Ambassador Christian Kennedy, a U.S. diplomat seeking compensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors and descendants of victims said Wednesday that cash payments have reached about $8 billion but negotiations for more have so far remained fruitless.

Kennedy and a delegation of Holocaust survivors addressed the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, and insisted negotiations for more payments continue. They complained that life insurance and other policies held by Holocaust victims have been ignored by European insurance companies and that compensation for property seized by the Nazis or the communist governments that followed them in Eastern and Central Europe was insufficient.

"With so much loss of life and the horrors of the Holocaust, there can never be adequate compensation to the victims, particularly at this late date," Kennedy said. "Our work surely embodies an effort to obtain 'imperfect justice.' But I am confident the results we achieved could not have been approached, let alone achieved, had the victims and heirs been left to contend with the uncertainties and costs of litigation," he added.