Blood Money Switzerland's Nazi Gold

part of this is that there's a mystery involved part of it is that there's a moral outrage involved in that mystery it really shouldn't come as a great surprise that the nazis the greatest mass murderers of history engaged in the most breathtaking series of robberies in history what we had on our body that's all that we had left everything was gone the germans what they took from us they deposited in swiss banks also gold where did they take the god from jewish tease this is definitely the biggest crisis of foreign policy in switzerland since the second world war we are fully aware that nothing less than our reputation as an honorable country and reliable friend is at stake what we're doing now is we're writing the last chapter of world war ii and the holocaust i get absolutely furious when i think that people were making money on what happened at auschwitz that they should be offended because we are shocked by what we find that's absolutely unconscionable the irony of it is that jewish money could have financed their war we're talking about lots of money lots of people and now the question is what happened to these accounts where did they go they have the money nobody nobody's kept telling me they don't have them this is an onion whose layers are to be peeled away it's been called the biggest robbery in history the ultimate inside job in the 1930s as nazism began its evil spread many european jews smuggled their savings into switzerland to safeguard family money from hitler's reach today more than 50 years later swiss banks stand accused of looting those accounts and switzerland of having been the depository for the billions in gold cash art and property that the nazis stole from the peoples and nations of europe i come before this committee to denounce the swiss banks for over 50 years these banks hit their dealings with the nazis and have deprived me and countless other victims of the holocaust whose families were depositors in the banks of our monies i want this committee to know that i am not doing this out of greed i did not want blood money but this is my money and the swiss banks have no right to withhold it from me what began as an effort by thousands of holocaust survivors to recover their money has opened the floodgates into what is now a full-fledged examination of switzerland's role during world war ii at issue before the court of world opinion is nothing less than switzerland's honor and reputation as a neutral nation more than anyone else the man responsible for the harsh public spotlight now fixed on switzerland is the chairman of the 22 billion dollar sigrum company and president of the world jewish congress edgar bronfman hi good morning i want the truth i want to know what happened cannot think of the fact that maybe a swiss bank is you know wallowing in wealth because it was based on money that was stolen from jews and put there by the ss so it's not just the money that i'm concerned with it's justice what the hell right is anybody to make money off carcasses bronfman went to president clinton and new york senator alphonse de mata so we're going to continue to go forward and again our quest is one for justice it is one for the facts [Music] their first step the national archives outside washington dc and the declassification of 15 million pages of wartime intelligence documents for the first time uncovering the secrets of switzerland's past here investigators search for details of operation safe haven the secret inquiry into the whereabouts of nazi loot at the end of the war conducted by the oss the precursor to the cia the documents follow the trail of nazi gold and riches into switzerland the committee will come to order there are no less than 11 investigations into switzerland's wartime role including commissions by president clinton and the u.s house and senate bringing the swiss to an historic reckoning let me make it clear at the outset nothing is more important to the people and government of switzerland then establishing the complete truth in this matter i think there has to be participation by this government because we have literally thousands of claimants here who reside in the united states we have an interest we have u.s citizens today there are states in the estates of their parents and grandparents we're looted [Music] for over the many years estelle sapir a survivor of the holocaust has lived in a single room in queens new york knowing that her family's money is in switzerland she carries the legacy of her father's last promise to her spoken through the barbed wires of a prison camp one day i say i want to see my father i went out and a god let me call my partner with the wires and this is the time what he told time to survive escape tell the world what is going on and take care of your mother and mom park don't worry for money don't worry from when you say what you mean he says you have plenty money in switzerland [Music] he had to wait till the god you know departments went by he says geneva church and lausanne and he make me repeat this few maybe 10 times not forget and i remember telling you i was angry i said you know i have a good memory i'm not forget this was last time i saw my father estelle's father a polish banker perished in the concentration camp to this day she has kept the hand-written notes of the swiss deposits this is just one deposit in