Reparation - Swiss Accounts

In the past months it has been reported that Switzerland has held large amounts of money belonging to the Jewish people and has not returned it. United States and Europe have pressured  the Swiss Government to reveal which accounts are still existing and not claimed.  Supposedly, those accounts that have not been claimed will be given over to a committee that will disperse it to the children of those deceased, who had deposited the money. 

A friend, Alan Stern, surprised me on television. During an interview he was seen demanding a payment from the Italian GENERALI Insurance company.  I called Alan and asked him what was taking place? Was he after reparation money? No, he explained to me that there is a big difference between reparation money paid in retribution, as punishment to a country which inflicted hardships and murder on Jewish people and money that's demanded from a past security deposit. Alan is not interested in punishment or forgiveness, as it is not up to him to do that.  It is up to the ones that were killed to forgive those which did the murdering.  Since they are not around, obviously they cannot forgive. His case has to do with simple business logic.  If you give somebody money as an investment, he has to return it to the person who originally gave it to him. 

I learned from him that prior to World War II many Jewish people took their hard-earned dollars and placed it in Government insurance programs that were called annuities.  These annuities were a kind of guarantee for families that they would have an income.  For example, if a father had two children, let say two daughters, and he wanted to make sure that they had a dowry, every year he would put away a certain amount of money and this money would go into a special fund.  The fund itself would increase yearly and the dividends would be re-deposited to the familys fund.  So, after 20 years there would be enough money in the fund to provide a dowry for the daughters.  This was the type of program with which many Jews participated.  This is not a savings account in a Swiss bank, but rather a regular annuity program where your money grows just like in bond funds. 

The Stern family prior to W.W.II made payments and they pre-paid until 1945.  The father of the three Stern brothers and a daughter was killed in Auschwitz.  In 1945 a surviving son came to the bank and asked to receive the payment of the annuities.  At that time the bank officers became very angry and had the Stern brother physically thrown out of the bank. Stern was told to bring a "death certificate".  Mr. Stern retorted angrily that Adolph Hitler did not issue death certificates in Auschwitz and that since the bank knew of the Stern family, and he was one of the four children left, there should be no question as to which the funds belonged.  Requests and visits were made by the family in 1946, 1947 and again by the sister in 1972.

Years went by and again the Stern family went to the main GENERALI Insurance office located in Prague, Czechoslovakia. They visited the bank and asked them to return the monies that had been deposited in the name of the family.  Once again, they were asked to leave the bank.  So it has been for the past 50 years. Things changed, thankfully, when a banker asked that GENERALI investigate this case. Sure enough one of the workers found a storage room full of deeds stating which Jewish families had deposited these annuity monies.  Now the Stern family is asking that no less than all the documents be printed. With this done, Jewish people can legally take that which is rightfully theirs. Mind you, this is not retribution money, this is not redemption money, this is not punishment money...this is simply redeeming the annuity policies that their families had invested in prior to,  perhaps even during, the War years.

The confusion lies with the following facts.  In the past, governments have claimed that the money belongs to the government.  They have been holding funds and the surviving families have no right to demand payments.  They, the governments, don't deserve the money!  The truth is the following: these funds are not payment for the support of the survivors.  It should be clearly understood that this is money that is rightfully theirs,  but it has not released to them for some unknown reason. 

When I was a child growing up in the Jewish ghetto of Brooklyn, New York I lived amongst many children that were born in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Their parents refused to even take any money from the German reparation fund saying that by taking money they felt that they were forgiving the merciless killers of their parents and grandparents.  As a child I remember an old lady, Mrs. Farcas, who entered our apartment complex with a large ring on her finger and soon after she left one of the elderly men said to his children, "You see what she is doing? She is wearing her family on her finger, for how can a person be so low to take money from the Germans so as to give them a clear conscience and forgiveness."  This debate over reparation money has existed since the time of the War.  However, since the State of Israel needed to exist, reparation money was agreed on in lump sums. This helped put the State of Israel on its feet.

This case of the Stern brothers is completely different.  This has nothing to do with reparation money or forgiveness.  It is simply a business deal. The present day value of their familys annuity is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $2 million. And it is estimated that there are approximately 100,000 similar cases. The total value of these annunities, therefore, is a remarkable number, on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.

I believe it is our responsibility, as law abiding citizens, to do everything in our power to make sure that these funds are returned to the families that made the initial investments, whether here or abroad.  It is not correct for us to take a side in saying that let the evil rest and let this be forgotten.  As long as the money is available and the families have clear title, they should be given the funds. It would be no different than any American going into a bank with a stock account number and a certificate asking for funds to be redeemed to the family and the estate.  Let us hope that the insurance companies dont wait for more pressure from the United States and world bodies, but will do what is right. They should return the funds as quickly as possible, since many of the survivors are becoming old and frail and really do not know how to voice their opinions.