Word: swiss
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that is what comes of keeping grievances green, what does one make of the constantly returning memory of the Holocaust, of the refrain "Never forget! Never again!"? Specifically, what does one make now of the Jewish initiative to reopen the Swiss banks' World War II books in order to recover Jewish money deposited there, in the snug, smug, neutral Alps, as Hitler's apocalypse descended...
...bore and a kind of chronic blackmail, a moral collection racket. In an entirely different way, there are also Israelis who object to Holocaust remembering, because they think it a sign of weakness or at least of unproductive obsession. Some Jews who favor pressing the case against Swiss banks recall a bitter joke: in czarist Russia, two Jews are lined up against the wall to be shot; the captain of the firing squad asks if there is a last request. One Jew replies, "I believe I am entitled to a last cigarette"; the second whispers anxiously, "Max, don't make...
...case of the Swiss and the Holocaust plays interesting variations on the theme of remembering and forgetting. The Swiss for decades have nestled complacently in the myth of their wartime virtue. They were neutral in their fastness. Their mountains and their citizen army kept the Germans off and preserved their tidy civilization...
...Swiss--some at least--enjoy the gift of selective forgetting. In fact, the Swiss had a very good war, financially speaking, while all around them the world was coming...
...report and write this week's cover story on the Holocaust bank accounts and Nazi gold. It turned out to be something of a journalistic U-turn as well. "Previously my reporting in Switzerland was limited to the occasional business item," says Sancton. "Suddenly I was confronted with a Swiss story of major proportions, one with intrigue, human drama and historical scope." The tale, as Sancton tells it, is broader than Swiss banks and gold ingots. "It's all part of a great reckoning that is taking place as the world prepares to turn the page on the 20th century...