Conference: Governments and Jewish Groups Get Ready for June Meeting in Prague on Holocaust-Era Assets

Governments and Jewish Groups Get Ready for June Conference in Prague on Holocaust-Era Assets

(ISJM) Ten years after the international conference on Holocaust-era assets held in Washington, DC, a new conference will convene in Prague in late June to assess progress on restitution issues. The conference is sponsored by the Government of the Czech Republic, in cooperation with the Documentation Centre of Property Transfers of Cultural Assets of WW II Victims, the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic, the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Terezín Memorial, the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hussite Theological Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and the Forum 2000 Foundation.

The Prague conference scheduled for Prague on June 26-30, 2009 is intended to evaluate progress in identifying and recovering assets of Holocaust victims since the Washington Conference. Immovable property (synagogues, cemeteries, etc) is one of many categories around which the Prague conference in organized.

At present it is hard to get an accurate schedule of the conference or a list of participants. Potentially, there will be scores of delegations from countries and from NGOs. Many countries are still holding back on announcing who will be in their delegations, waiting to see what high-level dignitaries will be attending from the United States and other countries. Most likely, there will be formal and public sessions in which platitudes will be reiterated, and sound-bites recorded. There will be some lecturing by "good" countries, and some defensive posturing by "bad" countries. It will be behind the scenes that working groups of diplomats, Holocaust experts, historians, lawyers, and Holocasut victim advocates will be pressing their cases, and trying to negotiate policy.

The objectives of the conference are:

• To assess the progress made since the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets in the areas of the recovery of looted art and objects of cultural, historical and religious value (according to the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and the Vilnius Forum Declaration 2000), and in the areas of property restitution and financial compensation schemes.

• To review current practices regarding provenance research and restitution and, where needed, define new effective instruments to improve these efforts.

• To review the impact of the Stockholm Declaration of 2000 on education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust.

• To strengthen the work of the Task Force on International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, a 26-nation body chaired by the Czech Republic in 2007-2008.

• To discuss new, innovative approaches in education, social programs and cultural initiatives related to the Holocaust and other National Socialist wrongs and to advance religious and ethnic tolerance in our societies and the world.

Herbert Block, Assistant Executive Vice President of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, a co-coordinator of the recent Bratislava Seminar, and an upcoming participant in Prague, recently published a summary of the present state of property restitution in much of Central and Eastern Europe.

Lithuania: Sale of Vilna Ghetto Library Building Halted

Lithuania: Sale of Vilna Ghetto Library Building Halted

The Jewish Telegraphic agency has reported that the contested sale of a former Jewish property that once was the site of library in the Vilna Ghetto has been halted. Getting claims settled on properties like this one - one of hundreds stalled in the lengthy and complex restitution legal (and political) process is sometimes like getting blood from a stone. And these stones - and those nearby - certainly witnessed their share of blood.

Sale of Jewish property in Lithuania thwarted

March 30, 2009

PRAGUE (JTA) -- A Lithuanian plan to sell a building that once housed the Vilna Ghetto Jewish library was halted by the U.S. Embassy, JTA has learned.

The library building, which the World Jewish Restitution Organization and Lithuanian Jewish community identify as Jewish community property, housed 450,000 books of Jewish literature in Vilnius under the Nazi occupation between 1941 and 1943.

Herbert Block, an executive vice president with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and a top official with the restitution group, said the embassy in the Lithuanian capital had informed him by e-mail that the Foreign Ministry had acceded to the embassy's request to cancel the sale, which was to have taken place April 8.

Lithuania is among the few countries in Europe that has yet to come up with a restitution or compensation plan for Jewish communal property.

''For eight years the Lithuanian government has been promising to come up with a plan, but so far nothing has come of it,'' Block told JTA Monday.

The library is on a list of 438 buildings claimed as Jewish property that were taken over by the Communist government of Lithuania after World War II. The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius argued that the Lithuanian government should not be selling disputed properties.

