An Ongoing Account: The Evolution of Holocaust Compensation and Restitution

On September 10, 1952, Israel, West Germany, and the Jewish Conference on Material Claims against Germany (Claims Conference) met in Luxembourg and signed the reparations agreement, commonly known as the Luxembourg Agreement. One year earlier, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had delivered a historic speech to the Bundestag in which he acknowledged Germany's responsibility for the unspeakable crimes committed in the name of the German people against the Jews. He affirmed Germany's moral obligation to provide compensation, pledged the restitution of looted property, committed to legislation compensating individual victims, and expressed his willingness to negotiate with Israel and representatives of world Jewry. At the same time, Adenauer carefully avoided accepting legal guilt or direct criminal responsibility on the part of Germans for the crimes of the Holocaust. The Luxembourg Agreement and its implementation marked a significant historical breakthrough, while also signaling the beginning of a long campaign for the rights of Holocaust survivors and their heirs--a struggle that has continued for more than seventy years. An Ongoing Account assesses the successes and failures of that process, as well as the political, economic, and social implications of the Luxembourg Agreement and subsequent Holocaust compensation and indemnification efforts for Jews more broadly.