switzerland eighty two thousand eight seventy five another one is thirty seven nine hundred and fifty another one is sixty thousand six under 35 17 650 53 5310 this is kinda sweet this time i was pretty over the ensuing years estelle twice visited swiss banks in futile attempts to find her father's money i know the money is there they cannot tell me when i'm talking to you i see my father his eyes telling me don't worry for money it's plenty money for you for the old family switzerland [Music] why has it taken so long to question switzerland's wartime rule part of the reason is that even 50 years after the end of world war ii the details of the holocaust refused to pass quietly into the pages of history [Music] this last chapter of the holocaust leads here to switzerland a tiny country identified with wealth physical beauty and most of all peace [Music] a democratic nation switzerland's neutrality buttressed by its impassable mountains has allowed its people to sidestep hundreds of years of european turmoil orderly tranquil and well-run switzerland's legendary secret bank accounts have attracted capital from around the world but beneath the surface of stability and wealth the darker questions about switzerland's past are beginning to emerge [Music] the story of the jewish money missing from swiss bank accounts begins in 1933 when hitler's rise to power in germany began to terrify jews all across europe and when survival and secrecy became fatefully intertwined germany was reeling from the costs of the first world war and hitler relentlessly targeted the jews as the reason for germany's economic woes [Music] in the years before hitler europe's jewish communities were a thriving world of industry art and culture and for many holocaust survivors those years held the last happy memories of their lives [Music] before i live in poland russia my parents my brother and my sister and the life was very easy for us i was a good witness with two mates i was go to private schools really my sister had piano lessons my parents traveled this is my mother my father before the world i think this was in czechoslovakia i never realized how wealthy he was this seems to me this was normal you have a child well yeah this is a picture of my father taking in 1910. this was in the 30s i believe this was my father this was my stepmother my younger brother my aunt and her son the family owned a lumber factory hitler began his persecution with anti-semitic laws that systematically stripped jews of their rights and their property the nazis drove jews from their jobs forbade them to have any money through their children out of schools smashed their synagogues and businesses and forced them to wear a yellow star of david [Music] as jewish you couldn't get any jobs you couldn't study you couldn't learn anything so we said we have to go away see nobody believed that it would take that long everybody said ah in a couple of years this is over nobody expected what happened [Music] jews were brought from being the most important players in germany after world war one to be coming through the nuremberg laws none people from not owning any property to not having any means of earning any money to becoming a person who couldn't propagate to becoming a person who didn't have any legal resonance to becoming a person who had to become enslaved and finally to becoming a person who could be gassed and killed it was a logical progression as nazi laws became increasingly oppressive jews in germany began to seek a safe haven for their capital oftentimes risking their lives to do so in 1934 to assist the jews in their urgency to hide assets switzerland passed article 47 the historic banking secrecy law that assured the anonymity of account holders obviously thousands of people before the war took advantage of swiss banking secrecy laws to safeguard their money and people who had either large amounts or very small amounts would get on a train go from bucharest or from bukavina or from warsaw to zurich or geneva go to a bank or go to a a fiduciary and say i have x amount of money i want to safeguard it because the war is about to begin jewish money often smuggled in by third parties poured into the large banks in zurich as well as numerous smaller banks some no larger than a private office now i think what people do not realize a lot of experts don't realize that it wasn't so easy to transfer money at that time in the first place because that was prohibited and you know when people ask today well how did money come from germany to switzerland it came in smuggled my father he was a stamp collector and his collection was well known all over the specialized stamp dealers all over europe and one of the stamp dealers he was dealing with wasn't zurich so he transferred money to zurich probably not quite legally and for my father it was very difficult because he not only practiced law he believed in it [Music] in 1938 hitler annexed neighboring austria to a welcoming parade and within months his troops marched into czechoslovakia's german-speaking sudatan land many jews tried to emigrate to the united states britain and other countries as far as hitler was concerned the jews were free to go provided of course that they left their property behind for the jews the problem was finding a country willing to take them in the plight of germany's jews just before the war came to be symbolized