Communicated by GPO Jerusalem, 25 August 1998 Press Conference on Agreement with Generali   A press conference on the understandings reached with the Generali insurance company was held on Thursday, 20.8.98, at Beit Agron in Jerusalem. In attendance were Bobby Brown, the Prime Minister's advisor on Diaspora Affairs, Deborah Senn, Insurance Commissioner for the State of Washington, and Avner Shalev, Director-General of Yad Vashem. In his opening remarks, Bobby Brown said that the agreement represents significant progress, establishing a process for Holocaust survivors with outstanding claims to begin seeking restitution. He pointed out that, as late as last April, Generali had yet to accept responsibility for pre-WWII policies written in Central and Eastern Europe. Brown stressed that the State of Israel has always maintained that the process is not only about material restitution, but also about bringing all relevant information into the public domain. He welcomed Generali's decision to offer $100 million in compensation, adding that this constitutes a giant step forward in the direction of a final settlement of all insurance claims -- with an international commission being created to evaluate the remaining claims of survivors. "The Nazis," Brown said, "not only killed Jews, but they also robbed them. The State of Israel has forthrightly come forward and said that we will stand for justice, and for a process whereby all information is made public -- since what was robbed from our people was not only money, but also their dignity and history. This is the beginning of the return of the dignity of the Jewish People." Deborah Senn noted that $100 million sum serves only as a "floor" -- in the belief that all outstanding claims could ultimately reach a total amount as high as $1 billion -- and that, according to estimates, Generali wrote at least one-third of all insurance policies in this market prior to the war. She also said that Generali had released a list of over 300,000 policy-holders to Yad Vashem, emphasizing the importance of the fact that these names have been transferred. Senn concluded that it is the responsibility of the insurance industry, when the time arrives, "to pay their claims." Avner Shalev said that, when Israel's Migdal insurance company was in the process of being acquired by Generali, Yad Vashem asked Generali for a list of Jews holding war-time policies. In keeping with their agreement, Yad Vashem consented not to make the Generali list available to the general public, but to reserve it for research purposes. At the same time, Shalev added that Yad Vashem supports Israeli government demands for Generali to permit the information to be made fully public. Responding to questions, Bobby Brown said that, last week, Zurich Insurance became the first company involved in the negotiations to sign a memorandum of understanding; Generali then followed suit. Brown noted: "This is the start of a process which will effect all companies, countries, organizations and individuals who thought that, by looting the survivors, they would not only be able to kill, but would also succeed in getting away with robbery."