FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

SEC. 101. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES. (a) Findings.—The Congress finds as follows: (1) Among the $198,000,000 in German assets located in the United States and seized by the United States Government in World War II were believed to be bank accounts, trusts, securities, or other assets belonging to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. (2) Among an estimated $1,200,000,000 in assets of Swiss nationals and institutions which were frozen by the United States Government during World War II (including over $400,000,000 in bank deposits) were assets whose beneficial owners were believed to include victims of the Holocaust. (3) In the aftermath of the war, the Congress recognized that some of the victims of the Holocaust whose assets were among those seized or frozen during the war might not have any legal heirs, and legislation was enacted to authorize the transfer of up to $3,000,000 of such assets to organizations dedicated to providing relief and rehabilitation for survivors of the Holocaust. (4) Although the Congress and the Administration authorized the transfer of such amount to the relief organizations referred to in paragraph (3), the enormous administrative difficulties and cost involved in proving legal ownership of such assets, directly or beneficially, by victims of the Holocaust, and proving the existence or absence of heirs of such victims, led the Congress in 1962 to agree to a lump–sum settlement and to provide $500,000 for the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization of New York, such sum amounting to 1/6th of the authorized maximum level of “heirless” assets to be transferred.112 STAT. 16 (5) In June of 1997, a representative of the Secretary of State, in testimony before the Congress, urged the reconsideration of the limited $500,000 settlement. (6) While a precisely accurate accounting of “heirless” assets may be impossible, good conscience warrants the recognition that the victims of the Holocaust have a compelling moral claim to the unrestituted portion of assets referred to in paragraph (3). (7) Furthermore, leadership by the United States in meeting obligations to Holocaust victims would strengthen— (A) the efforts of the United States to press for the speedy distribution of the remaining nearly 6 metric tons of gold still held by the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold (the body established by France, Great Britain, and the United States at the end of World War II to return gold looted by Nazi Germany to the central banks of countries occupied by Germany during the war); and (B) the appeals by the United States to the 15 nations claiming a portion of such gold to contribute a substantial portion of any such distribution to Holocaust survivors in recognition of the recently documented fact that the gold held by the Commission includes gold stolen from individual victims of the Holocaust. (b) Purposes.—The purposes of this Act are as follows: (1) To provide a measure of justice to survivors of the Holocaust all around the world while they are still alive. (2) To authorize the appropriation of an amount which is at least equal to the present value of the difference between the amount which was authorized to be transferred to successor organizations to compensate for assets in the United States of heirless victims of the Holocaust and the amount actually paid in 1962 to the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization of New York for that purpose. (3) To facilitate efforts by the United States to seek an agreement whereby nations with claims against gold held by the Tripartite Commission for the Restitution of Monetary Gold would contribute all, or a substantial portion, of that gold to charitable organizations to assist survivors of the Holocaust.