The Holocaust Industry (20 page)

(1 December 1999). Devlin Barrett, "Holocaust Assets," in
New York Post
(2 December 1999).

Stewart Ain, "Religious Strife Erupts In Swiss Money Fight," in
Jewish Week
(14 January 2000)

("angle»). Adam Dickter, "Discord in the court," in
Jewish Week
(21 January 2000). Swiss Fund for

Needy victims of the Holocaust/Shoa, "Overview on Finances, Payments and Pending Applications"

(30 November 1999). Holocaust survivors in Israel never received any of the Special Fund monies

earmarked for them; see Yair Sheleg, ''surviving Israeli Bureaucracy," in
Haaretz
(6 February 2000).

39
Burt Neuborne, "Totaling the sum of Swiss Guilt," in
New York Times
(24 June 1998). Hearings

before the committee on Banking and Financial services, House of Representatives, 11 December

1996. "Holocaust-Konferenz in Stockholm," in
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(26 January 2000)

(Bronfman).

40
Independent commission of Experts, Switzerland - Second World war,
Switzerland and Gold

Transactions in the Second World War, Interim Report
(Bern: 1998).

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41
Hearings before the committee on Banking and Financial services, House of Representatives, 11

December 1996. Called as an expert witness, university of North Carolina historian Gerhard L.

Weinberg sanctimoniously testified that the "position of the Swiss Government at the time and m the

immediate postwar years was always that looting
is
legal," and that "priority number one'' of the Swiss

banks was "making as much money as possible . . . and to do so regardless of the legalities, morality

and decency or anything else." (Hearings before the committee on Banking and Financial services,

House of Representatives, 25 June 1997)

42
Raymond W. Baker, "The Biggest Loophole in the Free-Market system," in
Washington Quarterly

(Autumn 1999). Although not sanctioned by US law, much of the $500 billion-$1 trillion annually

"laundered" from the drug trade is also "safely deposited into US banks." (ibid.)

43
Ziegler,
The Swiss,
xii; cf. 19, 26s.

44
Switzerland and Gold Transactions in the Second World War,
IV, 48.

45
Independent Committee of Eminent Persons,
Report on Dormant Accounts of Victims of Nazi

Persecution in Swiss Banks
(Bern 1999). (hereafter
Report)

46
The "external cost" of the audit was put at $200 million.
(Report, p.
4, paragraph 17) The cost to

the Swiss banks was put at another $300 million. (Swiss Federal Banking commission, press release, 6

December 1999)

47
Report,
Annex s, p. 81, paragraph 1 (cf. Part I, pp. 1 3 - 1 5, paragraphs 41-9).

48
Report:
Part I, p. 6, paragraph 22 ("no evidence"); Part I, p. 6, paragraph 23 (banking laws and

percentage); Annex 4, p. s8, paragraph s ("truly extraordinary") and Annex s, p. 81, paragraph 3

("truly remarkable") (cf. Part I, p. 15, paragraph 47, Part I, p. 17, paragraph s8, Annex 7, p. 107,

paragraphs 3, 9)

49
"The Deceptions of Swiss Banks," in
New York Times
(7 December 1999).

50
Report,
Annex s, p. 81, paragraph 2.
Report,
Annex s, pp. 87 - 8, paragraph 27 "There are a variety

of explanations for the substantial under-reporting in the early surveys, but some of the main causes

can be attributed to the Swiss banks' use of narrow definitions of 'dormant' accounts; their exclusion of

certain types of accounts from their searches or inadequate research; their failure to investigate

accounts under certain minimum balances; or their failure to consider account holders to be victims of

Nazi violence or persecution umless relatives made such claims at the bank."

51
Repon, p.
10, paragraph 30 ("possible or probable"); p. 20, paragraphs 73-5(significant probability

for 25,000 accounts).
Repon,
Annex 4, pp. 65-7, paragraphs 20-6, and p. 72, paragraphs 40-3 (current

values). In accordance with the
Repon
recommendation, the Swiss Federal Banking Commission

agreed in March 2000 to publish the 25,000 account names. ("Swiss Federal Banking Commission

Follows Voleker Recommendations," press release, 30 March 2000)

52
Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, House of Representatives, 9

February 2000 (quoted from Voleker's prepared testimony). Compare the caveats entered by the Swiss

Federal Banking Commission that "all indications on possible current values of accounts identified are

essentially based on assumptions and projections," and that "only in the case of about 1,200 accounts .

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. . has actual evidence be [sicl found, supported by contemporary in-house banking sources, that the

account owners were actually victims of the Holocaust." (press release, 6 December 1999)

53
Repon, p.
2, paragraph 8 (cf. p. 23, paragraph 92).
Report,
Appendix S. p. A134; for a more precise

breakdown, cf. pp. A-135ff.

54
Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Financial services, House of Representatives, 25

June 1997 (quoted from Rubin's prepared testimony). i For background, see Seymour J. Rubin and

Abba P. Schwartz, "Refugees and Reparations," in
Law and Contemporary Problems
[Duke

University School of Law 1951], 286 - 9)

55
Hearings before the committee on Banking and Financial Services, House of Representatives, 25

June 1997.

