Court Okays Jewish Claims in the Former East Germany

The Jewish Claims Conference (JCC) can continue following up on expropriation claims involving property in the former East Germany. A federal administrative court in Leipzig ruled on Thursday that global claims made by the JCC are valid. However, they must include references from which a former Jewish property owner can be determined at a later date. According to German restititution law, expropriation claims for property in the territory of the former East Germany had to be made by the end of 1992. But since the JCC often did not have the necessary details for individual claims by that date, they filed global claims. These included references to files or archives, which contained the information on individual cases. The concrete data was then supplied later. The court ruling has now upheld this procedure.