by the shameful voyage of the ss st louis in 1939 the united states of america turned back a ship of over 900 jewish refugees to the united states and we sent them back to europe quite probably to their deaths and that is a burden philosophically in the united states that is not easily lost more than any other incident before the war the story of the saint louis convinced hitler that no one would care if he eliminated the jews altogether [Music] while most european jews were in fear for their lives switzerland's jewish population a small minority of 20 000 lived in relative security among the swiss even so anti-semitism had been part of the swiss fabric of all the european countries switzerland in 1886 was the last to grant its jewish residents full citizenship and civil rights [Music] hans bayer head of the family-owned bank bayer one of the few jewish banks in switzerland to continue operating through the war remembers that they too were not exempt from discrimination of course there was considerable anti-semitism i think it's a matter of haircut that my uncle and later senior boss was chairman of the zoo his doctors changed and he was forced out for being jewish while switzerland accepted jewish bank deposits jewish refugees were not extended the same welcome [Music] it was the head of the swiss police and not the germans who insisted that nazi officials stamped the passports of jews with a large j so they could be recognized and sent back to germany there were heroes swiss heroes who saved thousands of jews we had also 22 000 jewish refugees who we saved we did a lot of good things and but on the other hand there were also a lot of darker side the j was a totally bureaucratic approach to a problem this is one of the very very dark sides [Music] swiss historians now estimate that as many as 30 000 jewish refugees were turned back at the swiss german border most likely to their death switzerland at that time during the second world war had clearly a racist policy they treated jews differently than other refugees political refugees were allowed in to switzerland at the time only jews were not allowed in the few who managed to enter switzerland paid huge bribes to border agents switzerland the home of the international red cross accepted a total of refugees only 28 000 of whom were jewish the government refused to accept any responsibility for them instead forcing switzerland's small jewish community to pay their living costs those refugees without any funds were put into labor camps [Music] on september 1st 1939 hitler struck eastward invading poland and plunging europe into its second world war in only 21 years in 1939 we found files and records that show that in one month month of august 1939 17 000 transfers were made between poland and switzerland that was done because jews were trying to get their money out of poland prior to the month when they thought the germans would invade poland within a year hitler's troops had marched into belgium the netherlands and france with the italian fascists to the south switzerland was totally surrounded switzerland was in a very very difficult situation during the war years the nazi had several occasions plans to attack switzerland they threatened us very often and we were of course in mind and in our hearts on the side of the allies but we were surrounded by the nazis and access powers therefore we had to a certain occasions to deal with the nazis the swiss were not in an enviable position they're in the center of europe they were a very tiny country with a very efficient but very small army and no real way to resist an attempt by the germans to invade them they were kept neutral by the germans because the germans needed a neutral country in the middle of europe during world war ii until today we were told in school that the germans did not invade switzerland because there was such a strong army then they were afraid for technical reason because of the high mountains etc to invade switzerland today we see that the germans probably did not invade switzerland because they needed switzerland that the money laundering and other type of financial transaction during the war years the swiss government remained determined to preserve the country's political independence as a neutral switzerland gave aid to both sides of the war switzerland was a major center for intelligence operations both sides were where we were trying to find out what the other was doing and obviously a neutral country is is a wonderful base for mounting that kind of operation the best known i think is the one that alan dallas conducted for the uss switzerland not only offered the belligerence an intelligent space but industrial support as well switzerland traded right through the war with both sides not just with the germans the british from 1940 to 1942 it depended on swiss parts in order to make the planes that flew in the battle of britain [Music] winston churchill would later single out neutral switzerland for its considerable aid and service to the allies but economically switzerland fell squarely into the german orbit the swiss depended upon germany for its coal and fuel oil and germany and its conquered lands provided the main markets for swiss industry switzerland was not self-sufficient there are no raw materials in switzerland they always had to import them they had to get them in via the germans or past the germans