Obituaries
Obituaries from page 77
Battle Over Survivors' Claims Reaches Congress
I Nathan Guttman
I The Forward
Washington
H
olocaust survivors denouncing
the Jewish establishment would
be a spectacle in almost any
Bloom's
Jewish Cuisine
venue — all the more so when it's under
the bright lights of a congressional hearing.
The issue at hand recently before
the U.S. House of Representatives'
subcommittee on commercial and
administrative law was the Holocaust
Insurance Accountability Act of 2010, a
bill designed to give survivors and their
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78
October 14 • 2010
Obituaries
heirs a right to sue insurance compa-
nies that they believe have reneged for
decades on their duty to redeem policies
taken out by Holocaust victims before
World War II.
Most major American and internation-
al Jewish organizations oppose the legis-
lation, however, because of a settlement
agreement forged years ago. So does the
American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust
Survivors (AGJHS). The process in place
under the agreement, they note, has paid
out millions of dollar; and a successor
process continues to pay out more. But it
also indemnifies the insurance compa-
nies against outside civil suits.
A group of survivors unhappy with
the results of the process has been pro-
testing for years; the congressional hear-
ing was their moment in prime time.
The Holocaust Insurance Accountability
Act would sweep away restrictions and
allow the disgruntled to go to court.
Introduced by Rep. Ileana Ros-
Lehtinen, R-Fla., the bill has 37 co-spon-
sors, 12 of them Jewish. That's less than
half of the House's 30 Jewish members,
reflecting the ambivalence that exists over
this issue in much of the wider Jewish
community. Some who previously sup-
ported the legislation, like California
Democrat Henry Waxman, now oppose it.
The measure's lead support group in
the Jewish community is the Holocaust
Survivors' Foundation-USA, a Florida-
based organization. The foundation and
three dozen other groups representing
survivors and their heirs told the hear-
ing that they deserved their day in court.
But Roman Kent, chairman of AGJHS,
sent a statement to the subcommit-
tee arguing that the legislation would
endanger the payout agreements already
reached and those still to come. The best
course of action, he argued, would not
go through the courtroom.