US embassy cable - 05LJUBLJANA794

C O N F I D E N T I A L  LJUBLJANA 000794 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE AND EUR/OHI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/18/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, KNAR, SI 
SUBJECT: SLOVENIA: RESTITUTION PROCESS FOR JEWISH 
PROPERTIES CONFISCATED AFTER WWII GETS OFF TO ROCKY START 
 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Thomas B. Robertson for Reasons 1.4 (B) and ( 
D) 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  Following a September 22 meeting between 
Slovenia's Commission for Resolving Open Questions Pertaining 
to Religious Communities and the President of the Jewish 
Community of Slovenia (JCS), Andrej Kozar Beck, the Ministry 
of Justice (MOJ) announced that it will conduct a 
comprehensive historical inventory of Jewish communal and 
heirless properties that were confiscated or nationalized by 
the Government of Yugoslavia after the Second World War.  In 
October, the MOJ formally created a new Department for 
Restitution and National Reconciliation to undertake this 
historical inventory and appointed five members to serve on 
it.  The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) agreed 
to establish a Foundation to oversee the disbursement of 
funds from any future settlement between the JCS and the 
Government of Slovenia (GOS).  END SUMMARY. 
 
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Rocky Start to Restitution Negotiations 
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2. (C) Restitution negotiations initially got off to a rocky 
start during a September 22 meeting between JCS President 
Andrej Kozar Beck and the members of the Commission for 
Resolving Open Questions pertaining to Religious Communities. 
 At the meeting, Justice Minister Lovro Sturm informed Beck 
that the JCS's 15 million Euro claim for restitution of 
communal and heirless Jewish property seized by the Yugoslav 
government after WWII would take considerably longer to 
resolve than Beck had anticipated.  (NOTE: In an earlier 
exchange with PolMiloff, Beck indicated he thought a final 
settlement would be reached at that September 22 meeting. 
END NOTE).  Sturm is also alleged to have asked Beck during 
the meeting whether he was entitled to speak as the 
representative of the entire Jewish community living in 
Slovenia.  Beck, confounded by the question, is alleged to 
have stormed out of the meeting in a fit of anger. 
 
3. (SBU) On September 25, Beck forwarded an angry letter to 
the Embassy, the American Jewish Committee, the World Jewish 
Congress, the European Council of Jewish Communities, the 
World Jewish Restitution Organization, the Eurasian Jewish 
Congress, Prime Minister Jansa, Foreign Minister Rupel, 
Justice Minister Sturm, Defense Minister Erjavec, Slovenian 
Ambassador to the U.S. Samuel Zbogar, and the UK Ambassador 
to Slovenia.  In the letter, Beck claimed Sturm had 
questioned whether he was a Jew and had "practically refused 
to discuss our claim."  On September 28, Sturm responded to 
Beck's allegations by faxing a letter to the Ambassador and 
the aforementioned addressees expressing "shock" at Beck's 
statements and denying he had questioned Beck's Jewish 
identity, claiming that he had merely tried to ascertain 
whether Beck was entitled to negotiate on behalf of all 
Slovenian Jews.  (NOTE:  In a subsequent meeting with 
PolMiloff and Conoff, Sturm's Chief of Staff, Janko Koren, 
cited a recent doctrinal dispute between two individuals 
contending for the leadership of Slovenia's Islamic Community 
as the reason for Sturm's question.  He also noted that there 
were an estimated 500 Jews living in Slovenia, but only 120 
of them were officially members of the JCS.  END NOTE.)  In 
the following weeks, a series of articles appeared in the 
Slovenian press based on interviews with Beck in which he 
spoke about the JCS's 15 million Euro claim against the GOS 
and cited a lack of progress in resolving the restitution 
issue. 
 
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MOJ Promises to Put Restitution Negotiations Back on Track 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
 
4. (C) On October 3, PolMiloff and Conoff met with MOJ Chief 
of Staff Janko Koren and Director of the Office for Religious 
Communities Dr. Drago Cepar to discuss the JCS restitution 
claim.  Koren and Cepar claimed there was no existing legal 
basis for the government to negotiate restitution with the 
JCS and noted that any settlement would have to be approved 
by parliament.  Koren also commented that Beck,s desire to 
resolve the restitution issue in a (secret closed-door) 
settlement was unrealistic.  (NOTE: During an earlier 
exchange with PolMiloff, Beck did indeed say that he was open 
to a secret settlement.  END NOTE.)  Cepar added he could not 
understand why Beck,s &hopes had been dashed,8 since the 
GOS had consistently insisted on a legal solution. 
 
