Bill May Help Beneficiaries Settle Holocaust-Era Claims

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and several other members of Congress introduced legislation Wednesday to require all insurance companies operating in the United States to disclose the names on policies written in Europe during the Holocaust era, 1933 to 1945.

The bill calls for a Holocaust insurance registry to be established at the National Archives in Washington. “The Nazis never issued death certificates, and most policy deeds were lost or destroyed,” said Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “In many cases, company archives contain the existing files relating to unpaid policies.”

An international commission was established in 1998 to promptly resolve unpaid Holocaust-era claims, but the companies have disclosed few names of policyholders, according to Waxman and Engel.

With less than six months left before the Jan. 31, 2002, deadline for filing claims with the commission, more than 84% of the 72,675 claims applications filed with the commission remain unresolved because the claimants cannot identify the company holding their assets, according to the bill.

“The process is skewed against survivors,” Waxman said. If the bill passes it will “go a long way in finally enabling the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs to discover what they are owed” by several large European insurers who operate in the U.S., said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.