and somehow it probably was like walking on eggs but somehow they did it as far as the united states was concerned switzerland's industrialists were germany's wartime economic partners in june of 1941 a u.s diplomatic cable from zurich strongly declined switzerland's assistance to germany swiss industry makes a greater contribution to the german war effort than switzerland would probably make where she an occupied country most of the products germany bought from switzerland were machinery and equipment requiring highly skilled technical expertise like tanks and aircraft instruments even the watch industry switched largely to making timing and detonation devices since there was little demand for civilian watches during the war in a report by under secretary of war robert p patterson switzerland also furnished electrical power to germany and their railroads carried a heavy traffic for the germans between germany and italy these activities were of substantial assistance to the germans in waging war while roosevelt was committed to keeping the united states out of the war he was infuriated by switzerlands and other neutrals dealings with the nuts this nation will remain a neutral nation but i cannot ask that every american remain neutral in thought as well even a neutral has a right to take account of facts even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or to close his conscience in responding to the war in europe treasury secretary henry morgenthau moved to freeze the u.s bank accounts of the axis powers morgenthau was especially determined to freeze the assets of switzerland which he suspected of collaborating with nazi germany behind its cloak of neutrality he was concerned about how swiss banks had been used he was concerned about money also being concealed there by by the nazis and then used to buy war material from sweden and other so-called neutral countries the swiss will not they may have been legally neutral by the how can you be neutral in your mind you have poor against and in the french part of switzerland certainly the swiss were always against the germans by definition and in the german part of switzerland therefore for the germans until one knew how the war would go [Music] for the nine million jews now trapped in europe there was no choice they faced a reign of nazi terror and death i was in warsaw when the war broke out in september 39 i was under the russians not under the germans and i escaped from them to lithuania after the war i sent the telegram to the last known address of my father in vietnam and uh in reply i got a postcard this was the first message about the death of my family or the brother smith telegram he writes that my father was killed with 600 other jews in the woods near krakow my stepmother i believe was also with him because everybody over the age i believe 45 or 50 was loaded on trucks and shipped into those woods as early as 1942 a four-line telegram was sent by the american legation in switzerland to the state department there is what is apparently a wild rumor inspired by jewish fears that the nazis will exterminate all at once possibly with prussic acid in the autumn about four million jews who may have been assembling in eastern europe by 1943 it was no longer just a rumor the nazi high command decided to implement their final solution the complete extermination of european jewelry the death camps stretched across germany and eastern europe the nazis rounded up the jews from the ghettos packed them into cattle cars and shipped them off to slave labor and slaughter [Music] in auschwitz my mother was selected for work and my little nine-year-old brother first appointed to go to the left to the guest showers so he was crying so my mother took him in her arms and went with him into the guest showers he shouldn't die alone [Music] from budapest i was taken on the kaspner transport which was re-routed to bergen-belsen concentration camp by eichmann adolf eichmann we came in there nearby was the crematorium and we came into the gate they said to us you see you came in from here but you're gonna go out from there they saw that smoke going out from the crematorium [Music] today in new york city two tons of nazi gold sits in the vaults of the federal reserve bank four more tons are in london still awaiting return to its rightful owners recovered from germany and switzerland after the war it is the last known nazi gold plundered from the nations the germans enslaved and the people they killed did the swiss help the nazis hide their gold there seems no question but the government of switzerland took gold from the nazi government and kept it britain the united states and france have agreed to freeze the dispersal of this last six tons in the growing awareness that melted into the ingots is the gold of holocaust victims and jewish property i want to talk about the gold and all the gold that the germans stole from every bank in europe and put in switzerland and in other places because part of that gold was not bank gold part of that gold was fillings from teeth the rings etc of people who were killed in the holocaust in the first years of the war nothing seemed capable of stopping the german onslaught even as america entered the fighting in 1941 [Music] as germany fought on two fronts its war costs were enormous hitler needed gold without it nothing could be paid for yet at the war's