Latvia moves ahead with “good will” restitution of pre-war Jewish property

The Latvian parliament or Saeima on September 30 voted to move ahead with plans to allocate EUR 40 million over the next 10 years in restitution payments for Jewish properties seized during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic country and left unclaimed when Latvia regained its independence because 90 percent of Latvia’s wartime Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust.

The draft law, approved by a vote of 61 to 13 in the parliament, is an act of good will toward Latvia’s Jewish community and assumes…