(NY, NY, May 29, 2025) The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) welcomes bipartisan efforts led by Senators Cornyn, Blumenthal, Booker, Tillis, Blackburn, Fetterman, Schmitt and Britt to extend and strengthen the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act. This critical initiative aims to ensure that claims for Holocaust-era art restitution are judged on their merits, not dismissed on procedural grounds.

WJRO represents Jews worldwide in seeking the recovery of, or compensation for, property wrongfully taken during the Holocaust and its aftermath. Our fourteen member organizations include major international Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivor organizations in Europe, Israel, and the United States.

The support of the United States Government on Holocaust-era issues, beginning during the post-war military occupation of Germany and continuing without interruption, has been a critical factor in the decades-long efforts to address the profound moral issues of Holocaust compensation and property restitution.

Passed unanimously by Congress in 2016, the HEAR Act was a landmark effort to provide victims of Nazi-era persecution and their heirs a fair and just opportunity to recover art stolen from them, and was enacted to prevent claims to restitute Nazi-looted works of art from being barred on timeliness grounds. The HEAR Act created a uniform six-year statute of limitations from when they obtain “actual discovery” of the identity and location of the works and their ownership interest in them. However, the HEAR Act’s effectiveness has been significantly limited by ongoing procedural barriers. Since its enactment, many claims have been dismissed by courts on jurisdictional or technical grounds, denying rightful owners the opportunity to have their cases heard on the merits.

On March 5, 2024, WJRO and the U.S. Department of State convened a landmark event in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. During this important occasion, we launched the Best Practices for the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which have since been endorsed by over 30 countries. These Best Practices represent a major step forward and explicitly encourage countries, in these exceptional circumstances, to remove barriers that impede the return of stolen art and cultural property.

To fully realize the HEAR Act’s promise and uphold the United States’ enduring commitment to Holocaust justice, WJRO calls on Congress to act decisively to strengthen the HEAR Act. This includes eliminating procedural barriers like laches, extending the HEAR Act indefinitely beyond its sunset date, and otherwise ensuring that U.S. law provides a meaningful path to restitution based on the merits of each claim.

WJRO looks forward to working closely with Congress and the Administration, including the Department of State, to strengthen the HEAR Act and achieve justice for Holocaust survivors and their families.

“An item of art or cultural property from the Holocaust-era is often the last link to the last memory of a lost family or a destroyed Jewish community. Returning it is a small measure of justice,” said Gideon Taylor, President, and Mark Weitzman, Chief Operating Officer, World Jewish Restitution Organization.