| Jewish
Holocaust Survivors will now Receive Millions--or
will they?
Report dated
August 5, 1998 By Jack
Katzenell, Associated Press JERUSALEM
(AP) - Hundreds of elderly Holocaust
survivors live in bleak conditions at
Israeli mental hospitals - while millions
of dollars in German reparations
accumulate in accounts controlled by the
government. Doctors say
government trustees refuse to allow the
money to be used to improve the survivors'
lives, turning down requests for
televisions, air conditioners and holiday
parties. About 900 of the
360,000 Holocaust survivors who live in
Israel are believed to be in mental
hospitals. Most have been
institutionalized since the 1940s and '50s
when they came to Israel, where weary
survivors met an ambivalent reception from
a state busy creating a new image of the
proud, fighting Jew. The patients'
illnesses, which are traced to their
experiences in Nazi death camps, make them
wards of the state. Their bank accounts
are administered by the court-appointed
Fund for the Care of Dependents, which is
supervised by the government's General
Custodian for Wards, attorney Shmuel
Tsur. Tsur and fund
director Avi Angel blame each other
for the failure to improve patient living
conditions. "I am all in favor
of alleviating the suffering of the
patients," Tsur said. "But the money is
administered by the fund, and its
directors don't consult me." Angel, however, said
that whenever the expenditure is not
exclusively for a patient's personal use,
he cannot authorize it without Tsur's
permission. He said Tsur usually refuses
any expenditures that would benefit more
than one patient. The survivors, many
in their 80s, suffer from illnesses that
include acute depression and
schizophrenia. Some have accumulated large
sums of money from the German government
for their time in Nazi camps, receiving as
much as several hundred dollars a month
for the past four decades. | 2. The Maariv newspaper
has estimated that, together, the patients
have several million dollars. Avner
Elitsur, director of the psychiatric
ward at the Abarbanel Hospital near Tel
Aviv, said the hospital recently submitted
requests for money to install air
conditioners, buy television sets and
serve festive meals on Independence Day
and other holidays. They were refused on
the grounds that other patients in the
room would benefit, not just the patient
whose money was being used, Elitsur told
The Associated Press. "Unfortunately,
there are still eight patients in a room,"
he said. "We pointed out that the other
patients are also Holocaust survivors, but
it didn't help." Elitsur said the
trustees have only approved requests for
purchases, including clothing, for
specific people. Combined with other
accounts held by the government, including
the accounts of Holocaust survivors who
died without heirs, the state "is sitting
on billions of dollars which belonged to
Holocaust survivors," said Jonathan
Lemberger, head of
AMCHA,
a support organization for Holocaust
survivors. Lemberger said the
officials involved "refuse to spend it to
help those still alive, although the law
says that is what it should be used
for." "When they die their
money will pass to the state," Lemberger
said. "Israel complains about the
Holocaust victims' money Switzerland is
holding. What about the money the Israeli
government is holding?" Jewish groups have
sued three Swiss banks, seeking damages
for Switzerland's acceptance of gold
plundered by the Nazis.
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1998, News America Digital Publishing,
Inc. d/b/a Fox
News
Online.
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Film Corp. © 1998 Associated
Press. |
The Times,
London, August 14, 1998 | Threat of US
sanctions against banks lifted as part of
historic settlement, James Bone reports
from New York Swiss
pay $1.25bn to end feud with Holocaust
Jews SWISS banks are to pay $1.25 billion
(£767 million) to Holocaust survivors
in a settlement with Jewish groups that
should calm the rancorous debate over
Switzerland's dealings with Nazi Germany.
The agreement, brokered by a court in the
Brooklyn area of New York, commits the
Swiss banks to pay the money over the next
three years into a "rough justice" fund
for victims of the Nazi era whose assets
were plundered during the war or simply
lost in Swiss bank accounts
afterwards. A Holocaust survivor, 97-year-old
Jacob Gross, shows the
concentration camp number on his arm
outside the court where the $1.25bn deal
was announced In return, lawyers have
agreed to abandon a class-action suit
against the Swiss on behalf of tens of
thousands of Holocaust survivors, and
American states and municipalities will
cancel threatened financial sanctions. The accord covers the Swiss central
bank and the Swiss Government, as well as
the Swiss banks, even though the
Government had refused to negotiate
directly with the class-action
plaintiffs. | 6. "I think finally the Swiss did the
right thing," said Abraham Foxman,
executive director of the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai Brith and a Holocaust
survivor, who played a key role in the
negotiations. "It is important for
everyone to bring closure to this issue.
It took the Swiss a while to be able to
confront history and understand that their
enemy is not the Jewish people, but
history." Tens of thousands of Holocaust victims
deposited money in Swiss banks for
safekeeping as the Nazis gained power in
Europe. After the war, however, bank
officials made it hard for many of the
survivors and their heirs to retrieve the
money, claiming they could not find the
accounts or demanding death
certificates. The legal battle began in New York two
years ago when an Auschwitz
survivor from Romania, Gisella
Weissehaus, who lost her parents and
six siblings in the death camp, sued the
banks to recover her family's funds. The litigation grew into a $20 billion
class-action suit representing 31,500
plaintiffs worldwide after a Swiss bank
night-watchman, Christoph Meili,
inspired by the film Schindler's
List, rescued Holocaust-era documents
from a shredder room at the Union Bank of
Switzerland in Zurich. Only a few months
ago, Switzerland's two largest banks -
Crédit Suisse and UBS - had offered
to pay $600 million to settle all
claims. | 7. But Jewish groups, who place the
current value of Holocaust victims' assets
in Swiss banks at between $6 billion and
$7 billion, rejected the offer and
demanded at least $1.5 billion. Local politicians in 20 US states and
30 municipalities, including California
and New York, threatened to impose
sanctions on the Swiss banks that would
hamper their ability to do business in the
US. The move provoked howls of protest
from the Swiss Government, backed by the
wary US State Department. But the American politicians who
gathered on the steps of the Brooklyn
courthouse to announce the deal on
Wednesday said the threat of sanctions had
prodded the banks towards a
settlement. Under the deal, the Swiss banks will
pay the first $250 million 90 days after
US District Court Judge Edward
Korman approves the settlement, and
further instalments of $333 million on the
first, second and third anniversary of his
approval. The judge and lawyers in the
class-action suit are to work out a
distribution plan to determine how the
money will reach the plaintiffs and
others. | 8. Because of the scope of the "rough
justice" fund, even Holocaust survivors
who could not prove they deposited money
in Swiss banks would benefit from the
settlement. The fund is to be administered by
expanding a panel of the World
Organisation of Jewish Refugee
Organisations set up to handle established
claims on missing accounts. Mr Foxman, who expects to sit on the
board, said that after disposing of legal
claims the money would be used to help
indigent Holocaust survivors and Jewish
charitable institutions that promote
memory of the Holocaust. British Jews expressed satisfaction
about the deal, but stressed that the
money should be distributed rapidly. As part of the settlement, the original
whistleblower, Mr Meili, who was driven
from Switzerland by death threats and now
works as a building guard in New Jersey,
agreed to drop his lawsuit against his
former employers. Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New
York, who chaired congressional hearings
on the Swiss banks, lavished praise on
him, hugging him as the deal was
announced. "This young man is a beacon of
inspiration," he said. "Had you not done
the work you did, we wouldn't be here
today." | | ©
Times Newspapers Ltd 1998. |
|
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