Serbia’s legislature on Friday passed a law offering compensation for heirless Jewish property seized during and after the Holocaust.
The National Assembly adopted a bill under which annual payments of a around $1 million are made for the next 25 years to the country’s Jewish communities for property that was looted from its Jewish owners during and after the Holocaust, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) informed.
"This is a step toward justice and the recognition of history,” Gideon Taylor, the WJRO's chair of pperations, said in a statement. He added: "We look to other countries to follow Serbia’s lead and return heirless Jewish property so that it can help Holocaust survivors in need, commemorate those who died and strengthen Jewish life in these communities where so much was destroyed."
In 2009, 46 countries signed a document recognizing the principle of offering compensation for property without heirs, which in countries such as Poland is estimated in the billions. “But none have taken such action, until last week,” the WJRO’s acting director, Nachliel Dison, told JTA. He noted that Hungary did offer limited compensation for heirless property, but not through legislation. The Serbian law, he said, “hopefully will make it incumbent on other countries to follow Serbia’s lead.”
Serbia created a procedure for Holocaust restitution of heirs relatively late, in 2011.
During World War II, Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany and Serbian Jewry almost annihilated. Only 5,000 of the 34,000 Jews in Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia, survived the Holocaust. Already in August 1942, a Nazi report declared the capital Belgrade to be “judenrein” (empty of Jews). Today, an estimated 1,200 Jews live in the country, the great majority of whom reside in Belgrade, which has an especially activeJewish community