beginning the third reich had only 70 to 100 million dollars left in its gold reserves over the next four years germany would accumulate 10 times that amount nearly 800 million dollars worth of gold at today's exchange eight billion dollars where did the gold come from germany begins the war with about 100 million dollars in its gold reserve and yet it manages to sell 775 million it doesn't take rocket scientists to figure out that the bulk of gold sold by germany to the neutral countries of europe during the war was looted gold the nazis simply packed up the official gold reserves of all the countries they conquered and shipped everything back to the reichsbank it was theft on a scale unheard of till then [Music] gold would buy services and goods but for those countries that wouldn't accept stolen gold hitler needed to convert the gold into hard currency to pay his war bill and neutral switzerland with its long history of finance would become first choice as banker to the third rank hitler needed a quiet marketplace in the middle of the hell he had started because what he needed was a convertible currency such just swiss franc because he needed material uh on which you can build up a war here he had whatever he needed it was in the middle of this hill in a country where german was a the majority's language with a fabulous well-working transporting system and a fine bank system and a currency which was accepted worldwide the gold trail was from norway down to switzerland from france down to switzerland from the netherlands down to switzerland from italy from romania at one point from every place that the germans went and the swiss accepted those transfers willingly if you wanted to buy goods food coal steel you had to pay in gold so switzerland didn't take it just to hort in in our treasures we did it as payment and we had much more gold transfer with the allies than we had with nazi germany it was true that the allies did a significant gold trade in switzerland the total amount of gold sales by the allies are indeed slightly higher than the gold sales that germany made to switzerland the only difference and it's it's obviously an absolutely crucial difference is that the gold that they bought from the united states or from the united kingdom wasn't stolen there was absolutely no doubt that this gold really belonged to britain and america what switzerland took in from the nazis was estimated to be nearly half of europe's looted gold about 400 million dollars worth for the united states there was only one explanation for switzerland's conduct from the files of safe haven january 1945 their aid to the enemy in the banking field was clearly beyond the obligations under which a neutral must continue trade with the belligerent and was clearly dictated solely by the profit motive of the swiss banks they weighed it they assigned bank numbers to it restamped it with these new numbers and then indicated precisely where it was sent the gold was not only sent to the swiss national bank where indeed most of it was sent but was sent to private commercial banks as well something that had long been denied switzerland's complicity deepens with the role played by an obscure financial institution on swiss soil the bank for international settlements known as the bits originally established to handle german reparations after world war one the best was known as the bankers bank where international financiers did business its president was a harvard educated midwesterner named thomas mckitrick so you have this oddity of representatives of the united states germany and japan sitting on a board committee together and meeting as though there were no war going on as though somehow uh this was something foreign that the world of business and banking was separate had its own code of ethics and its own code of whether there was a war or not and as far as they were concerned this this wasn't the issue the issue was money and uh and the swiss of course facilitated this the bis acted as a clearing house between its biggest clients the german rex bank and the swiss national bank freely laundering the nazi gold into acceptable foreign currencies even into u.s dollars mckitrick worked both sides of the fence a close friend to oss chief alan dulles mckatrick would also travel openly to berlin meeting with reichsbank director walter funk and he was the confidant of the notorious emile poole emile poole the man who was the vice president of the rice bank at the time visited switzerland regularly in the documents you find where he remarks on how nice it was to be a guest with the swiss bankers and how old friends they were it was emile poole who always assured the swiss national bank and the abyss that the german gold they took in was not looted and they accepted his word the story of the belgian gold belies this in 1940 just before the nazis overran belgium the belgian government moved its gold reserves to france it was then shipped to the french colony of senegal in west africa for safekeeping all to no avail the gold was moved back from africa across the sahara quite a quite adventurous route with camels as well as aircraft and back to france so then at the end of 1942 the gold was taken from france to berlin melted down and shaped into new gold bars provided with certificates and apparent documentation that this was gold that had been minted in this way in 1935 or 