25th Anniversary of the Washington Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art: Best Practices and the Way Forward

As prepared

Thank you, Gideon.

The Best Practices for the Washington Principles on Nazi-Looted Art that are being unveiled today are the result of intensive international collaboration among countries that have appointed a special envoy or equivalent to deal with Holocaust issues.  This informal network of envoys was started in 2023 with the goal of addressing remaining Holocaust-era restitution challenges in a more effective manner.

The envoys network held its first meeting in 2023, almost exactly a year ago in London, under the leadership of Lord Eric Pickles, the UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues, and Mark Weitzman, the Chief Operating Officer of the World Jewish Restitution Organization.  We met again here in Washington, DC in November of last year.  At that meeting, government officials and art restitution experts discussed how we could make progress on restitution and compensation for art and cultural objects seized from Jews and others by the Nazis.

Taking the landmark 1998 Washington Principles as our starting point, we decided it would be useful to look at the lessons learned in 25 years of applying the Washington Principles and develop a set of legally non-binding “best practices” to help with implementation of the Principles, and thereby reinforce them.  This seemed like an appropriate way to mark their 25^th anniversary and it helps underscore the urgency of resolving remaining property claims, whether items are held in public or private collections.

People sometimes ask why this is still an issue, and whether it is still necessary to address Holocaust-era restitution, almost 80 years since the end of WWII. Shouldn’t that be finished by now?  Sadly, it is not.  Numerous restitution issues remain unfinished in a variety of countries.  Restitution and compensation for property seized by the Nazis is important not only because it can provide a measure of justice for Holocaust survivors and their heirs, but also because it is a reminder to perpetrators that there are consequences for their actions.  Ensuring that there are processes and widely accepted principles for implementing restitution and compensation is the real-world application of rule of law to those who used antisemitism as an excuse to murder six million Jews as well as to perpetrate the greatest theft in history.

So even now, almost 80 years after the end of WWII, it is still important for us to encourage countries to fulfill the commitments they made when they endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration on Holocaust-Era Assets.  These Best Practices are a step towards helping countries do that.

I’m very pleased to announce that the Best Practices have already been endorsed by 22 countries.  These are Albania, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.  We strongly encourage other states to endorse the Best Practices as well.

It’s now my honor to introduce the next two speakers.  We will hear a short video address from Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who unfortunately was not able to be here today in person; and then my eminent colleague Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, the Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Holocaust Issues, will deliver the keynote address.