ZAGREB, March 16, 2018 – Deputy Parliament Speaker Željko Reiner on Friday received a delegation of the World Jewish Restitution Organization to discuss stepping up the restitution of property seized during and after WWII and possible changes to the law on the restitution of property seized in the former Yugoslavia.
Reiner said there was clear political will to process the remaining claims for property restitution or compensation submitted by Jews and other ethnic groups in Croatia, parliament said in a press release. He informed the delegation about the work of a task force overseeing progress in restitution matters, saying Croatia had a responsible approach to the resolution of all issues stemming from the Terezin Declaration.
Reiner said 55,000 property restitution claims had been filed and that 45,000 had been resolved. He said data were not broken down by religion and ethnicity, so it was not possible to establish how many Jewish claims had been resolved, but that unofficially information put the number to at least 244.
US Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues Tom Yazdgerdi voiced hope that models would be found as soon as possible to resolve the remaining property restitution or compensation claims. He underlined the need to amend the law on compensation for Holocaust survivors.
The interlocutors agreed that it is necessary to continue the dialogue of Croatian institutions with Jewish organisations and the US and Israeli governments regarding property restitution and other topics. The talks were attended by the US and Jewish ambassadors to Croatia.