5. (C) Cepar and Koren claimed Sturm believed strongly in the 
issue of restitution, and that the process would move forward 
despite their difficulties in communicating with Beck, whom 
Cepar characterized as a "difficult" personality.  Koren 
noted that the MOJ was in the process of creating a 
Department for Restitution and National Reconciliation to 
compile a comprehensive list of individual Jewish restitution 
 
 
claims (i.e. individual properties).  This documentary 
evidence will then serve as the basis upon which a special 
Jewish Restitution Working Group will negotiate a settlement 
with the JCS.  Koren noted that once this settlement is 
reached, it will then have to be put to a vote in parliament. 
 
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Critics of Kozar Beck Point to Flawed Methodology 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
6. (C) Embassy contact Dr. Hannah Starman (protect), a 
Holocaust researcher at the Institute for Ethnic Studies in 
Ljubljana, told PolMiloff on several occasions that Beck was 
hurting the Jewish community by making exaggerated and 
unfounded restitution claims.  (NOTE: Starman is not an 
official member of the JCS but identifies herself as a Jewish 
Slovenian.  END NOTE.)  Starman reported that Beck had at one 
point raised the restitution claim from 15 million to 65 
million Euros, apparently as a bargaining tactic.  Starman 
opined that both Sturm and Minister of Finance Andrej Bajuk 
were well disposed to settling the restitution claims fairly 
and equitably, but were suspicious of Beck's fourfold 
multiplication of the sum within a span of only a few months. 
 Furthermore, Starman claimed that Beck's inventory of 
properties was based on a faulty methodology that included 
properties sold by Jews before the Second World War and hence 
before they were ever nationalized.  Starman also claimed 
Beck's inventory included properties that Beck claimed to be 
heirless but that did in fact have living heirs, either in 
Slovenia or abroad.  Starman lamented that Beck was not doing 
Slovenia's Jewish community any favors by bargaining with the 
GOS in secret and by neglecting to take into consideration 
the claims of Holocaust survivors and living heirs of 
Holocaust victims. 
 
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WJRO Representative Visits Slovenia 
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7. (SBU) B'nai B'rith Executive Vice President and World 
Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) member Daniel 
Mariaschin met with the Ambassador on November 4 to discuss 
recent events in the restitution negotiations.  Mariaschin 
told the Ambassador he had met separately with Beck and 
Justice Minister Sturm, and that he had meetings scheduled 
later in the day with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and 
with Ethnic Studies researchers Hannah Starman and Irena 
Sumi.  Mariaschin told COM he felt it was unacceptable for 
Sturm to question Beck's title as president of the JCS since 
Beck had been elected by a majority of its members. 
Mariaschin also noted, however, that he believed Sturm had 
demonstrated a will to reach a settlement and that the WJRO 
would help curb any concerns about future trusteeship of 
settlement funds by creating a Foundation to allocate and 
distribute such funds in the event that a settlement is 
reached.  The Foundation would include members of the JCS as 
well as outside members and would ensure that funds were 
first distributed to any remaining Holocaust survivors before 
being used for local community projects.  Mariaschin also 
told COM that the WJRO had extensive experience locating 
Holocaust survivors in other countries and that it would help 
Slovenia to do so as well.  Mariaschin was optimistic that 
Sturm's decision to call a press conference following their 
November 4 meeting signaled a serious intent to resolve the 
restitution issue.  Mariaschin told COM his chief concern now 
was that the GOS's procedure of identifying and reconciling 
its list of communal and heirless Jewish properties with the 
list already compiled by the JCS be put on a "fast track." 
 
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Comment 
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8. (C) The MOJ's creation of a Department for Restitution and 
National Reconciliation is a positive step towards resolving 
an issue that has languished for over five years under the 
previous center-left government.  While Beck's mercurial 
personality and his sometimes demeaning comments about ethnic 
Slovenes do not endear him to GOS interlocutors, there can be 
no doubt that he is the legitimate president of the Jewish 
Community.  The WJRO's proposal to create a Foundation to 
oversee the disbursement of settlement funds would go a long 
way to bringing all sides closer to a resolution of the 
issue, since critics of Beck's like Starman or Sumi have told 
us that their primary concern is to aid remaining Holocaust 
survivors and living heirs of Holocaust victims.  Post will 
continue to monitor the Jewish restitution negotiations as 
they move forward and advocate for a timely and fair 
settlement.  END COMMENT. 
ROBERTSON 
 
 
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