ABSTRACT
Since 1995 the question of the treatment of Holocaust area assets has gained increasingly global dimensions: since then 25 countries have engaged in researching their national behaviour in that respect. It took until 1998 for United States to decide that the finger should not be pointed only at others, but that it bore some responsibility to sort out what had become of Holocaust era assets within its own jurisdiction. Thus the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Era Assets was born. The Commission, though set up in 1998, took up its research work only in 1999 and delivered its Report at the end of 2000. After United States itself became a belligerent, outright confiscation, in addition to immobilization, became legally possible. In 1942 Office of the Alien Property Custodian was re-established to that end. The Alien Property Custodian was empowered not only to impound the property of foreign nationals, but also to take all right, title and interest to such property.
