Holocaust Claims Settled
Holocaust victims who deposited their savings in Swiss banks to keep it safe from the Nazis during World War II are going to get it back. This, after a landmark settlement worth more than $1 billion was reached with Swiss banks, reports News2 Reporter Marcia Kramer of CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City.
In response to Swiss banks' agreement to pay Holocaust survivors, New York City and state Thursday canceled proposed sanctions against the banks.
The sanctions, scheduled to start Sept. 1, were announced in July after negotiations between the banks and the Holocaust survivors had broken down.
Holocaust survivors never thought they'd see the day: the official announcement Swiss banks were ready to give them what is rightfully theirs.
"This is money that comes from the families - the grandfather or a grandmother or uncle or aunt," says survivor Estelle Saphir, a 73-year-old New York resident who was interred at the Rivsalte camp in France. "This is my family's money."
But, Kramer reports, after a two-year court battle and incredible arm-twisting on government officials, the deal was struck.
The Swiss are going to pay a "global settlement" worth about $1.5 billion with interest. That's nearly three times what they offered to pay just two months ago.
Attorney Ed Fagen started the ball rolling when he filed suit against the Swiss in October 1996.
"This is only the first step," Fagen said Wednesday. "There are other banks that we have identified that have been part of this whole robbery. [This] is only the first one. The rest should take a lesson from this."
The money will be paid out over four years for the life of all claims including dormant account claims against two commercial banks UBS AG and the Credit Suisse plus the Swiss National Bank, other Swiss banks, the Swiss government and Swiss industry, said Marc Cohen, a lawyer for the banks.
Tens of thousands of Holocaust victims deposited money in Swiss banks as the Nazis gained power in Europe, expecting to retrieve it later. But Jewish groups say bank officials stonewalled survivors and their heirs after World War II, claiming they could not find accounts or demanding death certificates.
The judge and the plaintiffs lawyers will develop a distribution plan to determine how the money will reach the plaintiffs and others.
"This needs to bring some measure of justice for past wrongs," said Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a New York Republican who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and who kept pressure on the Swiss to reach an agreement.
Surrounded by Germany, Nazi-occupied France and Nazi-allied Italy, wartime Switzerland took in nearly 30,000 Jews during World War II. But it turned away an equal number, many of them to a certain death.
"The settlement finally puts to rest some of the sad and ugly past of the Swiss," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of te Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.