Serbia returns property taken away during the Holocaust to the Jewish community

BELGRADE, Serbia (AFP) - Aleksandar Lebl returned to Serbia in 1945 after escaping the extermination of Jews during World War II and reclaimed his family's confiscated home. But 93-year-old Lebl is one of the few Holocaust survivors in Serbia who have returned to rebuild their homes.

Many thousands of others were killed or left no heirs, and their property, confiscated by the Nazis or the puppet government in Belgrade, was incorporated into the communist state after the war.

Now, more than seventy years later, Serbia has passed a law offering some sort of reprieve to its now tiny Jewish community. One of the first of its kind in Eastern Europe, the 'law on reparations' 'childless property,' passed in February, provides for the transfer of thousands of formerly Jewish-owned buildings to the country's Association of Jewish Communities.

"After the war, the authorities decided to return the property, but because so many people were killed, no one was left to take most of it back," Lebl said. "Jewish society never recovered because the loss (of human life) was so great. "