Holocaust Assets: Washington Conference Schedule

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Department Seal Washington Conference
On Holocaust-Era Assets

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The Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets, co-hosted by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, is a government organized, international meeting of over forty governments and a limited number of non-governmental organizations seeking to address Nazi-confiscated assets, specifically art and insurance, and to conclude any remaining gold issues, as well as communal property, archives, books, the role of historical commissions, and Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

Conference Schedule

(As of 11/24/98)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1998
19:00-20:00	Opening Ceremony
	Hall of Witness, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, S.W. (15th Street entrance - Raoul Wallenberg Place)
	Followed by a Reception, Wall of Remembrance, Concourse Level
	Speakers: Miles Lerman, Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs Abner J. Mikva, Conference Chairman Elie Wiesel, Founding Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council and Nobel Peace Laureate
20:00-22:00	Reception guests are invited to visit the Museum exhibitions
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1998
08:30	Registration at U.S. Department of State 2201 "C" Street, N.W. ("C" Street entrance)
09:15	Delegates proceed to the Loy Henderson Auditorium
09:30	Conference Begins in Plenary Session	Open to Press via live transmission into Dean Acheson Auditorium
	Miles Lerman, Chairman, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council Welcome and Introduction of the Conference Chairman
	Abner J. Mikva, Conference Chairman Opening Remarks
09:50	Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs Welcome and Introduction of the Secretary of State
	Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State of the United States of America Keynote Address
10:15	Anthony Layden, Head of Delegation of the United Kingdom Greetings from Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary, United Kingdom
	Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs Opening Remarks on behalf of U.S. Delegation
	Avraham Hirchson, Head of Delegation of Israel Remarks and introduction of televised message from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
	Head of Delegation, International Romani Union Opening Remarks
10:45	Plenary Session Review of Gold Issues, Research and Resolution Chaired by William J. McDonough, President and Chief Executive Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of New York	Closed to Press
	Presenters: Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs/United States Ambassador Louis Amigues, Director of Archives and Documentation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/France Anthony Layden, Head, Western European Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office/United Kingdom
	Followed by discussion
11:45	Plenary session on gold ends and delegates proceed to lunch
12:00-13:45	Lunch at State Department, Benjamin Franklin Room, 8th Floor
	Speakers: Edgar Bronfman, President, World Jewish Congress and World Jewish Restitution Organization Lord Janner of Braunstone, Chairman, Holocaust Educational Trust
14:00	Plenary Session Overview of Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims	Closed to Press
	Presenters: Gerald Feldman, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley and Fellow, American Academy in Berlin/United States Israel Singer, Secretary General, World Jewish Congress Glenn Pomeroy, President, National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)/United States Neil Levin, Superintendent, New York State Insurance Department, and Vice Chair, NAIC International Holocaust Commission Task Force/United States Herbert Hansmeyer, Board Member, Allianz AG insurance company (invited)
	Followed by discussion
15:30	Break
15:45	Plenary Session Overview of Nazi-confiscated Art Issues Chaired by Representative James A. Leach, Chairman, Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives	Closed to Press
	Presenters: Jonathan Petropoulos, Professor, Department of History, Loyola College in Maryland/United States Lynn Nicholas, Independent Scholar/United States Ernst Bacher, Chairman, Austrian Art Commission/Austria Valeriy Kulishov, Restitution Expert, Ministry of Culture/Russia Ronald S. Lauder, Chairman of the Board, Museum of Modern Art/United States Earl Powell III, Director, National Gallery of Art/United States
	Followed by discussion
17:30	Plenary session on art ends
17:30	Press briefing on gold, insurance, and art plenaries Dean Acheson Auditorium
18:00-19:30	Reception Hosted by His Excellency Sir Christopher Meyer, British Ambassador British Embassy Ambassador's Residence 3100 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Delegation members by invitation only
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2
09:00	Plenary Session Separate Overviews of Nazi-confiscated Communal Property and Archives, Books and Historical Commissions	Closed to Press
	Communal Property Chaired by Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives/United States
	Presenters: Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs Ignatz Bubis, President, European Jewish Congress Erzsebet Pek, Second Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Hungary Saul Kagan, Executive Vice President, Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany Andrew Baker, Director, European Section, American Jewish Committee
	Archives, Books and Historical Commissions Chaired by Ambassador Louis Amigues, Director of Archives and Documentation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/France
