Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II
New York: Public Affairs, c2003. First Edition. Third Printing. Hardcover. 25 cm, 401 pages, illus., notes, index. Foreword by Elie Wiesel. Inscribed by the author. DJ has slight wear and soiling. The U.S. official who spearheaded the fight to reclaim the stolen and confiscated assets of Holocaust survivors and other victims of World War II tells the inside story of that fight and how it was won. Stuart Eizenstat (born January 15, 1943) is an American diplomat and attorney. He served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. He serves as a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Covington & Burling and as a senior strategist at APCO Worldwide. From 1977 to 1981, he was President Jimmy Carter’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, and Executive Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff. In 1983, he wrote for Quarante magazine an article entitled, "The Quiet Revolution." He was the first to describe the "feminization of poverty." He was President Bill Clinton's Deputy Secretary of the Treasury (1999–2001), Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (1997–1999), and also served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade at the International Trade Administration (ITA) from 1996 to 1997.
In 1998, he organized the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets, resulting in the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. In the second half of the 1990s, Stuart Eizenstat was perhaps the most controversial U.S. foreign policy official in Europe. His mission had nothing to do with Russia, the Middle East, Yugoslavia, or any of the other hotspots of the day. Rather, Eizenstat's mission was to provide justice--albeit belated and imperfect justice--for the victims of World War II.
Imperfect Justice is Eizenstat's account of how the Holocaust became a political and diplomatic battleground fifty years after the war's end, as the issues of dormant bank accounts, slave labor, confiscated property, looted art, and unpaid insurance policies convulsed Europe and America. He recounts the often heated negotiations with the Swiss, the Germans, the French, the Austrians, and various Jewish organizations, showing how these moral issues, shunted aside for so long, exposed wounds that had never healed and conflicts that had never been properly resolved. Though we will all continue to reckon with the crimes of World War II for a long time to come, Eizenstat's account shows that it is still possible to take positive steps in the service of justice. Condition: very good / very good.
Keywords: Holocaust, WWII, Forced Labor, Confiscations, Jewish Property, Gold, Drai Commission, Mel Weiss, Inscribed, Edgar Bronfman, Claims Conference, Lloyd Cutler, Edward Fagan, Michael Hausfeld, Alan Hevesi, Israel Singer, Robert Swift, Roger Witten, Mel W
ISBN: 158648110X
[Book #35967]
Price: $60.00