MK: Holocaust heirs losing millions to Jewish organizations

JERUSALEM (January 15) - World Jewish organizations are set to "rake into their coffers" some $1 billion in unclaimed funds allocated by Swiss banks to compensate for assets from dormant Holocaust-era accounts, Herut MK [Member of Knesset] Michael Kleiner said.

Only some 3 percent, or $37 million, of the $1.25 billion coming from the settlement with the Swiss banks is likely to be paid to the legal heirs of the assets, according to an estimate obtained by Kleiner. The deadline for submitting claims was January 1.

Kleiner attributes the failure to locate the heirs to the publication of details for only 31,000 of some 300,000 dormant accounts he says fit the profile of Holocaust victims. Kleiner is demanding that the government push for the publication of the names of the asset owners, and is to put the matter on the Knesset agenda today.

"There are heirs, and it is not too late to find them," Kleiner said yesterday. "If the Jewish organizations had any morals, they would push for the publication of the names, instead of making plans...to spend the money on projects."

A founder of the local Generali Fund, which is settling claims from Israelis for Holocaust-era insurance policies, Kleiner also charges that only some 24,000 of 300,000 names of Generali insurance policyholders have been released.

Website comment: Some Israeli politicians now fear that the greed of world Jewish organisations for any unclaimed Gold found resting in banks and other repositories may fuel anti-Semitism and revive pre-war Nazi stereotypes. (Image: a 1938 Nazi anti-Semitic caricature of a grasping Jew).

Kleiner accused the government, along with Jewish organizations, of compliance in allowing the Swiss to avoid publishing the lists of bank account and insurance policyholders. The Jewish organizations have a conflict of interests, he said, since they cut a deal under which all unclaimed monies would go to them.

The organizations "have done everything to ensure that the looted funds and Jewish property will end up in their coffers, instead of going to the legal heirs," he said.

Kleiner said the unallocated funds would be spent on "travel bills, including luxury meals and five-star hotels," for the executives of the organizations.

World Jewish Congress secretary-general Avi Beker called Kleiner's claims against the Jewish organizations "factually incorrect and baseless." He emphasized that a judge in New York would be deciding how the money should be distributed to survivors and projects run by the organizations.

"It should be clear that the WJC never took and will never take a cent of the funds," he said.

Meanwhile, Beker said the WJC is continuing to demand that the names of all the account holders be published, despite a 1998 agreement settling the claims.

But he said there is no doubt that many of the accounts would remain unclaimed because their heirs were also murdered in the Holocaust. Beker also said that evidence of the existence of accounts had been tampered with by the Swiss banks.

"Heirless accounts belong to the Jewish people," Beker said, adding that the agreement is a "moral settlement with the Swiss, who were the biggest money-launderers of the war."

Kleiner said, however, that the failure to locate heirs is "dangerous," because it could fuel the phenomenon of Holocaust denial. He said that Holocaust deniers are liable to question "where the people are who are claimed to have been murdered."

Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, who is the government's representative on issues of Jewish restitution, criticized Kleiner for damaging Jewish interests and serving the interests of the Swiss.

"The Swiss banks owe the Jewish people what they earned from the Holocaust," Melchior said, agreeing that most of the heirs were murdered in the Holocaust.

Melchior added that the amount of the settlement was a "compromise." In the meantime, he is working to get an extension for the claims deadline.

The 31,000 known account holders were obtained as part of an agreement to match names on file in Yad Vashem, Kleiner said. But Yad Vashem has only one-third of Holocaust victims' names, he said.

A Yad Vashem spokeswoman said its computerized data was provided to the Volcker Committee, which conducted an audit of the accounts.

Under the banking settlement, some $800 million was earmarked to compensate the heirs, with another $300m. in restitution for slave laborers, and $150m. for Jewish organizations, according to Kleiner's figures.

Furthermore, under the agreement between the world Jewish organizations and the Swiss banks, funds for heirs that were not located would be kept by the organizations to fund various causes, under the principle that the unclaimed funds belong to the Jewish people.

According to Kleiner, only $7 million has been paid out thus far by the Swiss fund, and the most liberal estimate is that claims currently under consideration could reach a total of only $37 million.

On the other hand, Kleiner said the $100 million earmarked for compensating heirs of life insurance policies is not expected to be enough.

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Israel Shamir: "Bankers and Robbers"

The Times (London): "Swiss Holocaust cash revealed to be myth"