Word: swiss
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...Switzerland's Bloch reminds, there is "no Ali Baba cave under the Swiss National Bank, filled with gold and jewels." The dormant accounts will probably yield little cash, and how will anyone know how much of the $68 million in Nazi gold the Allies have left was taken from Jews rather than from national treasuries? Whatever money is eventually deemed to belong to the Jews will never be more than a tiny fraction of what was taken so viciously from them. Something akin to the truth may well be all that is left to solace them...
Number 45 Bahnhofstrasse is an imposing building in central Zurich. Its monumental columns are topped by the sculpted heads of a peasant patriot, a mother, the god Mercury and William Tell, the mythic Swiss hero. This secular temple is the main branch of the Union Bank of Switzerland. Inside, there are acres of reddish brown Tessin marble. The ornate overhead moldings frame a 20-ft. by 30-ft. skylight. A uniformed guard approaches: "Who are you? What are you doing? Identification papers, please." Is this brusque aggressiveness necessary? "I am only following orders," he says in German...
...Swiss banks have been following orders for the past 50 years. And for most of that time, one standing order has been to stall and stonewall when Holocaust survivors ask about their dead relatives' accounts. Passbook, please; death certificate, please; that's the law; those are the orders...
...orders are changing. Under pressure from home and abroad, two high-level commissions named by the Swiss government are examining the issues of Holocaust-era bank accounts; Swiss gold purchases and commerce with the Nazis; and the country's less than hospitable treatment of Jewish and other refugees. The poking and prodding are forcing the Swiss into an uncomfortable bout of national soul searching in which their image as a proud neutral country--founder of the Red Cross, defender of democratic values, oasis of peace and multiethnic harmony--is being challenged by a more sinister image: that of a self...
...Swiss are not alone in examining their conscience--and account books--in these closing years of the 20th century. The Swedish government has ordered a commission to look into its purchases of Nazi gold and the bank accounts of Jews who died in the war. The Bank of Portugal is examining the origins of the nearly 300 tons of gold it bought from the Nazis. In France investigations are now under way to identify confiscated Jewish properties owned by the city of Paris and stolen artworks held by the Louvre and other museums...