2013 Moment Magazine International
Humanitarian Award Recipient

During a decade and a half of public service in three U.S. administrations, Ambassador Eizenstat has held a number of key senior positions, including chief White House domestic policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter (1977-1981); U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration (1993-2001).

Much of the interest in providing belated justice for victims of the Holocaust was the result of his leadership of the Clinton Administration as Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State on Holocaust-Era Issues. He successfully negotiated major agreements with several European nations for the restitution of property, payment for slave and forced laborers, recovery of looted art, bank accounts, and payment of insurance policies. His book on these events, Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II, has been translated into German, French, Czech and Hebrew.

Ambassador Eizenstat has been awarded high civilian awards from the governments of France (Legion of Honor), Germany, Austria and Belgium, as well as from Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers.

He is also Chairman of the Board of the Defiant Requiem Foundation, which honors Holocaust prisoners in Terezín, Czech Republic, and their inspired artistic endeavor to perform the Verdi Requiem while in captivity.

Ambassador Eizenstat was born in Atlanta in 1943. He is a cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of Harvard Law School. He was married to the late Frances Eizenstat and has two sons and five grandchildren.