[MSN] The Restitution Law of Unintended Consequences

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es/ 
The Restitution Law of Unintended Consequences 
Opinion 
Marilyn Henry | Fri. Apr 13, 2007 
  
In late 2005, the Knesset passed Israel's first Nazi-era restitution law.
The legislation was the work of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee for the
Location and Restitution of Assets of Holocaust Victims, which had been set
up by Knesset member Colette Avital after reports that Israeli institutions
held bank accounts and real estate belonging to Jews who perished in the
Holocaust. 
  
To ensure that no Nazi victims' assets would be overlooked, the Knesset
restitution law broadly defined property to include real estate, financial
instruments and other "movables." By default, the definition includes
artworks, ceremonial objects, books and artifacts. 
  
Earlier this year, an important provision of the law went into effect - with
unintended consequences, thanks to that vague definition of property. 
  
The provision mandated an independent company to locate the owners or heirs
of all assets in Israel that had belonged to Jews last known to have been in
Europe in 1945. As of January 26, ownership of these Holocaust assets
belongs to the company, which operates under the lengthy name of the Hevra
for Locating and Returning Assets of Those Who Perished in the Holocaust.
Any heirless assets are now to be sold by the company to aid survivors and
to assist Holocaust memorial and documentation centers. 
  
Having failed to exclude artworks and artifacts from the definition of
property in the 2005 restitution law, the Knesset transferred ownership of
these assets to the new company - a result that Avital herself admits was
not intended by the law. 
  
"During almost five years of work, no one brought up the issue of artworks,
because the terms of reference of the committee covered only property
acquired in Israel, or bank accounts opened in Israel," Avital said. "To the
best of our knowledge, Jews in Europe did not send their art collections to
Palestine." 
  
This, however, is a specious distinction. The underlying basis of
restitution laws, including the Israeli law, is very simple: European Jews
owned properties before the Holocaust. Through theft, displacement or
abandonment caused by the owner's persecution or death, Jewish properties
went unclaimed or became heirless. 
  
It does not matter how the assets arrived in Israel. Whether they were
deposited or purchased by European Jews before World War II, or donated to
the Israel Museum, or acquired by Yad Vashem, they are all legitimate
candidates for restitution. 
  
The Israel Museum - which received artworks both from donors and from the
Jewish Restitution Successor Organization, the predecessor to the Claims
Conference - was astonished to find some of its treasures now owned by the
new company. And Yad Vashem could in theory find itself compelled to
relinquish artifacts of destroyed Jewish communities on the grounds that
these pieces of documentary evidence last belonged to Jews in Europe in
1945. 
  
Such developments clearly call for a revisiting of the restitution law. Some
are already calling on the Knesset to amend it to exclude artworks and
artifacts. 
  
Inadvertent as it may have been to include artworks within the framework of
the new law, however, it would be a grave mistake - indeed, it would
compound the original one - to exclude them by amendment. 
  
One cannot cherry-pick which Jewish properties should be restored. The State
of Israel should not imply through its legislation that restitution should
be limited to bank accounts and real estate and that cultural properties are
off limits. It would send the message that Holocaust survivors are entitled
to recover their bank account but not the painting that hung in their family
home. 
  
Instead, the Knesset should take this opportunity to encourage Israeli
museums to do what every other museum in the world has been prodded to do by
Israel and Jewish organizations: Undertake systematic provenance research
about their collections, with every effort made to find owners or heirs of
plundered properties. 
  
If the Knesset amends the new restitution law, it should make provisions to
retain in museums those Holocaust artworks and artifacts whose owners and
heirs cannot be identified. Otherwise, we could face an unfortunate irony:
The Knesset-mandated independent company may one day take custody of
artworks and artifacts in Yad Vashem and other Israeli museums, auction the
heirless assets - and then give back the proceeds to Yad Vashem and other
Holocaust memorials. 
  
Marilyn Henry is the author of "Confronting the Perpetrators: A History of
the Claims Conference" (Vallentine Mitchell).