	Presenters: Gill Bennett, Head Historian, Foreign and Commonwealth Office/United Kingdom Michael Kurtz, Assistant Archivist, National Archives and Records Administration/United States Siegfried Buettner, Vice President, German Federal Archives/Germany Jean-Francois Bergier, Chairman, Bergier Commission/Switzerland John Van Oudenaren, Head, European Division, Library of Congress/United States
10:45	Plenary session on other assets ends
11:00-12:45	Delegates proceed to concurrent break-out sessions on art, insurance, and other assets, as well as education, remembrance, and research (off-site)
Break-out Session: LOY HENDERSON AUDITORIUM	Nazi-Confiscated Art Chaired by Representative James A. Leach, Chairman, Committee on Banking and Financial Services, U.S. House of Representatives	Closed to Press
11:00-12:45	Government Restitution Policies, Postwar to Present
	Presenters: Wojciech Kowalski, Head, Dept. of Intellectual and Cultural Property Law, University of Silesia/Poland Oliver Rathkolb, Kreisky Archives and Institute for Contemporary History, University of Vienna/Austria Hector Feliciano, Independent Scholar/United States Richard Bevins, Historian, Library and Records Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office/United Kingdom Nikolai Gubenko, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Culture, State Duma/Russia C.E. van Rappard-Boon, Head Inspector, Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science/The Netherlands
13:00-14:30	Lunch at State Department, Benjamin Franklin Room, 8th Floor
14:45-15:30	Identification of Art, Archives and Databases
	Presenters: Seymour Pomrenze, First Director, Offenbach Archival Depot/United States Connie Lowenthal, Director, Commission for Art Recovery, WJC/WJRO Ronald Tauber, Chairman, The Art Loss Register Gilbert Edelson, Administrative Vice President and Counsel, Art Dealers Association of America Konstantin Akinsha, Research Director, Project of Documentation of Wartime Losses Ori Soltes, former Director, Klutznick National Jewish Museum
15:30-17:00	Principles to Address Nazi-Confiscated Art
	Presenters: Philippe de Montebello, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art, U.S. Association of Art Museum Directors Task Force/United States Francoise Cachin, Director, Museums of France and Ambassador Louis Amigues, Director of Archives and Documentation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs/France Sharon Page, Tate Gallery and Chair of Working Group on Nazi Spoliation of Art, National Museums and Galleries' Directors Conference/United Kingdom
Break-out Session: ROOM 1107 (OVERFLOW ROOM 1207 WITH AUDIO)	Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims	Closed to Press
11:00-11:40	Historical Overview: Nazi Confiscation of Insurance Policy Assets
	Presenters: Gerald Feldman, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, and Fellow, American Academy in Berlin/U.S. Tomas Jelinek, Office of the President of the Czech Republic
11:40 - 12:45	Postwar Government Compensation Programs and Nationalizations
	Presenters: Rudolph Gerlach, Department Chief, German Federal Regulatory Agency for Insurance Practices Israel Miller, President, Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany Tamas Foldi, Public Policy Institute/Hungary Vojtech Mastny, Senior Research Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center Elzbieta Turkowska-Tyrluk, Vice President, PZU insurance company/Poland
13:00-14:30	Lunch at State Department, Benjamin Franklin Room, 8th Floor
14:45-15:30	Unpaid Claims
	Gerald Feldman, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, and Fellow, American Academy in Berlin/United States Alan Hevesi, Comptroller of the City of New York/United States Catherine Lillie, Director, Holocaust Claims Processing Office, New York State Banking Department/United States Bobby Brown, Adviser to the Prime Minister for Diaspora Affairs, Prime Minister's Office/Israel
15:30-17:00	Solutions: Addressing Claims and Providing Humanitarian Relief
	Presenters from the International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims: Neil Levin, Superintendent, New York State Insurance Department, and Vice Chair, NAIC International Holocaust Commission Task Force Bill Nelson, Commissioner, Florida Department of Insurance Chuck Quackenbush, Commissioner, California Department of Insurance Israel Singer, Secretary General, World Jewish Congress Alberto Tiberini, Assistant General Manager, Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Chairman, International Commission
Break-out Session: ROOM 1105(OVERFLOW ROOM 1205 WITH AUDIO)	Other Nazi-Confiscated Assets	Closed to Press
11:00-12:45	Communal Property: Progress and Challenges Chaired by Representative Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman, Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives
	Presenters: Ambassador Naphtali Lavie, Vice Chairman, World Jewish Restitution Organization Jerzy Kichler, President, Union of Jewish Congregations in Poland Michael Lewan, Chairman, U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad
13:00-14:30	Lunch at State Department, Benjamin Franklin Room, 8th Floor
14:45-16:00	Archives and Books Chaired by Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Directorate, Yad Vashem/Israel
	Presenters: Eric Ketelaar, Legal Counsel, National Archives/The Netherlands Rev. Fr. Marcel Chappin, Professor, Gregoriana Pontifical University/The Holy See Yaacov Lozowick, Archivist, Yad Vashem Institute/Israel Robert Vanni, General Counsel, NY Public Library/United States Abby Smith, Program Officer, Council on Library and Information Resources/United States Robert Waite, Historian, Office of Special Investigations, Department of Justice/United States
16:00-17:30	Historical Commissions Chaired by Gill Bennett, Head Historian, Foreign and Commonwealth Office/United Kingdom