In fact, the sale was not announced to any Jewish authorities but was uncovered by a local non-Jewish American activist in Vilnius, Wyan Brent, who alerted Jewish groups in the United States.

The restitution organization and the Lithuanian Jewish community recently rejected a $41 million compensation package for property, saying the sum, and how it was to be paid out over 10 years only if it was feasible for the government, was insufficient.

With numerous delays by previous governments and now the current government, the restitution process remains stalled, said Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

Baker also was informed by the embassy of the library sale cancellation. ''It seems it was only blocked by a last-minute intercession,'' he said.

Belarus: Kobrin Synagogue Restoration Project Needs Emergency Funds or Risks Losing Building to Government Seizure

Kobrin synagogue photos: courtesy Yuri Dorn

Belarus: Kobrin Synagogue Restoration Project Needs Emergency Funds or Risks Losing Building to Government Seizure
by Samuel D. Gruber (ISJM)

In Bratislava last week I had the pleasure of getting to know Bella Velikovskaia, Executive Director of The Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarusand an expert member of the Jewish Heritage Research Group. Bella and her colleagues have one of the hardest jobs in Europe – documenting and protecting Jewish heritage in Belarus. They have made a good start with the documentation –and the results can be seen on the webpage of the Jewish Heritage Research Group, especially in the list of Jewish heritage sites. Protecting and preserving synagogue, former synagogue and cemeteries more difficult. Though some properties have been returned to the Jewish Community, the Jews of Belarus lack the funds to carry out many successful projects to repair, restore and reuse these buildings. Attempts have been made in the past to restore the great synagogue in the western Belarus town of Slonim, and also to find a use for the former Yeshiva building in Volozhin, both of which are important historical, religious and architectural sites. Unfortunately, both projects languish, though although the World Monuments Fund recently awarded a planning grant to all the Volozhin project to be re-addressed and re-formulated. A third pending project is the adaptive restoration of the the former synagogue in Kobrin. This project may have a better chance of succeeding – if funds can be found – since the building could serve again as a synagogue for the many Jewish communities in that part of Belarus who presently have no religious center.

To my great regret, I have never been to Belarus During the many years I was associated with the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad as Research Director, I was discouraged from engaging in projects in Belarus because of the frosty relations between the US Government and government of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko. In this, and in many other ways, the Belarus Jewish community has suffered from being out-of-touch with many foreign institutions, and ineligible for certain kinds of foreign assistance. Besides humanitarian aid from the JDC and some other Jewish charities, there has been little formal support from aboard for Jewish heritage projects. Mostly there have been donations from individuals which are usually directed as specific cemetery care projects.

The situation at Kobrin is now urgent, because the government which returned the large 19th-century masonry synagogue to the Jewish community in 2004 threatens to take it back unless restoration work begins. This is a situation that is also becoming common in Poland. After holding Jewish properties for a half century or more and letting them deteriorate into near-ruins, they are returned to communities - but without any financial assistance to restore them. Communities must not only quickly find a use for the building, but also the funds to make them work. Sometimes years pass and nothing happens. Sometimes governments demand quick action. I frequently say the situation is similar to being asked to make soup. On is given the carrots and potatoes, but not pot to cook them in, and sometimes not even a fire. Consequently communities are overburdened. In Belarus, there is a real plan for Kobrin. But there is not enough money. And the government threatens to take the building back if nothing happens soon.

Synagogue of Kobrin

According to Yuri Dorn, Coordinator of Jewish Heritage Research Group in Belarus, the 1868 synagogue building was given to the Jewish community of Kobrin and the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarus in 2004. It had been used for grain storage after the Second World War, and later beer and nonalcoholic beverage production plant in the building prior to 1996. Then the building was given to the local history museum, but the museum lacked funds to start restoration. The synagogue building was left unguarded, and fell into further disrepair.
The restoration project was formally announced last September, and since 2004, much has been done to develop a project for the rebuilding and move it forward.

