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World Jewish News
Belarus Citizens Have a Chance to Get "Inheritance from Israel"
08.01.2009
According to the law on restitution, the heirs, including the residents of Belarus, may receive the unclaimed cash deposits, which are kept in Israeli banks and the owners of which died during the World War II.
Some Belarus citizens have the chance to get an inheritance from Israel, as reported by the Belarus Partisan information site with reference to Deutsche Welle.
The crux of the matter is that banks in this country keep unclaimed cash deposits, the owners of which died during the Second World War. This property is looking for its owners.
Investments into banking institutions and purchase of land in mandated Palestine were popular not only among the citizens of the West.
Archival documents show that there were residents of Belarus among the investors.
On the territory of Israel there are real estate units in abeyance, cash deposits, as well as numerous antiques. In Soviet times, the search for related deposits in Israel was out of the question.
In Israel, the government nationalized property and bank assets with the Proclamation of Independence in 1948, while the law on restitution was passed only two years ago.
As told to Deutsche Welle by Member of the Knesset, Head of Inter-Parliamentary Friendship League "Israel - Belarus" Marina Solodkina, she began to receive claims as early as 10 years ago, from people who had documents on possession, but there was no law on property restitution. Today such a possibility exists. For the convenience of searching for "ownerless" property lists have been complied, a special website created, and there is also a hotline. The heirs should hurry. According to the official database, more than 3200 pre-war deposits came from Belarus.
However, Marina Solodkina notes that the compilers did not take into account the real change of borders in Europe. For example, deposits from hundreds of residents of Brest and Grodno were assigned to Poland or the Soviet Union, while, for example, Pinsk or Lida were included in a separate Belarus list. This fact, as well as the absence of Russian-language version of the site, considerably complicates the search process, the deputy said.
The MP asked the state company on property restitution to immediately publish information on the work of the agency and opportunities for requesting compensations in Russian-language media. It is worth mentioning that the company director Ishay Amrami encourages the heirs to hurry with filing appeals, because the cash deposits or property, the heirs of which are not established, will be used for charity. In particular, they will be used to help Holocaust survivors who need financial support. The database of unclaimed deposits and assets can be found on their web page.
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