(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) was joined by two House colleagues today in filing a brief in federal court seeking to protect the rights of Holocaust survivors and families of victims by ensuring access to U.S. courts to settle World War II-era insurance claims.

The amicus brief, filed by Ros-Lehtinen and U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Steve Chabot (R-OH), argues on behalf of Holocaust survivors seeking to settle claims under insurance policies sold by an Italian company, Assicurazioni Generali. According to experts, Generali has reaped more than $2 billion from its failure to pay claims on the Nazi-era insurance policies.  The amicus brief, known commonly as a friend of the court brief, was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which sits in New York. Some observers believe Generali is hoping that the U.S. Department of Justice will intervene on their behalf and urge the court to dismiss the case.

“We must protect the right of Holocaust survivors and their families to have their day in court," said Ros-Lehtinen. "The number of survivors is decreasing significantly every year, and it is critical that we do all that we can to bring them a level of closure which they have been denied for more than six decades. With this filing, we are seeking to prevent insurance companies from being unjustly enriched," she added.

Following World War II, Holocaust survivors and the relatives of victims approached insurance companies with claims, but many were rejected because of the absence of death certificates and a lack of policy documents, many of which were routinely confiscated or destroyed by Nazi authorities. In many of these cases, insurance company records and records in government archives provide the only proof of the existence of insurance policies. 

In 2007, Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act nine years after the establishment of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC). The Commission has been criticized by many for its failure to adequately address the insurance claims issue. The ICHEIC process closed in March 2007, yet companies holding these policies continue to withhold the identities of thousands of insurance policy holders.  

The Holocaust Insurance bill would require insurers to disclose Holocaust-era insurance information and the names of policy holders, steps many companies have resisted doing for more than six decades.

"The voluntary process, which closed its doors last year, was set up to settle Holocaust-era insurance claims. However, ICHEIC was only able to recover a fraction of what is owed by the insurance companies to survivors and families of victims," said Ros-Lehtinen.

"I have urged the Secretary of State and the Department of Justice not to interfere with the legal rights of Holocaust survivors seeking justice. Given that the Administration will file a brief in this case, it is important for Members of Congress to express our views in support of the rights of the survivors,” added Ros-Lehtinen.

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