AMSTERDAM — (JTA) Dutch banks and the Amsterdam stock exchange agreed to pay compensation for assets looted from Holocaust victims, according to a Jewish group.

The Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands said the exact amount of money still needs to be determined. "We consider this a step forward," group spokesman Ronnie Naftaniel told reporters.

"They accept that they have created damage to the Jewish community, that they feel responsibility for this damage and they want to pay."

Argentine leader says he's remorseful

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Argentina's president apologized for his country's role in harboring Nazis after World War II.

Fernando de la Rua, in Washington on Tuesday, promised to pursue any Nazis who may still be at large. He also vowed to launch a new investigation into the bombings of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish center in 1994, two attacks in the capital city that killed more than 100 people and left hundreds of others wounded.

Canadian novelist wins book award

TORONTO (JTA) — Author Nancy Huston won top honors and a $1,000 prize for her novel, "The Mark of the Angel," at the 12th annual Canadian Jewish Book Awards.

The novel tells the story of a quiet German girl who becomes housekeeper, then wife, to a Parisian musician during the 1950s.

Taking her husband's flute to a repair shop in the Jewish Marais District, she falls into a passionate affair with the instrument's maker, a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor.

As in previous years, the Holocaust was a predominant theme among the prize-winning books.

Alleged Nazi aide declared fit for trial

MOSCOW (JTA) — A Lithuanian medical commission decided that a 92-year-old suspected Nazi-era war criminal is fit to stand trial, according to one of the judges.

The trial of Aleksandras Lileikis was suspended last September, when lawyers cited his poor health.

Lileikis is accused of handing at least 75 Jews over to Nazi death squads during World War II while he was a top official in the Nazi-sponsored Lithuanian security police.

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