For many years Israeli and Jewish organizations have been trying to obtain information on bank accounts and other assets seized by the Nazis or deposited in Swiss banks before and during World War II. In his statement the minister described recent developments in this sphere which led to a series of agreements with Swiss banks and growing awareness on the part of various European nations, both combatants and neutral during the war, over their role in dealing with property and assets which belonged to Holocaust victims. Text:
Mr. Speaker, Distinguished Knesset:
As I pointed out to the Knesset in my previous reply on this subject on October 9, 1996, the sensitive and painful subject of the assets of victims of the Nazi Holocaust deposited in Swiss banks continues to preoccupy us constantly, and we are closely and intensively following progress in dealing with this issue by the World Jewish Congress and the Government of Switzerland.
Lately, there have been several important developments, and I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to report on them from this podium. In recent weeks, Mr. Speaker, the matter of the agreement which Switzerland signed in 1949 with the Government of Poland has been revealed; it concerns the transfer of funds whose depositors had been citizens of Poland and who had not approached the banks involved for five years.
From the secret clauses of the agreement, it became clear that these funds were transferred as compensation to Swiss nationals for assets confiscated by Poland when the Communists came to power. The compensation from Poland was apparently in the form of coal shipments. This agreement was again ratified in 1964, despite its contradicting Swiss legislation of 1962 about an attempt to locate funds of victims of the Holocaust and transfer them to their legal heirs. Till now, monetary transfers totaling about half a million Swiss francs have been disclosed.
A new discovery increased the pressure of public opinion within Switzerland and outside it on the Swiss Government and the Swiss banks. In particular, the pressure grew in the United States, and at the initiative of Senator DAmato, who has worked on this and continues to work on the enterprise which I would define as moral and sacred.
To provide realization to the legal pressure, it should be recalled that, in addition to the private claims to locate accounts made recently in New York, a class-action claim against all the Swiss banks, in the name of victims of the Holocaust and their offspring, has been lodged in the sum of $20 billion. A certain breakthrough in exposing the fate of the funds was recently made possible in the U.S. documents of the U.S. Intelligence authorities, which had been classified for dozens of years, have been discovered in the Federal Archives. They include some dealing with a secret operation at the time of World War Two, codenamed Open Skies. Its purpose was to follow up the transfer of funds and property from Nazi Germany to Switzerland. The data uncovered apparently includes names, places, and figures which are growing larger.
Mr. Speaker, during decades the Swiss banks preserved their secrets. Locating the accounts by the heirs of the survivors of the Holocaust was almost impossible, either because of the destruction of documents connected to the accounts in which there had been no movement for 10 years, or because of the absence of identifying details. The growing public pressure in recent months has generated results and the subject is now being dealt with by four different bodies. Permit me to detail their activities:
(a) The first body is the technical committee comprising personnel of the World Jewish Congress and representatives of the Swiss banks. Its task is to investigate and locate, through an agreed accountant, the accounts of the victims.
(b) A second factor dealing with the question is the Association of Swiss Banks, which decided in September 1995 to approach the banks in the country and request that they locate accounts dating from the period of the Holocaust in which there has been no movement for more than 10 years. At the same time, an office has been opened under the auspices of the Association of Banks, which is centralizing the inquiries by the public concerning these accounts. Incidentally, this office yesterday announced that in its first examination a number of accounts of Jews have been discovered among the 900 claims submitted.
(c) On October 1, 1996, a decision was unanimously adopted by the Swiss National Assembly on establishing a financial and legal research team, whose duty it will be to uncover the story in all its aspects, as I reported in a previous debate in the Knesset.
(d) The fourth factor which has now been added is an ad hoc team of experts appointed to investigate the agreements which the Swiss Government has signed with countries of Eastern Europe, as has lately become known.
Knesset Members: The picture emerging from these facts reflects today a real effort by the Government of Switzerland, its parliament, and public opinion in the country, to work to fully expose the facts, and to remedy everything it is still possible to remedy. The time that has elapsed certainly does not help achieve the goal. However, I am certain, and trust, that my Swiss opposite number, with whom we are in contact on this matter, and his government, will keep their word and do everything possible to quickly and comprehensively investigate and give maximal exposure of this unhappy affair in which the Jewish and Swiss peoples are tragically involved.
Mr. Speaker, the previous government authorized a body which is a world Jewish organization for the restoration of property, to deal directly with the subject, together with the World Jewish Congress. I wish to emphasize our full appreciation for their essential and persistent activity, which has also brought results. At the same time, we regard it as our responsibility to accompany, influence and strengthen any factor dealing with this issue. That is our Jewish, national and moral duty. It faces us as an imperative injunction. In this context, I also met with the chairman of an important body which, day and night, one may say, is working on this. I promised him the assistance of the Government of Israel in anything he requires diplomatic, public and other aspects.
We shall not rest until we see this issue reaching its conclusion in historic justice. How sad and difficult it is to mention justice still in this matter. The little we can do, I have proposed from this forum, Mr. Speaker, in the previous debate, when the session was chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Knesset Member Shevah Weiss, who urged that it was only natural that the Knesset should establish a committee on the subject.
Knesset Member Shevah Weiss interjected: With your permission, I have passed a resolution we worked out here, to the Speaker of the Knesset, and he has set up a committee.
The Foreign Minister replied: Then I am happy at this fact.
Knesset Member Weiss added: I do not know if he has appointed its members...
The Foreign Minister: Then I hope he will also establish its composition, that is to say appoint people who are sensitive and ready to work on the issue. The Government of Israel and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be at their disposal, will cooperate in it with all their power, both in transferring information and in working and coordinating toward international action, if this is required.
If Knesset Member Yossi Sarid, who has raised the query, will suffice with this, I of course shall be glad if he, too, will take part in the committee. Then we shall see that we have done what is required of us, and the matter is called for out of sensitivity, as it was raised by the distinguished Knesset Member. Thank you.