1936 in other words from pre-war dates and then sold in the course of the early months of 1943 into switzerland the litany of this repeats belgium for example it was believed that there was about 123 million dollars a value of over a billion dollars worth of gold that was looted from the belgian national treasury and while sweden would not take it the swedish national bank and while the swiss were put on notice again by 17 nations they took this money at the end of the war mckittrick would return to america to become the head of what is now known as chase manhattan bank and upon his death in 1970 embraced as an international financier emile poole would be convicted for war crimes at nuremberg all the gold did not stay in switzerland although switzerland took in four times the amount that other neutral countries would the swiss earned considerable commissions by shipping gold at the reichsbank's bidding to neutrals like spain and portugal where germany would trade gold for essential goods [Music] the method used to ship gold through switzerland is detailed in a declassified safe haven cable sent by an allied spy code named the saint have contacted high-level swiss who uncovered trail of 280 truckloads of german gold bars sent from switzerland to spain and portugal between may 1943 and february 1944 total value estimated between 1 billion and 2 billion swiss francs gold was shipped from account of rights bank and taken from vaults of the swiss national bank swiss national emblem appeared on every truck when we released those documents the swiss said oh no that's not true and then several days later they said well it wasn't 280 truckloads it was only 70 truckloads of gold the swiss as good bankers would also extend a billion dollars of credit to the third reich when the swiss national bank wanted payment on this debt and hitler ran short of gold the swiss would just tell him where to find it in one instance they ordered the reichsbank to take 12 million dollars of stolen gold from italy's vault and ship it on the trains back to switzerland germany did just as its bankers told it of all the plunder that made its way to switzerland the most unspeakable of all was the gold that was pulled from the bodies of nazi concentration camp victims the ss shipped the horrific contents plus looted jewish jewelry and religious artifacts to the reichsbank testifying at the nuremberg trials in 1946 mike's bank official albert thoms recalled that his boss the infamous emile poole arranged to receive the first ss shipments to the reichsbank in 1942. [Music] some of the items bore the stamp auschwitz we all knew that those places were the sites of concentration camps it was the 10th delivery in november 1942 that the first dental gold appeared after that the quantity of dental gold became unusually great this is a monthly report from uh from dachau of the plunder of dental gold and if you let's recall we're talking about a place as awful as dachau was it's generally not called a death camp it was a concentration camp it wasn't treblinka and it wasn't birkenau and yet here we have at the dental station there for the month of march 3085.3 grams of gold pure gold were collected in the month of march from 528 bodies sacks of gold fillings and wedding rings arrived at the reichsbank under the codename melmer after the reichsbank assessed their value they were melted down and added to the gold reserve that the nazis would ship to switzerland [Music] in a world turned upside down by the second world war it became the nazis and not the jews who were protected by swiss neutrality nearly a billion dollars of german investments were now in switzerland more than a dozen swiss banks handled the german and access accounts including some of the most well-known names in swiss banking today credit swiss the swiss banking corporation the union bank of switzerland and the national bank of switzerland many german businesses were camouflaged as swiss corporations they tried to replace german nationals by swiss nationals they often changed the names of companies and they don't want the assets of those companies to be frozen in the united states for instance which they would have been if it if it had been cleared that this was a german subsidiary the most famous case of a german business hiding under a swiss identity was that of ig farben the manufacturer of zyklon b the chemical agent for hitler's gas chambers as for the banks themselves they became virtual safe havens for private german accounts adolf hitler is suspected to have opened a swiss account for the royalties of his book mein kampf field marshal hermann gehring who stashed his personal fortune in accounts in davos and lausanne foreign minister johann von ribentrop and nazi propaganda minister joseph goebbels it's not clear exactly who had what hitler had an account and guring had an account all these guys had accounts they were stealing a lot of money for themselves and putting away a lot of money for themselves and they obviously all opened accounts someplace that was safe and the safest place to open these accounts was switzerland and they opened them under very often under uh under false names a special account under the alias gustelov stiftung a martyred swiss nazi was discovered in the records of the zurich based johann verley bank nazis would deposit in this name millions of dollars in assets and property