Bill Clinton: “on May 24, 2004, 17 Senators wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft to urge him to resolve the claims brought by…”

“on May 24, 2004, 17 Senators wrote to Attorney General John Ashcroft to urge him to resolve the claims brought by several thousand elderly Holocaust survivors in the matter of the Hungarian Gold Train. These survivors seek restitution and an accounting for the mishandling, loss and theft of their property in the years after World War II. Administrations of both parties have made clear our belief that when faced with evidence of wrongdoing, governments should not rely on legalisms and technicalities to avoid responsibility. Those of us who wrote the Attorney General hoped that our own Government would rise to the same level of accountability when its own conduct was at fault. Unfortunately, the Justice Department continues to resist these survivors strenuously in court. One disturbing tactic is to try to undercut the Government's own research and admissions. The facts about the Hungarian Gold Train were first brought to light by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, chaired by Edgar Bronfman, in a ``Progress Report'' issued in October 1999. The commission called the Gold Train ``a mysterious example of a single egregious failure of the United States to follow [its own] policy'' regarding restitution of Holocaust victims' property after World War II. Now, however, in its recent filings in Federal court, the Justice Department claims that the PCHA somehow retracted or backed away from its findings.…”