My ICHEIC Reports

In 1999 I was hired by the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) to coordinate its program of archival research, the goal of which was to obtain information about life insurance policies purchased by European Jews before WWII.

 

The program, which lasted, with some periods of inactivity, until 2004, became the largest ever project of research on Holocaust era assets. Hundreds of archives and repositories in 11 different countries were visited and tens of thousands of files were researched and recorded. The result was a database of some 80,000 policies, which, published on the Internet, provided ICHEIC with an instrument destined to encourage submission of claims and verification of the submissions. In 2003 I compiled (in cooperation with the Berlin company “Facts and Files”) a final report on the research project and in 2004 an additional report on research in Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

 

Although ICHEIC is no longer active and it is not possible to submit additional claims, both reports seem to be of lasting value because they provide a “road map” which can help to locate other assets lost during the Holocaust. One should, of course, remember that the reports were compiled during the early 2000s and in the meantime some changes might have occurred due to alterations in archival structures and relocation of holdings.