About FHV

Our mission

• We care. We help elderly Holocaust survivors in their old age.
• We remember. We support educational and pious commemorative events remembering Holocaust victims.
• We think ahead. We help to preserve traditions – we support education about Judaism and the development of Jewish communities.
• We restore. We participate in the restoration of Jewish monuments destroyed by the Nazi and by Communist totalitarian regimes.
• We compensated. We helped to rectify and mitigate the property injustices caused during WWII.

We know who and how

We carefully and effectively control our financial funds, and selectively distribute them among applicants for financial support. In the long term, we map the situation in the Czech Republic and follow up on organizations working in the same or similar areas. This enable us to know where to focus our support.

We are professionals

The Foundation for Holocaust Victims is a non-governmental organization, established in 2000 by the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic. It is managed by the Board of Directors. Five members of the Board of Directors are nominated by the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic and one each are nominated by the Vice-Chairman of the Czech Government, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Culture, and the Minister of Finance.

We are a member

We are a member of the Association of Foundations of Donors Forum. Membership of this professional association binds us to the Principles of Ethical Behaviour of Foundations. In April 2007, we became members of the International Auschwitz Committee. This committee was founded with the following aims: to let the world know what happened in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps, to look after the interests of the survivors, and to encourage and support the contacts between the national Auschwitz committees.

FHV’s history

The Foundation for Holocaust Victims mirrors in many ways the long-term effort of the Joint Work Committee on Property Injustices to Holocaust Victims, which worked from 1998 to 2002. Under the leadership of former Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Pavel Rychetský, the Committee focused on studying the history of the Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens and, in particular, on the aryanization of property in the territory of today’s Czech Republic.

At the instigation of the Joint Work Committee, Act No. 212/2000 Coll., on the mitigation of certain property injustices caused by the Holocaust, was adopted by the Parliament of the Czech Republic on 20 June 2000. One of the key proposals of the Joint Work Committee included the establishment of a foundation that would perform long-term work on mitigating injustices caused by the Holocaust. The foundation would receive funds from the so-called Foundation Investment Fund, which originated during the privatization of state property.

The Joint Work Committee claimed, that a part of this property had been owned by Jewish individuals and legal entities and, as such, had been confiscated during the Nazi occupation. The original owners – had they survived the Holocaust – had not their property returned to them, due mostly to formal reasons. The property thus remained in the hands of the state. On the basis of the conclusions and recommendations of the Joint Work Committee, the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic established the Foundation for Holocaust Victims on 31 July 2000.

http://www.fedzid.czweb.org/
http://www.donorsforum.cz/
http://www.auschwitz.info/