	Presenters: Peter Klein, Professor, and Secretary of the Scholten Commission/The Netherlands Pablo Martin-Acena, Fundacion Empresa Publica/Spain Ambassador Krister Wahlback, Swedish Foreign Ministry and Member, Swedish Commission on Jewish Assets Ambassador Sevinc Dalyanoglu, General Director for Multilateral Economic Affairs, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ignacio Klich, Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina
Break-out Session:	Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (Held offsite at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)	Open to Press
11:15-12:30	Overview of the Importance of Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Theater) Chaired by Miles Lerman, Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council
	Presenters: Lord Janner, Chairman, Holocaust Educational Trust/United Kingdom Representative Tom Lantos, House of Representatives/ United States Avraham Burg, Chairman of the Executive, The Jewish Agency for Israel Beate Kosmala, Center for Anti-Semitism Research, Technical University, Berlin/Germany T.J. Blankert-van Veen, Head of Department, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport/The Netherlands Adolphe Steg, Vice President, Matteoli Commission, and Professor of Medicine, University of Paris/France Rev. Dr. Remi Hoeckman, Secretary of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, O.P. Yehuda Bauer, Professor, Yad Vashem Institute/Israel
12:00-13:15	Goals of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research Chaired by Bennett Freeman, Senior Advisor to Under Secretary Eizenstat
	Presenters: Stuart E. Eizenstat, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs/United StatesPar Nuder, State Secretary, Prime Minister's Office/Sweden Anthony Layden, Head, Western European Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office/United Kingdom Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Directorate, Yad Vashem/Israel Albert Spiegel, Deputy Head, Cultural Section of the Foreign Office/Germany
13:15-14:45	Lunch at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Museum Cafe)
14:45-17:30	(Breakout session continued) Best Practices and Future Projects in Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research
	A. Concurrent Panel Session (Meyerhoff Theater, with emphasis on remembrance) Chair: Sara Bloomfield, Acting Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
	Presenters: Teresa Swiebocka, Senior Curator, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum/Poland Yehuda Bauer, Professor, Yad Vashem Institute/Israel Stephen Smith, Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial and Education Centre/United Kingdom Regina Wyrwoll, Head of the Media Section, Munich Head Office, Goethe Institute/Germany William Shulman, President, Association of Holocaust Organizations/United States Mark Weitzman, Director, National Task Force Against Hate, Simon Wiesenthal Center/United States Kenneth Jacobson, Assistant National Director, Anti-Defamation League/United States Ari Zev, Executive Director, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation/United States
	B. Concurrent Panel Session (Rubinstein Auditorium, with emphasis on curricular education) Chair: William Parsons, Chief of Staff, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
	Presenters: Shulamit Imber, Pedagogical Director, Yad Vashem/Israel Trudy Gold, Spiro Institute/United Kingdom Robert Sigel, Josef Effner High School, Dachau/Germany Anna-Karin Johansson, Coordinator of the Prime Minister's Living History Project/Sweden Margot Stern Strom, Director, Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation/United States Marcia Sachs Littell, Director, National Academy for Holocaust & Genocide Teacher Training, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey/United States David Singer, Director of Research, American Jewish Committee/United States
	C. Exhibits of Holocaust resources and curricula by individual governments and NGOs involved in Holocaust education, remembrance, and research (Concourse Area -- on view all day)
17:30	Break-out Sessions Close
17:30	Press briefings on other assets plenary and on art, insurance, other assets and education break-out sessions U.S. Department of State Dean Acheson Auditorium
19:00-21:00	Reception at the National Archives Rotunda Host: John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States Delegates by invitation only
	Speakers: John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States Nili Arad, Director General, Justice Ministry/Israel
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3
08:45	Delegates arrive at U.S. Department of State and proceed to Loy Henderson Auditorium	Open to Press via live transmission into Dean Acheson Auditorium
09:00	Conference Sessions Resume Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research
	Statements by representatives from the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel
09:30	Plenary Concluding Statements by Country Delegations
	Presenters: Miles Lerman, Chairman, United States Holocaust Memorial Council Stuart E. Eizenstat, Head of United States Delegation Selected Delegation Leaders
11:15	Country Presentations End
11:45	Abner J. Mikva Concluding Remarks by Conference Chairman
12:30-13:30	Lunch at State Department, Benjamin Franklin Room, 8th Floor
13:00	Press Conference Dean Acheson Auditorium
14:00	Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets Concludes

The U.S. Department of State and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gratefully acknowledge the support of the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the British Embassy, and the National Archives and Records Administration.

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