Delegates to the 41-nation gathering agreed to meet in Washington next spring or summer to consider artwork, real estate, insurance funds and other property stolen by the Germans during World War II. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum offered to host the gathering.
Commitments to a new compensation fund for Holocaust survivors rose to more than $15 million as Austria and Poland stepped forward with pledges. Nine countries so far have pledged to the fund money they could have collected as compensation for gold stolen from
national reserves.
U.S. delegation chief Stuart Eizenstat called for all investigations into stolen wartime property to be wrapped up by the end of 1999, noting that there are fewer survivors each year.
He claimed it was a case of mistaken identity. But fingerprints showed he was Ira Einhorn, a former hippie from Philadelphia convicted on first-degree murder charges in the death of his former girlfriend and a man on the run for almost 17 years. U.S. authorities wanted Einhorn back so he could begin serving the life term he was sentenced to in his absence after he skipped bail. A court in the southwestern wine capital of Bordeaux, which delayed its decision three times, gave it Thursday: "No."
Einhorn, the subject of a dogged manhunt across five countries, was freed.
12-05-97
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