Many people don’t know that during The Holocaust, the Nazis and their collaborators not only committed the most horrific genocidal murder in history, but also orchestrated a massive theft of the European Jewish people’s assets.

While no one can ever repay us for the murder of our loved ones, the insurance companies that profited from The Holocaust such as Allianz, Generali, AXA and others have never been held accountable, and that is wrong.

Tragically, we who suffered these unspeakable horrors have been stripped of our rights by the U.S. legal and political system. Today survivors, including many who served in the U.S. military after arriving here, are the only American citizens who cannot go to court to sue an insurance company who dishonored a family policy. With half of all survivors in this great land living in or near poverty, it’s an outrage that these companies have failed to honor over $20 billion for insurance policies that our parents and grandparents bought and paid for.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has led a bipartisan effort including the entire South Florida congressional delegation and our two U.S. senators to enact legislation to restore survivors’ legal rights. However, the Obama administration has been supporting the insurance companies, saying Holocaust survivors shouldn’t have the same rights as every other American to go to court against a predatory insurance company.

This is shocking because in 2008, the Obama-Biden campaign solicited survivors’ public support to reassure Jewish voters about the ticket. Many in the survivor leadership obliged and were given repeated high-level assurances that once elected the Obama administration would support us. However, since the first days of this administration, our pleas to President Obama to help restore our rights and to forge a solution to the problems facing so many survivors have been ignored. President Obama will be in Miami this week to raise money for his 2012 campaign.

It is imperative, Mr. President, that you meet with the survivor leadership when you are here so you can hear from us how devastating it is for us to be opposed by your administration, and discuss ways your administration can help survivors today. Time is our mortal enemy and we cannot bear any more delays.

David Schaecter, president, Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA, Miami