multi million dollar settlement with the United States government over a trainload ofgold, artwork and other properties seized by the American army near the end of World War II.
"What happened was horrible, people lost everything," said Erno Lazarovits, Foreign Relations Director of Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary in an interview with BosNewsLife.
Up to 50,000 Hungarian Jews are expected to receive compensation for the loss of their valuables packed in dozens of boxcars, which were apparently first stolen by the Nazis, and then confiscated by American troops.
Lazarovits recalled how the train wagons, which became known as the "Gold Train," were packed with gold, jewelry as well as art, clothing, oriental rugs and other household goods and religious articles.
The train was seized by the US Army in Austria in 1945 and the suit said the army falsely classified it as unidentifiable and enemy property, thus avoiding having to return the goods to their rightful owners.
On Friday, February 18, lawyers representing thousands of Holocaust survivor reportedly asked a US District Court in Miami, Florida to postpone a last hearing on their case till March 4. However lawyer Sam Dubbin dismissed suggestions that negotiations with the government had run into hurdles saying "this is a very document-intensive thing," and "time-consuming" Reuters news agency reported.
200 MILLION
Lazarovits said the stolen properties were valued at up to $200 million, although some say they could be worth 10 times as much in modern day terms. No property will be returned to individuals, but the US is expected to pay millions of dollars to Hungarian Holocaust survivors, numbering about 10,000 in America, 15,000 more in Hungary and as many as 25,000 in Israel, American media reported.
Hungary was a close ally of Nazi Germany during most of the Second World War, when an estimated 600,000 Hungarian Jews died as well as others the Nazis did not like. During the Communist era, which followed the war, Jews "could not speak about the Gold Train," said Lazarovits, who survived the Holocaust.
He suggested that any compensation, while likely not enough, will help many Jews living in poverty. Lazarovits stressed he hopes America’s expected action will encourage Germany to be "more fair" towards Jewish Holocaust survivors living in Eastern European nations like Hungary.
SMALL COMPENSATION
"[Hungarian Jews living in Hungary] are receiving 125 Euro a month in compensation [for their time in concentration camps], while in the West they receive twice as much. Now that Hungary is a member of the European Union since May [last year] we want the same payment," he added.
Lazarovits stressed it will finally close a dark chapter in Hungary’s history as "it was only
possible to talk about the Gold Train following the political changes" in 1989, after decades
of Communism.
While there are officially only several thousand Holocaust survivors still living in Hungary, the country is estimated to have up to 100,000 Hungarian Jews, Eastern Europe’s largest Jewish community outside Russia. Although the country has been criticized for anti-Semitism, the government has sponsored projects to combat the problem, including financing a film on the Holocaust of Hungarian Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz.
The film based on his book ‘fateless’ has attracted a record number of visitors since it hit Hungarian theaters last weekend, news reports said. With an estimated subsidy of 10 million dollars, it is believed to be the most expensive film in Hungary’s history. (With: BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest and reports from Miami)
