Luxembourg - WJRO

Luxembourg

At the time the Nazis invaded Luxembourg in 1940, approximately 3,900 Jews lived in the country – around three-quarters of them were foreign citizens. It is estimated that between 1,000 to 2,500 Luxembourg Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Government reports published in Luxembourg in 2009 and 2015 recognize that Jews who were not citizens did not receive compensation for the confiscation of their property during the Holocaust. After World War II, around 1,500 Jews returned to Luxembourg and today about 1,200 reside in the country.

Agreement on Holocaust-era property restitution

On January 27, 2021 (International Holocaust Remembrance Day), WJRO joined together with the Government of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Jewish Community and the Luxembourg Foundation for the Remembrance of the Shoah to sign a historic agreement on Holocaust asset issues. In this agreement, Luxembourg agreed to:

Transform Cinqfontaines – which was once the last station and collection point for Jews before deportation to concentration camps – into a living memorial commemorating the stories of Luxembourg’s Holocaust victims.
Provide symbolic financial acknowledgment to Holocaust survivors who were in Luxembourg during the Holocaust.
Dedicate resources to Holocaust memorialization, remembrance, research, and education.

The agreement also provides that Luxembourg will address key restitution issues, including dormant bank accounts, insurance, and looted art, through separate working groups with WJRO and the Luxembourg Jewish Community.

The agreement came less than two years after a joint international delegation of WJRO and the US Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, together with the US Ambassador and Luxembourg Jewish Community. Following a meeting with the Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg established a working group to review open issues of Holocaust-era property restitution – a process culminating in the agreement.

In March 2022, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany completed distributing €1,000,000 from the Luxembourg Fund to eligible Holocaust survivors from 13 countries who had applied to the program by the final deadline of January 31, 2022.