WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has appointed Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat as his special adviser on Holocaust Issues, the State Department announced on Monday.
“As the Secretary’s special adviser, Ambassador Eizenstat’s principal task will be to offer policy advice on contemporary Holocaust-related matters,” the statement reads. “He will do so in close coordination with the Department of State’s Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, Ellen Germain, in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and with the Office of International Claims and Investment Disputes in the Office of the Legal Adviser.”
Eizenstat previously served as former president Jimmy Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser and executive director of the White House domestic policy staff; president Bill Clinton’s undersecretary of state for economic, business, and agricultural Affairs (1997–1999); deputy secretary of the Treasury (1999–2001); and as the undersecretary of commerce for international trade at the International Trade Administration from 1996 to 1997. He held the same advisory position on Holocaust issues for secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and served as an expert adviser on Holocaust issues during the Trump administration.
“Ambassador Eizenstat brings with him extensive experience in resolving Holocaust claims and related disputes,” the State Department said in a statement. “As the Special Representative of the president and secretary of state on Holocaust-era issues during the administration of president Clinton, he negotiated landmark agreements with the Swiss, Germans, Austrians, French, and others covering the restitution of property, compensation payments to slave and forced laborers, recovery of looted art and bank accounts, and payment of insurance policies.”