US religious group wins historic court case against Russia

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has ruled against the Russian government for its refusal to return a library of historic books and documents to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Centuries of Chabad documents were seized by the Nazis, and then transferred by the capturing Soviet army who subsequently delivered them to the Russian State Military Archive. For years, the Chabad movement has attempted to reclaim control of its historic collections. Months ago, attorneys for Chabad successfully won permission to seek a default judgment to reclaim the collection when Russia boycotted the U.S. courts.

On July 30, 2010, District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued the default judgment. The Russian government has been directed to surrender to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, or to representatives of Chabad, the complete collection of religious books, manuscripts, documents and all things that comprise the collection. The Court further ordered the defendants to assist in the authorized transfer of the collection, to further provide whatever security and authorization is needed to insure prompt, safe transportation of the collection to a destination of the plaintiff’s choosing. Judge Lamberth asked plaintiff attorneys to report their progress within 30 days.

By way of information, Russia was sued in a United States federal court in November, 2004 by Chabad, which had exhausted diplomatic efforts over a 20-year period to bring its sacred books and manuscripts to the United States, where the Hasidic movement has its international headquarters. With the support of American Presidents beginning with Ronald Reagan, endorsed by unanimous resolutions of the United States Senate, and with the active support of Vice-President Al Gore, Chabad had obtained a series of promises from Russia’s top leaders that these venerated documents and volumes would be restored to their rightful owners.

When Moscow’s promises were not kept and litigation was the only recourse, Chabad invoked American law. The group cited a recent Supreme Court decision concerning paintings taken unlawfully from Jewish owners during the Holocaust. The litigation was initiated by Marshall B. Grossman and Seth M. Gerber of the Bingham McCutchen law firm, and when the case was transferred to Washington, D.C., Nathan and Alyza Lewin of the law firm Lewin and Lewin as well as W. Bradford Reynolds of the Howrey law firm joined as counsel.

At first Russia tried to fight the case. It hired prestigious international lawyers to argue in the United States courts that Russia enjoyed a sovereign right not to return the papers and that American courts had no jurisdiction to hear and determine Chabad’s claim. On June 13, 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously agreed that the federal courts did indeed possess jurisdiction. The District Court was directed to decide the case. It was then that Moscow simply walked away from the court proceedings, in effect daring American judges to enforce a decision in Russia.

Moscow authorities fired its American lawyers and simply declared, “This Court has no authority to enter orders with respect to the property.” Nathan Lewin called the move “brazen” and “a contemptuous slap in the face of the United States courts which squarely rejected the very legal position that Russia now asserts unilaterally.”

The saga begins in 1915, during World War I, when the advancing German army was approaching Lubavitch in Russia. Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer (the “Fifth Rebbe”) fled with his family and followers, taking with him as many of the key books and manuscripts as he could carry. He sent the balance of the books for safe keeping in storerooms belonging to the Persits family in Moscow. The Bolshevik revolution and the ensuing Civil War prevented the Fifth Rebbe from ever accessing to his books again.

The Bolshevik revolutionaries seized the library in 1917. In 1924, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) took possession of the books, storing them at what is now known as the Russian State Library. The books remain at that location today.

Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, the “sixth Rebbe,” maintained and augmented the original archival collection for the benefit of the worldwide Lubavitch community. In 1927, the Soviets arrested the Sixth Rebbe, incarcerating him at Spalerno prison in Leningrad. There, he was interrogated, tortured, and sentenced to death. Under pressure from Western governments, Rabbi Schneersohn was permitted to leave the USSR in 1927 and settle in Riga, Latvia, where he became a citizen. In 1933, he moved to Warsaw, Poland. The archival collection was carried with him when he settled in Latvia and again when he eventually settled in Poland. In fact, the USSR provided the Sixth Rebbe with documentation permitting him to take the archive documents, thus disavowing any ownership by the USSR.

World War II began at dawn on September 1, 1939 when Nazi Germany launched its infamous Blitzkrieg against Poland, invading from the West. Seventeen days later, the Soviets attacked Poland from the East. The Sixth Rebbe remained in Warsaw throughout its bombardment and fall to Nazi Germany. With the intercession of the U.S. Department of State and others, Rabbi Schneersohn was eventually given safe passage back to Riga, Latvia. From there, he relocated to Stockholm, and finally arrived in the United States on March 19, 1940. Later, he became an American citizen.
When the Sixth Rebbe was rescued from Poland, he ws unable to take the archive, and the precious documents remained in Poland throughout World War II. The Soviet Army occupied eastern Poland from September 1939 until June 1941, when Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. Days after overrunning Auschwitz in mid-January 1945, the fast moving Soviet Army liberated Warsaw from Nazi Germany.

During Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland, the Nazis looted and destroyed religious assets as part of its genocidal campaign to exterminate the Jews. Some iconic religious items however were preserved as trophies.

In the ashes of the 1945 liberation, and for decades thereafter, the fate of the Lubavitch archive remained a mystery. However, in the 1970s, a portion of the archive was found in Poland and returned by the Polish government to the group. Those recovered archival documents were sent to the organization’s central library in New York. Chabad always believed the balance of the archival collection was taken by the Soviets as war booty after World War II and transported for storage at the Russian Military Archive.

For decades, Russian authorities concealed the existence and whereabouts of the archive. For example, in 2000, the Russian Military Archive spurned Chabad’s request to inspect how much, if any, of its materials in Russian hands remained intact. Not until the 2003-2004 timeframe was Chabad able to confirm the existence and presence of the archive.

During the 1990s, Russian President Boris Yeltsin gave explicit assurance to then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush's emissary, Secretary of State James Baker, that the Russian government would return the library of religious books and manuscripts to Chabad-Lubavitch.

“The return of these sacred materials to their proper home is long overdue,” said Lewin, one of the attorneys representing Agudas Chabad. “Russia should finally do what is right and not make it necessary for the Chabad community to enforce this judgment with the civil contempt remedies that are well-known and frequently invoked in American courts.”

“This victory is a triumph for justice for the Jewish people and others who abhor the Nazi and Soviet exploitation of victims of genocide, and the unlawful and immoral suppression of religious faith by the current Russian government,” said Seth Gerber. Wm. Bradford Reynolds added: “The District Court has correctly found that these most revered religious writings were unlawfully taken and for far too long withheld by the Russian government, and has ordered that they now must be returned to their rightful owners. With this decision, we are close to the end of a long journey, and trust that we will soon have these sacred texts back in our possession.” Attorney Grossman urged the Russian government to “respect the order of the court and return the collection promptly.”

Attorney Nat Lewin said that if the Russian archives did not comply, he was prepared to commence an action seeking steep daily contempt fines that would be levied against Russian assets in the United States.