degree of remedy for the great injustices of the past so vividly remembered today in this Chamber.