New Holocaust restitution project launched

A new Holocaust-era restitution project will work to identify individuals whose property and assets were confiscated by the Nazis.

Project HEART—Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce, a new initiative of the Jewish Agency for Israel with support from the government of Israel, was announced Wednesday.

The project will begin by attempting to identify individuals with potential claims regarding types of private property for which no restitution was received after the Holocaust. If restitution has already been made to a victim or their heirs, that property would not be considered eligible under the program.

“Because of the immeasurable damage that was done to Jewish individuals and communities from the time their property was confiscated, Project HEART was put together as an initiative to reach out to those whose pain we can never imagine, but whom we can assist in the process of gathering data, which will hopefully and ultimately aid them in retrieving what is rightfully theirs,” said Bobby Brown of the Jewish Agency, a native New Yorker who has been active in the field of Holocaust restitution for more than a decade. “Belated, yet vital steps to partially redress the terrible wrongdoing committed during the Holocaust era in relation to asset restitution are now being taken with Project HEART.”

A questionnaire to determine eligibility can be found on Project HEART’s website http://www.heartwebsite.org.