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Jack Cauley

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810-855-9700

Reparations Bill
Dies In Congress

Washington (JTA) — An 11th-
hour compromise in the House of
Representatives almost helped
Holocaust survivor Hugo Princz
achieve his elusive goal: obtain-
ing compensation from
Germany for his suffering during
World War II.
But after passing the House in
a voice vote, the bill that would
have allowed Mr. Princz to sue
the German government for repa-
rations failed to make it to the
Senate before Congress ended its
session last week.
The bill was a last-ditch effort
by the 71-year-old Mr. Princz,
who has been denied reparations
by Germany because of his sta-
tus as a U.S. citizen during World
War II.
Born in Slovakia to a natural-
ized American father, his status
did not protect him from being
sent to Nazi concentration camps,
where most of his family per-
ished.
Rescued by American soldiers
at the end of the war and sent to
an American Army hospital, he
bypassed the Allied displaced per-
sons camps. He was thus not reg-
istered as a Holocaust victim.
Germany later rejected his
claims because as a U.S. citizen,
he was not considered a stateless
refugee.
Mr. Princz's battle for repara-
tions began in court. Standing in
his way is the Foreign Sovereign
Immunities Act of 1976, which
limits the rights of U.S. citizens
to bring suit against foreign gov-
ernments.
A federal court judge ruled
that Mr. Princz, a resident of
Highland Park, N.J., can sue Ger-
many, but the German govern-
ment successfully appealed the
decision.
Then supporters tried anoth-
er route. Teaming up with vic-
tims of torture, specifically U.S.
citizens who had been held
hostage by terrorists in Arab
countries, a movement began in
Congress to amend the act.
The amended version, intro-
duced by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-
Pa., and Rep. Charles Schumer,
D-N.Y., when reconciled in con-
ference, allowed U.S. citizens who
are subjected to torture, genocide
or extrajudicial killing abroad to
sue the responsible governments.
The bill's supporters had hoped
to get the legislation onto the floor
of both houses of Congress before
the fall recess but ran into oppo-
sition from the State Department
and from some members of Con-
gress.
Since the beginning of the de-
bate, the State Department has
expressed concern over diplo-

matic implications of amending
the act, contending that such a
move could open the door for oth-
er countries to mirror the law and
allow frivolous suits against the
United States.
Nonetheless, Bill Marks, Mr.
Princz's attorney, felt assured the
bill would have had the necessary
votes to pass. The hitch was, it
was the end of the session when
"31 ou essentially need unanimous
consent to bring something up."
One of the holdouts was Rep.
Bill McCollum, R-Fla., who said
in a statement: "Simply stated,
the risks that other nations will
greatly expand their exception to
the doctrine of foreign sovereign
immunity should (the bill) be-
come law are greater than the
benefit to the few individuals who
would be helped by it."
Proponents made a deal. Rep.
Barney Frank, D-Mass., intro-

The State
Department has
expressed concern
over diplomatic
implications.

duced a new version of the bill
that narrowed the scope so that
it only addressed Mr. Princz's
case.
The narrow version limited the
right to sue to the victims of geno-
cidal acts during World War II.
They may sue only "the prede-
cessor states of the Federal Re-
public of Germany" or "any
territories or areas occupied or
otherwise controlled by those
states" during World War II.
The bill made clear, Mr. Frank
said, that it applied "only to past
events." Mr. McCollum got on
board. Supporters — including
Schumer, Rep. Howard Berman,
D-Calif., and Rep. Frank Pallone,
D-
N.J. — spoke to the State De-
partment, which agreed not to
block the narrowly constructed
bill. Passage in the House was
unanimous.
But the bill never made it to
the Senate floor, most likely be-
cause of procedural rather than
substantive issues, Mr. Marks as-
serted. There simply was no time.
There was, however, some op-.
position to the broader bill from
the Senate side, notably from
Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C.
Few were willing to speculate
what happened to the narrow bill
in the Senate.

