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Swiss Bank Account 2

The injustices devoted versus millions of Europe's Jews did not end with the fall of the Third Reich. Long after the Nazis had seized the belongings of Holocaust victims, Swiss banks concealed and appropriated their assets, demanding that their survivors construct the death certificates or banking records of the depositors in order to assert their family's property--demands that were normally inconceivable for the petitioners to meet. Now the full account of the Holocaust deposits affair is revealed by the journalist who primary broke the story in 1995. Relying on archival and contemporary sources, Itamar Levin describes the Jewish people's decades-long effort to return death camp victims' sum totals to their rightful heirs. Levin also uncovers the truth in regards to the conduct of Swiss banking institutions, their complicity with the Nazis, and their formidable power over even their own "neutral" government. From the basi try to settle the fate of German property in neutral countries at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, through the heated negotiations following publication of Levin's investigative article in 1995, to the Swiss banks' extreme agreement to a $1.25 billion payment in 1997, the pursuit of restitution is a story of delaying tactics and legal complicatednesses of almost unimaginable dimensions. Terrified that the established and highly marketable wall of secrecy surrounding the Swiss banks would tumble and destruct the industry, the banks' managements were dismissive and uncooperative in determining the emplacement and extent of the summations in question, forcing the United States, other European countries, and Jewish organizations global to apply vast pressure for a just resolution. The details and the central characters involved in this struggle, as well as new info with regards to Switzerland's debatable policies for the duration of World War II, are arousing and attention holding reading for anybody concerned with the Holocaust and it is aftermath.

From Library JournalLevin, an Israeli journalist, has become an authority on the question of dormant Jewish funds in Swiss banks through his investigations for the Israeli business each and everyday Globes, and he has likewise written The Last Chapter of the Holocaust? The Struggle Over the Restitution of Jewish Property in Europe. He shows the callousness of the Swiss banks both after the war and later on when the issue exploded in the early 1990s, as the banks initial claimed to have 775 dormant accounts but then had to confess the number was closer to 64,000. Although the book was initial published in Hebrew in 1998, the author has included galore info from the Volcker Commission from early 1999. Tom Bower's Nazi Gold (LJ 5/15/97) is even more critical of Switzerland, peculiarly of it is activenesses for the duration of the war, but Bower did not use the Israeli archives that Levin did. For an account by an insider, libraries may consider Swiss Banks and Jewish Souls (Transaction, 1999) by Gregg J. Rickman, a former aide to former New York Senator Alphonse D'Amato. Recommended for all libraries.AJohn A. Drobnicki, York Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus ReviewsA arid and rather pedantic account that fails to capture the drama of a momentous episode of 20th-century history. Although the basic lines of the story told herehow Nazi Germany stripped European Jews of their sum totals and deposited them in Swiss banksare now known, new data appears allround this chronicle by Levin, Deputy Editor in Chief of GlobesIsrael's Business Newspaper and one of the initial to break the story. Sent to cover the recreational habits of orthodox Jews in Switzerland, he was told for the duration of a prospect encounter with Yehuda Blum, former Israeli ambassador to the UN, that the ``real story'' was the record of the Nazi confiscation of Jewish pluses and the complicity of Swiss banks then and over the next 50 years. His retelling, however, is burdened with minutiae, documents, and photographs that hamper the narrative. The heavy prose (perhaps the fault of the translator) is not enlivened by the finer details of Swiss banking laws. Levin does attack the myth of ``Swiss neutrality'' and underscores the criminal nature of the Nazi regimesomething often overlooked in more scholarly tomes. And he reveals the way the scandal has provoked a new wave of anti-Semitism, betrayed for instance in a Swiss bankers atypically blunt outburst that ``the Jews murdered in Auschwitz were barefoot; they didn't have bank accounts in Switzerland.'' Levin reveals that the Jews did without doubt have bank accounts, that the Nazis confiscated them, and that the Swiss knowingly collaborated in massive theft. Afterwards, the same Swiss banks demanded death certificates from survivors claiming accounts left by relatives who had perished in the Holocaust. As effective as they were, the Nazis, alas, failed to provide such documents, and the cash remained in Switzerland. Levin provides flashes of moral fire, but they are few and far between. An essential tale that could have been told better. (9 b&w photos) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review“The Last Deposit and Swiss Banks and Jewish Souls tell their perplexed story with passion....[h]elpful in chronicling the venture versus the swiss banks.”–Studies In Contemporary Jewry An Annual XVIII

“Levin...has become an authority on the question of dormant Jewish funds in Swiss banks through his investigations for the Israel business each day Globes....Recommended for all libraries.”–Library Journal

“Although the basic lines of the story told here...are now known, new data appears all around this chronicle by Levin, Deputy Editor in Chief of Globes-Israel's Business Newspaper and one of the introductory to break the story.”–Kirkus Reviews

“The dimension of the robbery is so vast, so expansive, that I believe Itamar Levin's book is just the beginning of the revelations yet to come...This will not atone the deeds already done, and surely not the loss of life, but there could be no more outstanding mission of humane justice.”–from the foreword by Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Knesset

“The fact that a series of countries, beneath international pressure and with the courage of a new generation, are dealing with the darker chapters of the past, proves the moral importance of the struggle.”–from the foreword by Israel Singer Secretary General, World Jewish Congress and Edgar Bronfman President, World Jewish Congress