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HVK Archives: Swiss Leader Apologizes to Jews

Swiss Leader Apologizes to Jews - International Herald Tribune

Posted By Ashok V Chowgule (ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)
16 January 1997

Title : Swiss Leader Apologizes to Jews
Author :
Publication : International Herald Tribune
Date : January 16, 1997

Jean-Pascal Delamuraz, the former president of Switzerland,
apologized Wednesday for his rejection of Jewish calls for a
Holocaust compensation fund, and the head of the World Jewish
Congress agreed to resume co-operation.

"I am very sorry that I offended your feelings as well as those of
many other people concerned, particularly those of the Jewish
community at large," Mr. Delamuraz said in a letter to Edgar
Bronfman, president of the congress.

In a newspaper interview on Dec. 31, the last day of his one-year
term as president, Mr. Delamuraz referred to the proposed
compensation fund as "nothing less than extortion and blackmail."

"The information on which I had based my statement regarding the
fund was inaccurate," said Mr. Delamuraz, who remains as economics
minister in the seven-member Swiss cabinet, or Federal Concil. He
did not elaborate.

Mr. Delamuraz released a brief response from Mr. Bronfman, in which
he acknowledged receipt of the letter.

"I look forward to return to constructive work together with the
Swiss authorities and the Swiss banks, to resolve outstanding
questions which will further our goals of truth and justice," Mr.
Bronfman's letter said.

"As you know," Mr. Delamuraz wrote, "both the Federal Council and
the Swiss Parliament have recently taken important steps to
establish truth and justice, to which my country has a profound
respect."

Mr. Delamuraz's rejection of demands by Jewish groups, backed by
Mr. Bronfman, for a $250 million compensation fund for Holocaust
victims was an embarrassing episode for Switzerland.

The Swiss government and banks have been pursuing efforts for
nearly two years to re-examine what happened to the assets of
Jewish victims of Nazi Germany.

Some Jewish groups say Swiss banks hold up to $7 billion in assets
and interest belonging to Holocaust victims and their heirs. The
banks assert that the assets could be only a fraction of that.

The Swiss have made attempts in previous decades to pay
compensation for the unclaimed assets, but Jewish groups renewed
the issue in connection with observances of the 50th anniversary of
the end of the war, asserting that much more must be done.

Document Shredding Halted

David E. Sanger of The New York Times reported from Washington:

Just weeks after the Swiss government ordered its banks to preserve
any remaining records of their dealings with Nazi Germany, a
suspicious security guard at the Union Bank of Switzerland halted
the destruction of documents from the World War II era, including
some that appeared to deal with the "forced auctions" of property
in Berlin in the 1930s.

The bank, one of Switzerland's largest and a focal point for
investigators seeking to trace Jewish assets deposited in Swiss
accounts during the war, hastily called a press conference Tuesday
in Zurich and said it "regrets the incident."

But the bank insisted that none of the documents shredded before
the action of the 28-year-old guard, who says he took some of the
material planned for destruction and handed it to a Swiss Jewish
organization, contained information about specific clients.

The disclosure about the shredding of documents in Zurich seems
likely to complicate the issue for the banks.

Several weeks ago the chairman of the bankers association, Georg
Krayer, told the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Financial
Services that his colleagues remained committed to resolving "all
outstanding questions about assets held in Swiss banks that may
have belonged to victims of the Holocaust in a sensitive,
equitable, open, accurate and professional manner."

Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Republican of New York, who has led the
effort in the Senate for fuller investigations into gold Nazi
Germany placed in Switzerland, said that the shredding was "pretty
outrageous given all the assurances that we were given."



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