On the recordJanuary 26, 1994
I want to express my strong support for House Resolution 323--a bill to secure reparations from the German Government for Hugo Princz, a Jewish United States citizen interned in a German concentration camp during World War II. Hugo Princz and his family were U.S. citizens residing in Europe during World War II. In 1942, they were arrested by the Nazis who, ignoring their valid U.S. passports on the ground that they were Jewish, deported them to concentration camps where all died except for Mr. Princz. Mr. Princz survived his interment as a slave laborer at both Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. In 1946, Mr. Princz was liberated by U.S. Armed Forces and was sent to a U.S. military hospital for treatment. After returning to the United States, Mr. Princz pursued a pension through the German program established to compensate survivors of the Holocaust. For the past 40 years, his claim has been repeatedly refused. Because his interment was not processed through a center for displaced persons in Germany following the war, Mr. Princz was not considered stateless or a refugee and thus did not meet the German eligibility criteria for the reparations program. In 1992, after exhausting diplomatic channels, Mr. Princz, brought a lawsuit against the Federal Republic of Germany in Federal Court in Washington, DC. Germany's motion to dismiss the suit was denied by the district court, and its appeal of that decision was recently heard by the D.C. Circuit.
