News

June 21,  2011 (from the morning plenary session) Acknowledging the significant contribution of the Lithuanian Jewish community to Lithuanian culture and social progress before the Second World War, occupation of Lithuania, and the Holocaust that marked the start of indiscriminate destruction of the Jewish nation, in an effort to restore historical justice and voluntarily compensate for the property of Jewish religious communities in Lithuania illegally seized during the occupations by the totalitarian regimes, the Seimas decided to adopt the Law on Good Will Compensation for the Property of Jewish Religious Communities (draft No. XIP-968 (4)). The Law was passed by 82 votes in favour, 7 against, and 16 abstentions.

The Law establishes the size, terms of payment, procedures, and purpose of the compensation for the property of Lithuanian Jewish religious communities. The decision was made to compensate for Jewish religious communal property illegally seized during the occupation of Lithuania by the totalitarian regimes. The size of compensation amounts to LTL 128 million and will be paid from the state budget to the compensation fund designated by the Government. As noted in the explanatory memorandum, the compensation size was set in view of the financial situation of the state, the search results from the Lithuanian Archives Department for documents evidencing the ownership of the currently existing property of Jewish communities, and the property valuation data from the Centre of Registers.

Compensation will be paid starting from 1 January 2013 and completed on 1 March 2023. The payment will be executed in annual instalments depending on the financial resources of the state. The size of compensation instalments to be paid will be determined by the Seimas through the approval of each year’s state budget. Given the old age of the Jews who resided in Lithuania during the years of the Second World War and suffered from the occupational totalitarian regimes during this period, the law foresees the payment of a part of the compensation (i.e., LTL 3 million) in 2012.

The law also allows for compensating for the Jewish religious communal property through the transfer of ownership of the state property, i.e. buildings or parts thereof, to the fund designated by the Government. Where state property will be transferred to the fund designated by the decision of the Government, the size of the monetary compensation will be reduced by an amount that equals the value of the transferred property calculated on the basis of the mass valuation data of the Centre of Registers.

Legal safeguards were established in order to ensure targeted use of the monetary compensation under the current Law and its contribution to the Jewish religious community-building activities in Lithuania. The Law provides that compensation will be used only for religious, cultural, healthcare, sports, education, and research purposes of the Lithuanian Jews in Lithuania and support for the Jews who lived in Lithuania during the Second World War and suffered from the occupational totalitarian regimes during this period. The transferred property will also be used exclusively for religious, cultural, educational, and scientific purposes of the Jews of Lithuania.

Under previous laws, only ownership of houses of worship, i.e. synagogues with a clear successor have been restored to the Jewish religious communities. Restitution of other Jewish communal property cannot be performed under the Law on the Procedure for the Restoration of the Rights of Religious Associations to the Existing Real Property, as, owing to historical circumstances, there are no remaining successors to this ownership: the Jewish communities that existed in a number of Lithuanian towns before the Holocaust and were actively engaged in Lithuanian economy and business were virtually destroyed and new ones were not established.
 
Seimas Public Relations Unit (tel. +370 5 239 6132)