Swiss Holocaust cash revealed to be myth

The London Times ^ | OCTOBER 13 2001 | ADAM SAGE IN PARIS AND ROGER BOYES IN BERLIN

[£inuxgruven]

MOST dormant Swiss bank accounts thought to have belonged to Holocaust survivors were opened by wealthy, non-Jewish people who then forgot about their money.

The announcement marks the end of a four-year independent investigation into the archives and vaults of the world’s most secretive banking system. It will come as a disappointment to many Jewish families, who were sure that their dead relatives left behind fortunes in Switzerland.

A 17-member tribunal based in Zurich was set up in 1997 to investigate the identities of 5,500 foreign accounts and 10,000 Swiss accounts that have lain dormant since the end of the Second World War.

The tribunal said that it had processed about 10,000 claims in response to the list of dormant account names published by the Swiss Bankers’ Association five years ago. Only 200 accounts — containing £6.9 million — could be traced to Holocaust victims.

“It was a very difficult and often sad process,” Alexander Jolles, the secretary-general of the Independent Claims Tribunal, said. “When we first set up the tribunal, we were sure that nearly all these accounts would be those of Nazi victims. But few were.”

Seventy-nine per cent of the accounts declared dormant by the Swiss banks were traced to wealthy families who had lost trace of their money.

One French family told researchers that they had simply forgotten about the SwFr200,000 placed in a Swiss account before the war.

Mr Jolles said that many of the accounts were small, with only 5 per cent containing more than SwFr100,000 (£42,300). About half contained less than SwFr1,000 and a third held less than SwFr100. The smallest contained SwFr0.08.

“I would guess that the holders withdrew money from them during the war and then left a small sum in them, which was subsequently forgotten about,” he said. “These people were not poor. They were pretty much the same sort of people who would put their money in Swiss bank accounts today.

“The biggest groups were French and Americans, but there were also Italians, Germans and others. Some were no doubt aristocrats, but by no means all.”

The biggest account was a securities investment containing SwF4 million that was handed to a wealthy southern European family. “Two generations had gone by and the descendants who are alive today had lost trace of this money. It had just gone on growing in the meantime.”

Many of the accounts were opened in the 1920s when Switzerland was seen, as it still is, as a haven in a troubled world. In 1936, a large number of French aristocrats and industrialists placed money there after a radical left-wing Government came to power. At least one account dated from the 19th century.

Claims were filed for about half the 5,570 foreign-owned accounts discovered. “In prewar days, a hotel address was sufficient to open an account,” Mr Jolles said. “So finding the truth was extremely difficult.

“We had claimants from 70 different countries speaking more than 15 different languages, and co-ordinating these people and drawing up their family trees has been a complicated business. Sometimes we had 125 people claiming the same account. Since there was no way of distinguishing between them, the banks had to pay out to all of them.”

Switzerland came under heavy criticism in 1997-98 for its reluctance to consider wartime claims. The United States threatened it with sanctions and relatives of Holocaust victims launched class action lawsuits in the US.

The Swiss banks agreed to a settlement of $1.5 billion (£1.03 billion) on the understanding that they would be spared further Holocaust claims. The banks say they will pay the costs of tracking down the dormant accounts from their own coffers.

[£inuxgruven]

Cant wait for the Switzerland bashers to read this.

[£inuxgruven]

bump for Swiss bashers

[schmelvin]

I think the real motive behind the holocaust money accusations was to twist Switzerland's arm so that they would be less protective of their clients' privacy; Enabling tax collectors from other nations to get their foot in the door for the purpose of raiding Swiss bank records, placing liens on accounts, yadda yadda yadda...

[Dan De Quille]

Bump

[lavaroise]

There is a French comic book called IR$ and one of the mission of the IR$ "hero" is to get to find out about this Swiss business for tax purposes.

[CommiesOut]

Cant wait for the Switzerland bashers to read this.

Forget it. They're busy nuking and deporting.

[GROUCHOTWO]

You mean those "New York" lawyers that got their hands on the $ 1.5 Billion settlement? I think they are busy now helping impound the money that was sent to the WTC families. They never waste an opportunity, you know.

[Romulus]

So the average "Jewish" account was worth about £35,000. Still not an insignificant sum. Were these accounts interest-bearing? If they were not, their purchasing power value would have been 10 times greater when the deposits were made. In general I'm sympathetic toward the Swiss, but the truth still needs to come out.

[1rudeboy]

Bonus points for anyone who claims that Switzerland is a member of the EU.

[CommiesOut]

Compare it to US press

====================================================

By Elizabeth Olson
New York Times News Service
Published October 12, 2001

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND -- A search of Swiss bank accounts dormant since World War II has recovered $10 million, an international tribunal announced Thursday.

It said the money has been awarded to families of Holocaust victims.

The Zurich-based Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland was established as part of a comprehensive examination of bank accounts in response to allegations that Switzerland's financial institutions improperly held funds deposited by Jews trying to flee Nazi Germany.

In four years of searching records, chairman H.M. Riemer said the tribunal had "struggled for truth and fairness in many difficult and sometimes tragic cases."

