International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims
International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC), also IC, (German: International Commission for Insurance Claims from the Holocaust Era) is an organization founded in 1998 in New York City .
Task
It regulates the compensation of the insurance claims forcibly sold by Jews as a result of the November pogroms of 1938 (usually life insurance ) and compensation for survivors, victims or their heirs. The Federal Compensation Act of 1952 did not cover all beneficiaries.
The establishment of ICHEIC was preceded by three years of negotiations between European insurance companies and lawyers from Jewish organizations (including Ed Fagan ), government officials from Israel and US authorities. The German participant was Hans-Otto Bräutigam , the chairman of the commission of the same name was US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger . The administrative costs of the ICHEIC were a particular point of contention. In addition, the Jewish side demanded that the corporations compile lists of all insured Jews living in Germany between 1920 and 1945. The commissioners had threatened the corporations to ban their business activities in some US states .
Memorandum of Understanding
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of eleven paragraphs , signed on August 25, 1998 , which forms the working basis of the organization, was derived from the negotiations . According to this, the International Commission (IC) consists of twelve people or their representatives and observers:
- six people who by consensus between the US ,Regulatoren ', the World Jewish Restitution Organization , the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and the land of Israel were appointed
- six people who appointed the six European insurance companies involved ( Allianz SE , Axa , Basler Leben , Assicurazioni Generali , Zurich Financial Services , Winterthur Leben ) and the European 'regulators'
- three observers of the Jewish group
- an observer from the European Economic Commission
- a US State Department observer
- one of the 12 elected independent chairmen
A 110-page contract regulates the compensation process. IC divides the fund into a special humanitarian section (regular individual claims , 179 million euros) and a general humanitarian section (heirless claims, i.e. money for Holocaust victims without living beneficiaries, 102 million euros).
Each undersigned insurance company paid an initial contribution of US $ 250,000 into a separate fund to implement the MoU. Further payments are to be borne by the respective company according to the requirements of the IC for the auditing of the individual companies, the revision and the investigation of the claims. The companies carry out the activities of the chairman and the annual financial statements. In return, the IC undertook to try to exempt the signatories from pending legal disputes or future legislation in this regard. This clause only became part of the contract last.
Development of the ICHEIC
To cover the claims, Lionel Jospin founded the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation Resulting from Anti-Semitic Legislation in Force during the Occupation for France (CIVS, 241 million euros until December 2005). Three months later, the Netherlands founded the Stichting Individuele Verzekeringsaanspraken Sjoa (SJOA, 2.3 million euros by the end of 2003). In July 2000, Germany set up the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” foundation (10 billion euros). In the following year Austria founds the General Settlement Fund for Victims of National Socialism (GSF, 250 million euros). Belgium followed ( Fondation du Judaïsme de Belgique 2002) along with some special agreements with companies.
ICHEIC has contacts in 43 countries. In Germany, communication with ICHEIC is handled by GDV and paid out by the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” foundation, in which the insurance companies have a stake of EUR 275 million.
Requests
Affected parties could apply for compensation free of charge until December 31, 2003, regardless of whether they knew the precise contractual relationships at the time (so-called Unnamed Claims , if the insurance company was not known, otherwise so-called named claims ).
The lists of insured persons of the corporations were compared with a register of all Jewish residents in Germany (around 500 to 600,000), since in the Third Reich , too, the registration of the denomination by companies was not allowed. In addition, the information provided by the applicants in all participating insurance companies was compared with their historical contracts in a complex process.
If there were any indications of contractual relationships, the claims were examined more closely in cooperation with ICHEIC and, in the case of justified claims, compensated according to a specified scheme. Over 400,000 applications were submitted.
Successful completion and dissolution
In March 2007 the international media reported that the organization had successfully completed its task and was no longer needed. The ICHEIC Commission could "close its doors after nine years of activity," said its long-time president, Lawrence Eagleburger . 300 million dollars (the equivalent of around 226 million euros) had been paid out to almost 50,000 recipients.
Web links
- ICHEIC homepage
- ICHEIC homepage - German application page
- Memorandum of Understanding (English, pdf; 25 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Document CIVS ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ evidence SJOA
- ↑ GSF receipt
- ↑ further document GSF
- ↑ PDF at www.gdv.de ( Memento of the original from July 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Compensation completed (afp / taz of March 22, 2007, p. 8, 35 Z., Afp agency)
