Holocaust survivors in France came home to stolen apartments, looted furniture and bureaucratic hurdles

""Don't I have the right, after having suffered so much, to get my property back? Haven't I really paid enough for this war?""

"For ordinary Jews in France, attempts to reclaim their homes and furnishings were key to rebuilding their lives. They reveal the limits of the government's attempts to repair the past."

"French laws related to recovering apartments, looted furniture and war damages promised equality to all war victims. Instead, they created bureaucratic barriers and favored non-Jewish war victims."

"Mizreh, then 68, was just one of the 160,000 Holocaust survivors from Paris who struggled to rebuild their lives after the devastation of the Nazi occupation."

In 1945, Aba Mizreh and his sons confronted new tenants in their looted Paris apartment after returning from hiding during World War II. Mizreh, a Holocaust survivor, sought to reclaim his property to support his family. Research indicates that property restitution is often overlooked in Holocaust studies, yet it was crucial for survivors' recovery. French laws intended to assist all war victims instead created barriers, disproportionately affecting Jewish claimants. Many survivors continued to suffer the consequences of the war long after its end.

Read at The Conversation