As the war raged on in Israel — and people were comparing Hamas’ slaughter of innocent men, women and children to the Holocaust – Mark Weitzman, World Jewish Restitution Organization’s (WJRO) chief operating officer, was talking about restoring stolen property to Holocaust survivors and their heirs here in Los Angeles. Weitzman visited Claremont Colleges and the USC/Shoah Foundation as part of their Fall Antisemitism Lecture Series the week of October 9, shedding light on the WJRO’s work recovering and gaining compensation for property wrongfully taken during the Holocaust and in its aftermath.
“WJRO’s mission is to find justice for Holocaust survivors and their families and thus help provide for their material needs as they age and need care,” said Weitzman. “On top of that, I have devoted years to combating Holocaust distortion and denial and antisemitism which continue to plague the world and threaten Jewish lives, as we just saw in Israel.”
Weitzman is a leading authority on Holocaust distortion and denial and a senior member of the U.S. delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). He was responsible for IHRA’s Working Definition of Antisemitism (the Jewish Chronicle called him the “architect” of the definition), and he was the lead author of IHRA’s Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion. He also worked as a contributor to the new volume “The Routledge History of Antisemitism.” The book, which he co-edited with Robert Williams, the executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, is an attempt to provide an accessible and scholarly resource for learning about and fighting antisemitism.
Right now, the WJRO is running a campaign to find potentially eligible Lithuanian Jewish property owners and heirs to inform them about Lithuania’s unique symbolic compensation program for property expropriated during the Holocaust and communist rule. The program, which has an application deadline of December 31, is one of historical significance, now extending its scope to include certain heirs of Holocaust survivors. In addition, the organization recently welcomed the return of Holocaust looted artworks to their rightful heirs in New York and Croatia.
“Restitution and compensation for Holocaust-era property serve as essential means to address the material needs of aging survivors, many of whom still grapple with poverty,” said Weitzman. “As time claims more of these remarkable individuals, the urgency to facilitate the restitution of Jewish communal, private and heirless property becomes ever more imperative, offering them the dignity they rightfully deserve. The struggle for restitution is also a struggle for historical memory and against distortion, and for national identity and responsibility.”
As someone who has studied antisemitism throughout his life, Weitzman clearly sees that Hamas’ actions “were motivated by antisemitism and violent hatred of Jews. And that means understanding the roots of that hatred and devising methods of combating it. Israel will present the military response, as it is doing.”
He continued, “We appreciate all the non-Jewish voices of sympathy and support, but as someone who has studied Holocaust distortion for decades, I also want to add that Hamas was given a pass for far too long by all those who called them, or allowed them to be called ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘militants’ or any of the other euphemisms that were used to cover up their true nature as terrorist butchers. Those who used those terms need to examine their consciences as to why they allowed Hamas to get away with such distorted language. Distortion of history is not limited to the past; it festers in the presence as a cover that allows evil to grow.”