In two cases, he said, the panel established that the accounts had funds that "were looted from victims of the Holocaust."

But, more than half a century after the war ended, it was possible in most cases to establish facts "only to a fragmentary extent," he said.

The tribunal's 17 arbitrators, appointed by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve system, were slowed in tracking the account owners by the lack of information, particularly because wartime accounts were typically opened with just names and post office addresses.

In some cases, it is widely believed, Swiss or other intermediaries opened accounts to disguise the origins of the money.

The tribunal awarded claimants on 207 dormant accounts thought to have been opened by people who later died under the Nazis.

The heirs received the $10 million, which included the money in the accounts plus interest and refunds of bank fees.

Riemer said the tribunal's task had been "more complex than expected" because the claimants were from 70 countries and had contacted the tribunal in 15 languages.

It processed 10,000 claims filed in response to two lists of more than 16,000 dormant accounts that the Swiss Bankers Association published in 1997.

http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0110120063oct12.story?coll=chi%2Dnewsnationworld%2Dhed

[CommiesOut]

Oops! Forgot the headline of The Chicago Tribune article:

Holocaust hunt finds $10 million

[madrussian]

Where is a big apology from all the Jewish smearers? Why should there be any credibility left to the rest of their grievances?

[madrussian]

vs

Swiss Holocaust cash revealed to be myth

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[moneyrunner]

"So the average "Jewish" account was worth about £35,000. Still not an insignificant sum. Were these accounts interest-bearing? If they were not, their purchasing power value would have been 10 times greater when the deposits were made. In general I'm sympathetic toward the Swiss, but the truth still needs to come out."

To the best of my knowledge, Swiss bank deposits (similar to our savings accounts) earn a very nominal rate of interest, and fees reduce that amount to almost nothing. The reason for a Swiss bank account by non-Swiss is the same as putting it under you mattress, except that the Gestapo can find it in your mattress.

Bank secrecy is the reason for these deposits, not growth of principal.

I agree that the truth needs to come out. It appears that the truth is that the Swiss were smeared.

[CommiesOut]

Don't lose your hope. They didn't create a New World Forum for nothing. Watch out all you Slavic and Baltic nazis, Vatican and IBM...

Hungarians too. :)

[AGAviator]

Where is a big apology from all the...smearers?>

There won't be one, their excuses industry will be putting in some overtime.

[CommiesOut]

I didn't. ----->IBM.

Thanks for additional info.

[CommiesOut]

For some reason CommieNazis in Britain are always in good shape. Gecas is the one who, according to some western neo-commie rag, went to England in mid 40-ties with... Polish Army. In this article they have dates screwed up royaly. Well, it's a war time. No time for precision shooting. Royal Cruise hutzpa.

=====================================
http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P35S2.shtml

Sunday, October 14, 2001

NAZI LEAVES POUNDS 400,000 TO SECRET SON
Fury over Gecas will

THE secret son of suspected war criminal Anton Gecas is to share his pounds 400,000 fortune.

The former Nazi died before he could be extradited from Scotland to stand trial for war crimes.

His son Anthony, 37, and daughter Ingrid, 25, will split the cash from selling off Gecas's plush home.

Gecas never mentioned his children during the long-running legal battle to avoid standing trial for his involvement in the murder of 32,000 civilians during World War II.

While Gecas's wife Astrid, 66, will be left the house initially, the profits from any future sale will be shared between the couple's children after her death.

The provision for his family is set out in a will written almost 16 years ago, which was obtained by the Sunday Mail last week.

Nazi-hunters who tried unsuccessfully to bring Gecas to court said the former Lithuanian Nazi officer had no right to pass on his wealth.

His main asset is the semi-detached villa in Edinburgh's upmarket Newington district, which he ran as a guest house.

Property experts say the house would fetch around pounds 400,000.

Gecas's case sparked fury among Nazi hunters at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

Dr Efraim Zuroff, who failed to get Gecas into a courtroom despite repeated efforts, said: "He showed no remorse for his crimes throughout his life and he is continuing that now.

"He should have given some money to a project to educate people about the Holocaust or something similar.

"His estate is of interest to us because it could contain items such as diaries of his time in the war.

"But we are in absolutely no doubt about his guilt."

Anthony Gecas was sitting on a wall in the Gecas family garden last week when a Sunday Mail investigator approached him.

He claimed he was going into the house to find his solicitor. He never came out.

Ingrid is thought to live nearby.

He wasn't alive when Gecas wrote his will in November 1985.

Gecas escaped prosecution for the final time earlier this year, despite evidence linking him to the killing of civilians, most of them Jews.

From 1941, he served as a platoon commander in a Nazi police unit but ended the war on the Allied side as part of the Polish army. He came to Britain in 1941.

Gecas unsuccessfully sued STV after a documentary branded him a war criminal.

Some Nazi-hunters claim he was given protection because of his links with British intelligence.

KGB papers discovered in 1994 listed him as an MI6 asset.

Gecas died last month, aged 85, following a stroke. His funeral was held in secret under the name A. Smith to avoid protests.

His death came six months after the Scottish Executive turned down the Lithuanian government's request for his extradition because of his ill-health.