- all legal documents for property rights have been executed
- all legal documents for the right to rent the adjacent territory without any compensation have been executed
- new technical passport for the building has been executed
- a web site related to the restoration of the synagogue building was designed (www.kobrinsynagogue.com)
- $8,500 was given by a private donor to clean the synagogue and the adjacent territory and to remove of the garbage outside the city.
- physical and chemical analysis of plaster and outside wall paint was conducted, the research of the history of the building in historical archives was been made
- the grounds have been partially fenced and a watchman hired.

Still, beginning last year the local authorities began to for the restoration of the building exterior . According to sources, this is because he President of Belarus is going to visit the city of Kobrin in the mid-September of this year. Local authorities want the town to look its best for the President’s visit. They insist on implementing the following work on this building:

- replacing roofing with partial repair of the support system
- painting the building (exterior walls)
- closing window openings with wooden shields
- installing new iron entrance door

The cost of this immediate work amounts to $38,250, money the Jewish community does not have on hand. Estimates for the cost of the total renewal of the building are about a half million dollars (but this depends on the scope of the final project and the world economic situation). Certainly some of this work is needed – the building should be secured against the elements to prevent even worse damage. Some of the work, however, may be premature, since a complete preservation plan and design for reuse has not been completed.


The Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in the Republic of Belarus will continue to negotiate with local authorities to gain tie, and to create a situation where scare funs are spent on the most important parts of the project. Meanwhile they are raising money. In a worst case scenario, if the work is not done, they will lose the synagogue forever.

For more information and to make contributions contact:

Yuri Dorn
Coordinator of Jewish Heritage
Research Group in Belarus
Minsk
13B Daumana St.
tel/375-173-345612
fax/375-173-343360
http://www.jhrgbelarus.org/

Conference: Bratislava Seminar on Jewish Heritage Properties a Success

Conference: Bratislava Seminar on Jewish Heritage Properties a Success
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Last week I had the privilege of co-chairing an international seminar in Bratislava devoted to the care, conservation and maintenance of Jewish heritage properties – particularly those which belong to Jewish communities in Central and Eastern Europe. The conference was sponsored by the World Monuments Fund, the Rothschild Foundation (Europe), the Cahnman Foundation and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The organization of the event fell mostly to Maros Borsky of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center, Herbert Block of the JDC, and to me, representing the International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM). I can’t thank my colleagues enough for all the hard work they did to bring about this successful and important event. Unlike the larger Future of Jewish Heritage in Europe Conference held in Prague in 2004, and sponsored by many of the same foundations, this event was unique in bringing Jewish community representatives responsible for property management of planning and decisions together for the first time. It was not a gathering historians and architects, but of community leaders.

To my knowledge it was the first such event for communities devoted solely to Jewish heritage issues. Fittingly, it was held at the Jewish Community Center in Bratislava, hosted by the Bratislava Jewish Community, the members of which were extraordinarily welcoming and helpful to our group. We were thrilled to inaugurate the new meeting hall at the Center (painting was just finished before our arrival), which perfectly suited our needs. The Bratislava Community provided the kosher meals for the entire seminar group and guests (and the Center's chef is great. the food was delicious). Thanks to Bratislava Rabbi Baruch Myers for overseeing kashrut, and also for begin such a welcoming host.

I will be writing more about the seminar in the coming weeks, which gathered representatives of Jewish communities in 15 countries, from the Baltic countries to the Balkans, and also included representation from Belarus and Ukraine. An important statement of principals was drafted at the final session of the seminar, and this will be released shortly when a few final changes are made. While to many readers of this blog the statement might seem to reiterate the obvious, as we all know what is obvious in the world of Jewish heritage protection, preservation and presentation is not always what is real.

Publish Post

You can read a news brief from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here.

The gathering gave me and the other “experts” and opportunity to exchange information with community representatives, but also to learn the latest in problems and progress regarding Jewish heritage sites in a wide range of political, cultural, religious and economic situations. I will be sharing some of the information on this blog. I also had the occasion to visit before and during the seminar several important preservation projects in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, about which I will report.