UNCLAIMED FUNDS USED BY SWISS, SAYS HISTORIAN.Byline: Alan Cowell Alan S. Cowell (born March 16, 1947) is a British journalist who was the London bureau chief of The New York Times until July 13, 2007.Cowell began his journalism career as a reporter for Reuters[1]. The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times The unclaimed accounts of presumed Holocaust victims While victims of the Holocaust were primarily Jews, the Nazis also persecuted and often killed millions of members of other groups they considered inferior, undesirable or dangerous. were used to ease Switzerland's postwar compensation disputes with Poland and Hungary under secret agreements, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. documents made public on Wednesday by a Swiss historian. The disclosure, based on research in the Swiss National Archives National Archives, official depository for records of the U.S. federal government, established in 1934 by an act of Congress. Although displeasure concerning the method of keeping national records was voiced in Congress as early as 1810, the United States continued by the historian, Dr. Peter Hug, represented a further blow to Switzerland's self-image and fueled assertions by American Jewish groups that, despite Switzerland's reputation for probity PROBITY. Justice, honesty. A man of probity is one who loves justice and honesty, and who dislikes the contrary. Wolff, Dr. de la Nat. Sec. 772. and neutrality, it drew financial benefit in many ways from the Holocaust. On at least three occasions between 1960 and 1975, Hug said in a telephone interview from Bern, the Swiss invoked the secret agreements with Poland and Hungary to compensate Swiss businesses. On one of those occasions, Hug said, money from dormant accounts of presumed Holocaust victims was ``distributed directly among Swiss businessmen'' to meet their claims for compensation for assets seized in Hungary after the communist take-over. And for the compensations in Poland, Swiss authorities paid more than 460,000 Swiss francs (around $390,000 at present rates) into a separate Polish government account at the Swiss National Bank The Swiss National Bank is a central bank, responsible for the monetary policy of Switzerland and issuing the Swiss franc banknotes. The names of the institution in the four official languages of the country are: German: - known as ``Account N'' - that was eventually used to pay Swiss businessmen. The disclosures have added to a widening furor among American Jews American Jews, or Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens who were born into the Jewish community or who have converted to Judaism. The United States is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. and the Swiss themselves about the extensive and still largely secret dealings not only between Swiss banks and Nazi Germany but also about the subsequent fate of untold amounts of money left in Swiss accounts and insurance funds by Holocaust victims. The confrontation, particularly with American Jewish groups, has left Swiss officials grappling with a widening stream of disclosures suggesting that their forebears cynically manipulated the Nazi era and the Holocaust for profit. At that time, many Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe saw Switzerland as the only safe haven for their assets because of Switzerland's neutrality and because the Swiss set up banking secrecy laws in 1934 to protect their clients' deposits from Nazi scrutiny. Over the past two months, however, documents discovered in the United States, Britain and now Switzerland, have chronicled allegations that gold looted by the Nazis, stolen from individual Jews or taken from the teeth of Holocaust victims, was sold to the Swiss National Bank. The postwar fate of the bullion remains unclear, according to U.S. groups. Additionally, Swiss newspapers have reported that the Swiss traded freely with Nazi Germany in stolen artworks and jewelry, while leading Nazis did their personal banking in Switzerland. |
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