Missions around the world, the JUST Act report documents the efforts by foreign governments to return or provide compensation for stolen property. Representatives from 34 member nations plus observer countries of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) meet in Brussels, January 2020. “SEHI was tasked by Congress in the Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017 to elucidate where progress has been made and where work remains,” said Daniels. The unfathomable amount of restitution work still waiting is reflected in a 2020 report to Congress on what 46 countries have and have not yet done to meet the commitments they made when they endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration at the Prague Holocaust Era Assets Conference. In addition to many landmark agreements negotiated or facilitated by SEHI since its inception, the current team engaged with the government of Luxembourg to advocate for the historic restitution framework agreement concluded in January 2021 between Luxembourg, its Jewish community, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Achieving a measure of justice is not just about the past: a successful property restitution program is an indicator of the effectiveness of the rule of law in a country, and non-discriminatory, effective property laws are of crucial importance to a healthy market economy. The backdrop for SEHI’s work is that, since the end of World War II (WWII), the United States has played a crucial leadership role securing restitution or compensation agreements for property confiscated by the Nazis and their collaborators from 1933 to 1945 or subsequently nationalized by the Communist governments of Central and Eastern Europe. Although the office does not represent individual cases, it works with Holocaust survivor stakeholder groups and NGOs to secure new restitution agreements, return or seek compensation for confiscated property and artwork, and boost welfare support for survivors. Since its establishment in 1999 at the behest of Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, SEHI’s primary focus has been seeking restitution. “We owe it to those who were murdered or suffered in the Holocaust and Roma genocide to remember the horrific atrocities committed by the Nazi regime and their accomplices, and to teach the lessons of the Holocaust to future generations so that such repugnant acts of evil never occur again.” “The Biden Administration in its first months has already shown its clear support, carrying on the bipartisan tradition that SEHI has had from the start,” explained Special Envoy Cherrie Daniels. In Germany, Bundestag speaker Baerbel Bas noted that the pandemic has acted “like an accelerant” to an already burgeoning issue.Senior Foreign Service Officer Cherrie Daniels is the eighth Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and the first woman to serve in the job. Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people at Auschwitz, and the site today stands as a powerful symbol of how hatred and indifference led to the Holocaust. The date was chosen by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005 as it marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps, liberated by the Red Army in 1945.Īt the memorial site in Poland, which was subjected to a brutal German occupation during World War II, a small number of survivors gathered in an auditorium.Īttendance at the yearly event was sharply curtailed amid Europe's coronavirus surge. The Nazis carried out their Final Solution, systematically murdering an estimated six million Jews, and an additional 11 million people - including members of the Roma and Sinti communities and LGBT+ people, and opponents of the regime - during the war. January 27 marks an occasion to commemorate the victims of the World War II Nazi German regime, and this year they were honoured across the continent, gathering survivors and numerous government representatives paying their respects to the millions who lost their lives. The International Day of Holocaust Remembrance commemorations in Europe took place amid a rise of antisemitism that gained traction during lockdowns as the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated hatred online.
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