Confiscated Assets

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center today will announce a new Web site designed to help Holocaust victims and their families track down financial assets that were confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. The site, at https://www.livingheirs.com, will feature a database with the names of about 50,000 Jews who were ordered by the Third Reich to turn over bank accounts, insurance policies and other assets. The site is part of the Living Heirs Project, which is sponsored by Avotaynu, a Jewish genealogy service; Risk International Services, a claim recovery firm; and Ancestry.com, an Internet start-up that specializes in genealogy.