During a hearing in the Government Reform Committee entitled, “Holocaust Era Restitution after AIA v. Garamendi: Where Do We Go From Here?” Schakowsky said, “The law was necessary because the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) was not successful enough in convincing many of those companies to own up to their responsibility in a timely manner.”

Schakowsky called on Congress to pass H.R. 1210, a bill that would “require insurance companies that do business in this country and which hold Holocaust-era policies to release the names of those policy holders to the U.S. government so that they could be made available to the public.   The bill is appropriate mechanism to force real progress on this issue for those who have been denied some measure of justice for their suffering for over fifty years.”   U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) is the lead sponsor of H.R. 1210, the Holocaust Victims Insurance Relief Act.

“Without access to names, survivors and victims’ families have had no way to know if they qualify for compensation under the ICHEIC agreement.  Numerous constituents contact me with questions, dismayed that the process has gone on for so long and that they are still without answers or justice,” Schakowsky continued.  “There are still some 10, 000 survivors in Illinois.   Over one thousand of them have filed claims for insurance and only a fraction of those individuals have received offers for payments.  Many of my constituents lost their families, their property, and their bank accounts during the Holocaust.”

Schakowsky also called on the Bush Administration to reevaluate the current policy that relies solely on the ICHEIC process that is “riddled with flaws as the only mechanism for resolution of these issues.”  
 
“Too much time has passed, too many promises have been broken and too many survivors have died without receiving what they deserve,” concluded Schakowsky, who represents the Village of Skokie—home to one of the greatest survivor populations in the country.