Comptroller says state not restoring Holocaust assets

1 November 2016, 4:24 pm

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State Comptroller Yosef Shapira says the government has failed to return some 85 percent of Holocaust victim’s assets to survivors and heirs.

In his annual economics report, Shapira says that since the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets was set up in 2006, it has recovered property worth NIS 1.8 billion ($470 million) and returned just NIS 280 million ($73 million.)

Dozens of Jewish holocaust survivors wear phylacteries and the tallit prayer shawl as they dance with the Torah after performing their bar mitzvahs, on May 2, 2016, at the Western Wall in the Jerusalem's Old City. (AFP/Menahem Kahana) — Dozens of Jewish Holocaust survivors wear phylacteries and the tallit prayer shawl as they dance with the Torah after performing their bar mitzvahs, on May 2, 2016, at the Western Wall in the Jerusalem’s Old City. (AFP/Menahem Kahana)

“This should be urgently acted on, because to our regret, the generation of survivors is shrinking every day,” Shapira writes.

State Comptroller Yosef Shapira attends a a State Control committee meeting at the Knesset on June 02, 2014. (photo credit: Flash90)

In cases where the original owners of the property or their descendants can’t be identified the company is supposed to use the funds it recovers to assist and support other survivors.

Although in the past it has provided NIS 750 million ($195 million) worth of support, in 2015 its budget was reduced and in 2016 it stopped funding entirely.

— Stuart Winer