UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, September 13, 1995
Swiss banks hunt for money belonging to Holocaust victims
The Associated Press
BERN, Switzerland — Swiss bankers, stung by criticism that they are hoarding treasures from Holocaust victims, announced new measures yesterday to search for missing tens of millions of dollars.
The Swiss Bankers Association said a survey of 12 banks had turned up at least $34 million in 893 pre-1945 accounts that could have been started by Jews before they were killed by the Nazis.
But the association dismissed news reports as speculation. The news reports said that the unclaimed assets now total from $6 billion to $7
billion after adding the interest accumulated since World War II.
Many Jews are believed to have risked the Nazi death penalty by smuggling their wealth out of Nazi-controlled territory to Swiss banks, where it would be safe from German detection.
Georg Krayer, chairman of the bankers association, told a news conference yesterday that the banks will set up an office under the independent Swiss banking ambudsman to help with searches.
The banks will not invoke a 10-year statute of limitations on the dormant
accounts, but they rejected Jewish demands that searches be conducted free for Holocaust victims. Previous searches have cost anywhere from $85 to $850.
"This is the result of the six-month effort by Edgar Bronfman and Avraham Burg to work with the Swiss government to try to reclaim unclaimed assets — bank accounts, jewelry and property — for the Jewish people," said a representative for the Jewish Agency in Israel.
Burg, chairman of the agency, wanted to wait until meeting with officials in Switzerland later this week before commenting in detail.
"I don't care about the money. It is a question of principle," he said.
Burg was in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday for a meeting with Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, and representatives of other Jewish organizations to discuss the campaign for returning assets to their owners.
"We are attempting to close the final chapter of the bitter legacy of the Holocaust," Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress, said at the meeting.
Switzerland and its banks have made previous attempts to satisfy Jewish claims, including handing
over $7.9 million in 1962 to Swiss charities for Jews and refugees.
But pressure has been building
For the first time, the Swiss government formally apologized this year for its treatment of Jews, including turning back many refugees to face certain death at the hands of the Nazis.
New interest in old Swiss accounts also has come from
ing secrecy, tightened after the Nazis came to power in 1933.
Often depositors
Eastern Europe, since the end of communist rule there has made it possible to inquire after missing assets.
Although Swiss bankers say they have enough closely-guarded information to find the money if they have justified claims, the search by heirs has been complicated by Swiss bank-
Elen Steinberg
Executive director,
World Jewish Congress
were unable to give heirs details of the accounts before they died. The depositors also could have acted through a lawyer or other intermediary, obscuring the link to the true owner. Surviving relatives have been able only to give the sketches of clues that the account exists.
day made no reference to deposits made by Nazis with assets stolen from Jews and other Nazi victims.
The bankers' report yester-
The reports said information on the deposits, now worth more than $1 billion, was obtained from archives of the East German secret police after Germany was reunified in 1990.
Explosion kills 5; cause unknown
The Associated Press
ESSEX, Md. — A thunderous explosion shredded a minivan in a shopping mall parking lot, killing five people, shaking nearby homes and raining debris and body parts for blocks.
How and why the van exploded Monday were a mystery. A murder-suicide or a domestic dispute were among the theories.
"We have many scenarios," said police representative Brian Uppercue. "We've gotten some information from people that has taken us in a couple of directions, but we don't know."
The newspaper quoted unidentified residents at the complex as saying that a man had threatened his estranged wife Sunday at a family gathering, saying "I'm going to blow you up."
After the blast, bomb-sniffing dogs were sent to a nearby apartment complex to check a car for explosives, but none were found, The Baltimore Sun reported yesterday. How investigators were led to the complex was not explained.
The 6 p.m. explosion, located outside the Middlesex Shopping Center in this suburb seven miles east of Baltimore, scattered debris and body
parts for three football fields in every direction and knocked out power nearby. The van's glove compartment was found half a mile away.
Uppercord said the van was stationary at the time it exited.
Sam Cavanaugh said he was about a quarter mile away when he "felt a blast, a gush, pressure. I saw debris going over me."
Although traces of explosives were found, police did not immediately confirm that a bomb caused the explosion.
"We don't know for sure what caused the explosion," said police corporal Preston Johnson. "There's speculation it could be dynamite. The explosives were in the van, but how they were ignited, we don't know that."
Investigators did not have any eyewitnesses to the blast, which completely demolished what they said was a blue or white minivan.
The five victims — two adults and three children — were not identified. Uppercase said it appeared all had been in the van when it blew up.
A 9-year-old girl died at a nearby hospital, but police said the other four bodies were so badly damaged they couldn't determine age or gender.
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