Pavel Rychetsky
Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
There are certain processes that take place in the human soul which we can assume to be independent of our will, and, if we are aware of them at all, we ascribe them to some sort of higher power. The strongest human drive (or instinct, if you prefer) which acts as such a higher power is self-preservation. It happens to all of us that we meet with tragic, unfavorable or simply unpleasant situations in life and, without our conscious effort, certain inner protective mechanisms being to develop their activity. What we perceive as unpleasant or unfavorable, or that which is emotionally so powerful that it puts our mental health in immediate jeopardy, sets in motion some sort of mechanism of unconscious displacement, a rejection of reality and an accelerated forgetting. Thus, the individual concerned gains an opportunity to actually survive situations which are too terrible to be survived, but only at a cost: at the cost of their denial, or at least a merciful clouding of reality. This strange, often beneficent mechanism of displacing reality from one's consciousness enables one to survive, at the cost of a distorted perception of reality, or a deceptive not-knowing. If, however, such a process is assumed by an entire community of people, then it is no longer a process of subconscious memory displacement, but rather a deliberate process of the collective falsification of its own history. This can best be termed the murder of one's own history, that is, human history. During the Nazi occupation, a total of 67,000 of our Jewish sisters and brothers were carried off from the Czech Lands to die in extermination camps, without any semblance of protest or resistance on the part of their respectable fellow citizens. And then, together with the majority of other European nations, we have been witness for many decades to the amnesia of our own disgrace.

Immediately following its formation in mid-1998, the current Czech government resolved to become actively involved in the Europe-wide, perhaps even worldwide, efforts to finally and precisely give a name to that which the holocaust signified for our nation and for mankind, and also to speak of how this carnival of monstrosity and horrors was actually organized in our country. In its programmatic declaration, the government pledged to resolve property claims raised by individuals and Jewish communities, insofar as previous administrations had failed to do so. One year ago, the government set up a Joint Working Committee to investigate the holocaust phenomenon in our country, and to see to the mitigation of certain property crimes perpetrated against holocaust victims. I have the honor of chairing this committee, which also includes both cabinet ministers or their deputies and representatives from the Office of the President of the Republic, the Czech Land Register and Surveyors Office, the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities, the American Jewish Committee and, currently, the World Jewish Restitution Organization as well.

The Committee has three sections. The first one - the Legal Issues Assessment Section - was to evaluate the existing legal code and propose any necessary modifications, so that restitution with respect to property crimes committed on racial grounds could be completed in its entirety. This task has been accomplished. With regard to the property of individuals, the section has stated that the Agricultural Land Act must still be amended in the same way that the Universal Restitution Act was amended in 1994. The relevant amendment has already been drafted, and will be submitted to Parliament this year. As regards still un-restored property that belonged in the past to Jewish religious communities or associations, we have already drafted an amended Ministry of Finance decree which will make it possible to restore that property which still exists, is held by the state, and can be identified to the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities by executive means.

The second section - the Real Estate Issue Assessment Section - is exclusively engaged in searching for real estate confiscated from Jewish communities, foundations and associations by the German occupation authorities during the war. In this manner, the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities has received a total of 65 real estate properties in restitution. With respect to real estate which cannot be returned for whatever reason - because it no longer exists, or the state no longer possesses it - we are ready to provide financial compensation from the state treasury. The implementation of compensation for properties previously owned by holocaust victims but which can no longer be handed back should take place, according to the conclusions of the committee's fifth session held on 4 October 1999, through the ZECHER Foundation Fund for rescuing Jewish monuments in the Czech Republic. The fund's mission will be expanded in its foundation charter to include the performance of compensation, and its board of directors will be extended to include representatives of the state.

The third section - the Section for Summarizing Property Crimes on Czech Territory - faces the most daunting task: to attempt to investigate as thoroughly as possible the fate of valuables, art collections, insurance policies and other assets confiscated from those who were sent by the Nazis to extermination camps. This section has already uncovered a total of 66 works of art in the National Gallery collections whose original owners or their next of kin are no longer alive, as they did not survive the holocaust. The government has decided to transfer these to the ownership of Prague's Jewish Museum. In this connection, I would like to emphasize that the Czech government is firmly convinced that the originator and perpetrator of the horrors of the holocaust in our country was exclusively the Nazi occupation authorities, and that the Czech Republic and its citizens, primarily those from the Jewish community, were the victims of this monstrous process. The involvement of the Czech "Protectorate" police in the genocide of the Roma is, of course, an indelible stain on our history. We consider it our unquestionable obligation - both moral and legal - to see to the completion of compensation for those racially-motivated wrong-doings that were not rectified during the period from the end of the Second World War up to the communist rise to power in 1948. We hold the same position with regard to the demand for the restitution of assets to Jewish communities. If we succeed in locating the assets of victims of the holocaust who did not survive it, we will hold discussions with the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities about the dignified use of these assets, and we are resolved to map out their fate as completely and consistently as possible. I can now state that the Committee has completed a list of real estate belonging to Jewish communities, associations and foundations which was subjected to the process of Aryanization, or confiscation. Questions related to the expropriation of valuables owned by holocaust victims have been clarified. These unique materials will gradually be made available to the public and utilized for the public good. And they will certainly be handed over to all our colleagues, primarily to the Yad Vashem monument.

In closing, I would like to use this opportunity to make an official announcement, namely, that the Czech government is aware that the efforts of the Joint Working Committee in dealing with the mitigation of certain property crimes perpetrated against holocaust victims are likely to require, especially with respect to the third section, an extended period of time - eight or ten months, perhaps a year. Taking this time span into account, the government has decided not to delay any longer in making an honorable settlement with regard to our own past, and has earmarked a total of 300 million CZK in next year's budget, to be given to the Federation of Czech Jewish Communities Foundation as compensation for all unsettled asset claims raised by the Federation, or by those individuals who could not make use of the restitution process due to a legal impediment in the form of the requirement for holding Czech citizenship, as established in 1991 by the former Czechoslovakia's Federal Assembly.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Roman historian Tacitus said the following nearly two thousand years ago: "Once uncovered, a crime has no other recourse but impudence". Let us make sure that this proposition will continue to remain valid. Thank you for your attention.

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