LONDON. Apr 3: Britain apologized Friday for its "insensitive” treatment of 25.000 Nazi victims whose assets were seized during World War II, and promised a new compensation plan, reports AP.

Margaret Beckett. President of the Board of Trade, said the claims programme aimed to pay 100 million dollars owed to former Nazi victims, mainly Jews from Eastern Europe.

During World War II. under emergency legislation aimed at cutting off funds for Germany and its allies, the government froze the assets of thousands of people who had transferred their wealth to bank accounts in Britain to protect them from Nazi confiscation. The funds have been held since then in Britain's Central Bank, which is paying out the claims.

Although Britain's motives had been "well-intentioned,"

Beckett said, Those who dealt with these matters after the war were sometimes insensitive to the plight of Nazi victims.”

Beckett, said the government "Deeply regrets this, and I would like to apologies to those individuals and to their relatives and descendants."

Jewish groups in Britain welcomed the compensation initiative and the apology."

"This action Is a shining example of honour and decency." said Lord Janner. a former Labour politician and chairman of the Holocaust Education Trust.

Beckett said that the government would ask an Independent adviser "as a matter of urgency" to establish a repayment plan. The government, she said, would advance an initial 3 million dollars to establish the programme.

The minister's statement

was accompanied by a Foreign Office report Into Britain's treatment of Nazi victims’ wartime assets.

Beckett said the compensation scheme would largely help compensate the 25,000 people whose assets were seized by Britain during the war. and whose own Communist governments then refused to compensate them after the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

The report said that at the outset of World War II. Britain passed the Trading with the Enemy Act. freezing all assets belonging to Germany and its allies. A total of 587 million dollars. in 1939 exchange rates, was seized.

But besides preventing the Nazis from using funds held in Britain. Winston Churchill's wartime government also seized assets belonging to perse-

cuted citizens of Germany and its allies, who had moved money to Britain to prevent seizure by the Nazis.

Britain. Beckett said, returned most of the money after the war.

"As the report shows, most of the assets seized under the wartime legislation have either been returned to the original owners or been used to compensate British nationals under the post-war peace treaties." Beckett said.

Under those treaties, negotiated for Britain by the Department of Trade, countries agreed to compensate their own citizens for property lost in Britain, while Britain agreed to use confiscated assets to recompense its own citizens.

However, the Communist regimes in Bulgaria. Hungary and Rumania refused to com-

Knsate their own citizens who d sent assets to Britain, while Britain became reluctant to repay the three states’ own citizens directly, believing it no longer had an obligation to them.

The Foreign Office said about 100 million dollars, at current exchange rates, was believed to belong to Individuals who had placed money in Britain before the war and had not reclaimed It afterwards.

The general principle must be that confiscated assets placed in the UK by victims of Nazi persecution should be returned to them by the UK where practicable and where claims can be validated," Beckett said.

The government. Beckett said, would place on the Internet the names of the 25,000 individuals for whom some banking records still remained.

Lord Janner said Jewish or-

ganisations would help the government "to ensure repayment for the victims of Nazism who had placed their assets in Britain for safe keeping."

Eldred Tabachnik, president of the Board of British Jews, said that the government announcement was a "Move in the right direction." We hope that in a short time survivors and the relatives of victims of the Nazis will be able to reclaim what is rightfully theirs," Tabachnik said.

Last year, commercial banks in Switzerland established a 275 million franc (190 million dollars) fund to aid Holocaust victims, responding to criticism that Switzerland acted as Nazi Germany's banker and that Swiss banks dragged their heels In allowing Holocaust victims' heirs access to dormant assets.