GSI is encouraging members of Congress and the Senate to pass the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2007. This would require insurance companies to disclose Holocaust era policy information and permit survivors and heirs access to the federal courts to recover funds on unpaid policies. Our letter is posted below. Feel free to use it as an example for letters to your own Representatives and Senators:

 June 2007

Dear _____________

We are most grateful for your support in passing the Bill to open the Bad Arolsen archives. Thank you for helping fight injustice. The information in this archive should be immediately accessible to the survivor community all around the US.

We now urge you to continue the fight by co-sponsoring the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2007. This would require insurance companies to disclose Holocaust era policy information and permit survivors and heirs access to the federal courts to recover funds on unpaid policies. It is also imperative that you ask your caucus leaders to expedite its favorable consideration because time is not on the side of those who should receive this relief in their lifetimes.

Prior legislative efforts in 2001 and 2003 apparently were overcome by the argument that the International Commission for Holocaust Era Insurance Claims - ICHEIC - should be allowed to complete its mission of handling these claims in a non-adversarial setting. However, ICHEIC has completed its initiative and the results, i.e. payment of less than 3% of the insurance policies sold to European Jews at the beginning of WWII, were not satisfactory for survivors and family members of Holocaust victims. Nine years have passed while we waited for ICHEIC to resolve this issue satisfactorily but survivors remain profoundly frustrated and disappointed.

The legislation is necessary because court cases have held that the existence of ICHEIC eliminates Holocaust survivors' and heirs and beneficiaries' rights to sue insurance companies who sold their families policies but failed to compensate them after the war. However, the courts noted that Congress, which has the power to regulate international commerce, and prescribe Federal Court jurisdiction, had not addressed disclosure and restitution of Holocaust victims' insurance policies. This legislation is Congress's response - making it clear that the law of the United States is to require a complete and just accounting of Holocaust era policies and full recovery for survivors and their families.

Survivors were treated with the most extreme form of injustice during the Holocaust. Clearly nothing can compensate them for the enormous losses they suffered. With rare exceptions, most survivors were the sole members of their family to survive that archetypical example of inhumanity. Our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles purchased the insurance policies at issue in order to protect their families in the event of catastrophe. The legislation would connect survivors and families with their legacies and render a morally necessary statement that those who would profit from atrocity will always be held accountable. Justice should and must finally be served.