ABSTRACT
The very first priority of world Jewry was to restore survivors to their physical health and then resettle them to enable them to build new lives. Simultaneously, the principal Jewish organizations - the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and the World Jewish Congress, initiated joint negotiations with the United States government as the most important of the western occupying powers of Germany and Austria. As a result, the first property restitution law in postwar Germany, the United States. Military Government Law #59, was enacted in November of 1947. Following the establishment of the German Federal Republic in 1949, the first postwar West German government was called upon to deal with its responsibilities to the Holocaust survivors. Six months of intensive negotiations between delegations of the State of Israel, the Claims Conference and the German government followed in The Hague.