56
Switzerland's population stood at 4 million for the Relevant Period of 1933 - 45 as compared to the

US population of over 130 million. Every Swiss bank accoumt opened, closed or dormant during these

years was audited by the Volcker committee.

57
Levin,
Last Deposit,
23. Bower,
Nazi Gold,
256. Bower deems this
Swiss
demand "unanswerable

rhetoric." Unanswerable no doubt, but
why
rhetoric?

58
Rickman,
Swiss Banks,
194 - 5.

59
Bower,
Nazi Gold,
350-1. Akiva Eldar, "UK: Israel Didn't Hand Over Compensation to

Survivors," in
Haaretz (21
February 2000). Judy Dempsey, "Jews Find It Hard to Reclaim wartime

Property In Israel," in
Financial Times
(1 April 2000). Jack Katzenell, "Israel Has WWII Assets," in

Associated Press
(13 April 2000). Joel Greenberg, "Hunt for Holocaust victims' Property Turns in

New Direction: Toward Israel," in
New York Times (15
April 2000). Akiva Eldar, People and

Politics," in
Haaretz
(27 April 2000).

60
For information on the Commission, see
www.pcha.gov
(Bronfman quoted from a 21 November

1999 commission press release).

61
Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Financial services, House of Representatives, 9

February 2000.

62
Levin,
Last Deposit,
223, 204. "Swiss Defensive About WWII Role," in
Associated Press (15

March 2000).
Time
(24 February 1997) (Bronfman).

63
Levin,
Last Deposit,
224.

64
Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Financial services, House of Representatives, 14

September 1999.

65
Yair
Sheleg, "Not Even Minimum
Wage,"
in
Haaretz
(6 October 1999). William Drozdiak,

"Germans Up Offer to Nazis' Slave Laborers," in
Washington Post
(18 November 1999). Burt

Herman, "Nazi Labor Talks End Without Pact," in
Forward
(20 November 1999). "Bayer's
Biggest

Headache," in
New York Times (5
October
1999).
Jan Cienski, "Wartime Slave-Labour Survivors' Ads

Hit Back," in
National Post (7
October 1999). Edmund L. Andrews, "Germans To Set Up $5.1 Billion

Fund For Nazis' Slaves," in
New York Times
(15 December 1999). Edmund L. Andrews, "Germany

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Accepts $5.1 billion Accord to End Claims of Nazi Slave Workers," in
New York Times
(18 December

1999). Allan Hall, "Slave Labour List Names 255 German Companies," in
The Times
(London) (9

December 1999). Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, House of

Representatives, 9 February 2000 (quoted from Eizenstat's prepared testimony).

66
Sagi,
German Reparations,
161. Probably a quarter of the Jewish slave laborers received such a

pension, my late father (an Auschwitz inmate) among them. In fact, the Claims Conference's figure in

the current negotiations for Jewish slave laborers still alive is based on those already receiving

pensions and compensation from Germany! (German Parliament, 92nd session, 15 March 2000)

67
Zweig,
German Reparations and the Jewish World,
98; cf. 25.

68
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, "Position Paper — Slave Labor.

Proposed Remembrance and Responsibility Fund" ( 15 June 1999). Netty C. Gross, "$5.1-Billion

Slave Labor Deal Could Yield Little Cash For Jewish Claimants," in
Jerusalem Report
(31 January

2000). zvi Lavi, "KIeiner (Herut) Germany Claims Conference Has Become Judenrat, Carrying on

Nazi ways,', in
Globes
(24 February 2000). Yair Sheleg, "MK Kleiner The Claims Conference Does

Not Transfer Indemnifications to Shoah survivors," in
Haaretz
(24 February 2000).

69
Hearings before the committee on Banking and Financial Services, House of Representatives, 9

February 2000. Yair Sheleg, "Staking a Claim to Jewish Claims," in Haarerz (31 March 2000).

70
Henry Friedlander, "Darkness and Dawn in 1945 The Nazis, the Allies, and the Survivors," in us

Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1945 — The Year of Liberation
(Washington: 1995), 11-35.

Dinnerstein,
America and the Surnvors of the Holocaust,
28. Israeli historian Shlomo Shafir reports

«the estimate of Jewish survivors at the end of the war in Europe vary from 50,000 to 70,000"

(Ambiguous Relations,
384nl). Friedlander's total figure for surviving slave laborers, Jewish and

non-Jewish, is standard; see Benjamin Ferencz,
Less Than Slaves
(Cambridge: 1979) —

"approximately half a million persons were found more or less alive in the camps that were liberated

by the Allied armies" (xvii; cf. 240n5).

71
Stuart Eizenstat, Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Chief

US Envoy in German Slave-Labor Negotiations, State Department Briefing, 12 May 1999.

72
See Eizenstat's "remarks" at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and

Austria Annual Meeting (New York: 14 July 1999).

73
Toby Axelrod, "$5.2 Billion Slave-Labor Deal Only the Start," in
Jewish Bulletin
(12 December