SLOVENIA: RESTITUTION PROCESS FOR JEWISH

C O N F I D E N T I A L LJUBLJANA 000794

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR EUR/NCE AND EUR/OHI

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/18/2015
TAGS: PGOV KNAR SI
SUBJECT: SLOVENIA: RESTITUTION PROCESS FOR JEWISH
PROPERTIES CONFISCATED AFTER WWII GETS OFF TO ROCKY START


Classified By: Ambassador Thomas B. Robertson for Reasons 1.4 (B) and (
D)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY. Following a September 22 meeting between
Slovenia's Commission for Resolving Open Questions Pertaining
to Religious Communities and the President of the Jewish
Community of Slovenia (JCS),Andrej Kozar Beck, the Ministry
of Justice (MOJ) announced that it will conduct a
comprehensive historical inventory of Jewish communal and
heirless properties that were confiscated or nationalized by
the Government of Yugoslavia after the Second World War. In
October, the MOJ formally created a new Department for
Restitution and National Reconciliation to undertake this
historical inventory and appointed five members to serve on
it. The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) agreed
to establish a Foundation to oversee the disbursement of
funds from any future settlement between the JCS and the
Government of Slovenia (GOS). END SUMMARY.

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Rocky Start to Restitution Negotiations
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2. (C) Restitution negotiations initially got off to a rocky
start during a September 22 meeting between JCS President
Andrej Kozar Beck and the members of the Commission for
Resolving Open Questions pertaining to Religious Communities.
At the meeting, Justice Minister Lovro Sturm informed Beck
that the JCS's 15 million Euro claim for restitution of
communal and heirless Jewish property seized by the Yugoslav
government after WWII would take considerably longer to
resolve than Beck had anticipated. (NOTE: In an earlier
exchange with PolMiloff, Beck indicated he thought a final
settlement would be reached at that September 22 meeting.
END NOTE). Sturm is also alleged to have asked Beck during
the meeting whether he was entitled to speak as the
representative of the entire Jewish community living in
Slovenia. Beck, confounded by the question, is alleged to
have stormed out of the meeting in a fit of anger.


3. (SBU) On September 25, Beck forwarded an angry letter to
the Embassy, the American Jewish Committee, the World Jewish
Congress, the European Council of Jewish Communities, the
World Jewish Restitution Organization, the Eurasian Jewish
Congress, Prime Minister Jansa, Foreign Minister Rupel,
Justice Minister Sturm, Defense Minister Erjavec, Slovenian
Ambassador to the U.S. Samuel Zbogar, and the UK Ambassador
to Slovenia. In the letter, Beck claimed Sturm had
questioned whether he was a Jew and had "practically refused
to discuss our claim." On September 28, Sturm responded to
Beck's allegations by faxing a letter to the Ambassador and
the aforementioned addressees expressing "shock" at Beck's
statements and denying he had questioned Beck's Jewish
identity, claiming that he had merely tried to ascertain
whether Beck was entitled to negotiate on behalf of all
Slovenian Jews. (NOTE: In a subsequent meeting with
PolMiloff and Conoff, Sturm's Chief of Staff, Janko Koren,
cited a recent doctrinal dispute between two individuals
contending for the leadership of Slovenia's Islamic Community
as the reason for Sturm's question. He also noted that there
were an estimated 500 Jews living in Slovenia, but only 120
of them were officially members of the JCS. END NOTE.) In
the following weeks, a series of articles appeared in the
Slovenian press based on interviews with Beck in which he
spoke about the JCS's 15 million Euro claim against the GOS
and cited a lack of progress in resolving the restitution
issue.

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MOJ Promises to Put Restitution Negotiations Back on Track
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4. (C) On October 3, PolMiloff and Conoff met with MOJ Chief
of Staff Janko Koren and Director of the Office for Religious
Communities Dr. Drago Cepar to discuss the JCS restitution
claim. Koren and Cepar claimed there was no existing legal
basis for the government to negotiate restitution with the
JCS and noted that any settlement would have to be approved
by parliament. Koren also commented that Beck,s desire to
resolve the restitution issue in a (secret closed-door)
settlement was unrealistic. (NOTE: During an earlier
exchange with PolMiloff, Beck did indeed say that he was open
to a secret settlement. END NOTE.) Cepar added he could not
understand why Beck,s &hopes had been dashed,8 since the
GOS had consistently insisted on a legal solution.


