Word: swiss
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JEWISH GOLD IN SWISS BANKS...
...relying on newly declassified documents, Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York has been holding public hearings and dispatching investigators to hear the stories of survivors like Estelle Sapir. Earlier this month the U.S. State Department announced a "thorough and immediate study" of what it knew about the Swiss handling of assets from Germany during and after the war. And in New York City this month, Holocaust survivors and heirs filed a $20 billion class action contending that Swiss banks improperly refused to return victims' money and other valuables on deposit. Says Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Philippe Tissieres: "This...
...spotlight has also found potentially an even darker corner of Swiss history. Last month the British Foreign Office released a 23-page report titled Nazi Gold: Information from the British Archives, which reveals that an immense amount of gold the Nazis looted from banks and private holdings in occupied countries ended up in Switzerland. Citing a Swiss banker who "let it slip," the report says some $500 million in Nazi gold was on deposit in Switzerland, a charge Bern vigorously denies. Not all of it was taken from captured central banks. Some was gold from the jewelry and teeth...
More disclosures may be coming. "We need to recognize there was guilt, and we have a responsibility for it," says Verena Grendelmeier, a Swiss member of parliament who has been pressing for an investigation for two years and is now getting action. Earlier this month the lower house of parliament voted unanimously to set up an independent panel of experts to look into wartime financial history. With approval by the upper house expected shortly, the commission is to start work next April. It will be authorized to penetrate all levels of secrecy inside the banks, but unfortunately for those...
...would be fitting if Sapir and all the other survivors treated callously by Swiss officialdom could now look forward to receiving vast amounts in restitution. At best, smaller amounts are more likely. But, says Bronfman, "This is not about money. This is about justice." The survivors have a right, at long last, to an honest reckoning, and Switzerland needs to repair its reputation for rectitude. Both sides have a strong interest in opening the books and answering the buried questions...