5. (C) Cepar and Koren claimed Sturm believed strongly in the
issue of restitution, and that the process would move forward
despite their difficulties in communicating with Beck, whom
Cepar characterized as a "difficult" personality. Koren
noted that the MOJ was in the process of creating a
Department for Restitution and National Reconciliation to
compile a comprehensive list of individual Jewish restitution


claims (i.e. individual properties). This documentary
evidence will then serve as the basis upon which a special
Jewish Restitution Working Group will negotiate a settlement
with the JCS. Koren noted that once this settlement is
reached, it will then have to be put to a vote in parliament.

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Critics of Kozar Beck Point to Flawed Methodology
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6. (C) Embassy contact Dr. Hannah Starman (protect),a
Holocaust researcher at the Institute for Ethnic Studies in
Ljubljana, told PolMiloff on several occasions that Beck was
hurting the Jewish community by making exaggerated and
unfounded restitution claims. (NOTE: Starman is not an
official member of the JCS but identifies herself as a Jewish
Slovenian. END NOTE.) Starman reported that Beck had at one
point raised the restitution claim from 15 million to 65
million Euros, apparently as a bargaining tactic. Starman
opined that both Sturm and Minister of Finance Andrej Bajuk
were well disposed to settling the restitution claims fairly
and equitably, but were suspicious of Beck's fourfold
multiplication of the sum within a span of only a few months.
Furthermore, Starman claimed that Beck's inventory of
properties was based on a faulty methodology that included
properties sold by Jews before the Second World War and hence
before they were ever nationalized. Starman also claimed
Beck's inventory included properties that Beck claimed to be
heirless but that did in fact have living heirs, either in
Slovenia or abroad. Starman lamented that Beck was not doing
Slovenia's Jewish community any favors by bargaining with the
GOS in secret and by neglecting to take into consideration
the claims of Holocaust survivors and living heirs of
Holocaust victims.

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WJRO Representative Visits Slovenia
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7. (SBU) B'nai B'rith Executive Vice President and World
Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) member Daniel
Mariaschin met with the Ambassador on November 4 to discuss
recent events in the restitution negotiations. Mariaschin
told the Ambassador he had met separately with Beck and
Justice Minister Sturm, and that he had meetings scheduled
later in the day with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
with Ethnic Studies researchers Hannah Starman and Irena
Sumi. Mariaschin told COM he felt it was unacceptable for
Sturm to question Beck's title as president of the JCS since
Beck had been elected by a majority of its members.
Mariaschin also noted, however, that he believed Sturm had
demonstrated a will to reach a settlement and that the WJRO
would help curb any concerns about future trusteeship of
settlement funds by creating a Foundation to allocate and
distribute such funds in the event that a settlement is
reached. The Foundation would include members of the JCS as
well as outside members and would ensure that funds were
first distributed to any remaining Holocaust survivors before
being used for local community projects. Mariaschin also
told COM that the WJRO had extensive experience locating
Holocaust survivors in other countries and that it would help
Slovenia to do so as well. Mariaschin was optimistic that
Sturm's decision to call a press conference following their
November 4 meeting signaled a serious intent to resolve the
restitution issue. Mariaschin told COM his chief concern now
was that the GOS's procedure of identifying and reconciling
its list of communal and heirless Jewish properties with the
list already compiled by the JCS be put on a "fast track."

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Comment
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8. (C) The MOJ's creation of a Department for Restitution and
National Reconciliation is a positive step towards resolving
an issue that has languished for over five years under the
previous center-left government. While Beck's mercurial
personality and his sometimes demeaning comments about ethnic
Slovenes do not endear him to GOS interlocutors, there can be
no doubt that he is the legitimate president of the Jewish
Community. The WJRO's proposal to create a Foundation to
oversee the disbursement of settlement funds would go a long
way to bringing all sides closer to a resolution of the
issue, since critics of Beck's like Starman or Sumi have told
us that their primary concern is to aid remaining Holocaust
survivors and living heirs of Holocaust victims. Post will
continue to monitor the Jewish restitution negotiations as
they move forward and advocate for a timely and fair
settlement. END COMMENT.
ROBERTSON


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