looted from jewish businessmen this fund disappeared with other german accounts when the verley family transferred much of their banking to south america in 1946 even the world famous ballet shoe manufacturer was a beneficiary of the nazi looting acquiring shops in germany confiscated from jews the ultimate irony was that jewish money and secret swiss accounts was stolen by the nazis the swiss would help the germans crack the secrecy laws and uncover hidden jewish accounts from the american consulate zurich may 1945 from time to time we have received reports to the effect that the germans managed to place french-speaking ardent nazis in the leading swiss banks the result of which during the course of the war the swiss secrecy law worked only against the allies and not against the axis [Music] the stolen wealth that the nazis laundered through switzerland was nearly limitless there's a whole other side to this which we just began to think about there were thousands of patents were held by jews who had created this that the other thing they were simply expropriated by germany i mean for instance if the richest man in america bill gates had had his patents confiscated by you know somebody people would have made billions of dollars now who does that really belong to one of the largest confiscations of jewish property during the war took place in 1940 when the germans overran belgium and took control of the mostly jewish-owned diamond industry in antwerp the diamond capital of europe the nazis carted away nearly 11 million dollars worth of gems to cash in on their loot and to cover their tracks the germans dumped most of the stones in switzerland and the remainder in spain as a result the swiss became one of the world's leading exporters of cut diamonds during the war as the nazis continued their wholesale plunder across europe they seized more art treasure than the total value of all the works of art in the united states at the time many of the masterpieces were from the french jewish collections of the rothschild family and paul rosenberg if you actually look at that period you'll see that the art market was very important in fact a lot of movement in the art market was it because people all suddenly weren't felt that maybe having a a good picture was probably better than having some form of currency etc where they weren't interested in currency a lot of jewish families was the only thing they could have to sell the art the nazis viewed as degenerate mainly the impressionists and other modernists were exchanged for the old flemish and german masters and much of the trade done in switzerland when guring or hitler had an old master that they wanted they would pick a few of these and trade them and sometimes not just a few but they would give i don't know 15 or 20 matisse and picassos and things like that for one titian which was probably a fake i mean it was just an incredible business and uh through this business uh of bartering and laundering a number of these paintings ended up in switzerland there was one collector in particular very famous collector named emil burla and he quite knowingly bought these things and in fact he he supposedly said well if i have to if you know if if i get caught then i'll just uh buy them again and in fact that's what he actually did after the war jews who lived in switzerland continued to be protected from hitler's reach for the others jewish refugees it was still a bitter experience in the macabre story of the castner transport eichmann ransom jewish victims for money pulling them out of the gas chambers of bergen-belsen and then sending them to switzerland alice fisher was one of the castner survivors taken to a hospital in switzerland when i came to switzerland they called me only not by my name flirtling string is a refugee in german and they blame the whole wall on the flipped links they couldn't get enough chocolate chocolate was generations i come from the concentration camps you know what i saw there and they were complaining everything is the refugee's fault even switzerland's legendary international red cross did not escape allied wrath despite heroic efforts to provide relief to prisoners and refugees and to locate the dead and missing the allies would fault the red cross for its supervision of american prisoners of war january 19 1945 from secretary of war henry stimson to the secretary of state i have recently received reports that the swiss government is not acting vigorously as a protecting power and protecting the rights of american prisoners of war in germany the swiss government is more interested in retaining german good will than in properly protecting american prisoners under the geneva convention only this year the international red cross apologized for their insensitivity toward jewish victims of the holocaust admitting they had entered auschwitz learned of the gas chambers and reported nothing what they've done was unbelievable and this i was present there they come with coming into the hospital they will give first for every catholic child food some bread or biscuits or chocolate the jewish children what was left over they've been given to the children and one time i said to to one from them i say you know what difference a stomach for a child don't know is jewish or catholic it's just a baby [Music] even as the allies were winning the war switzerland continued to take in nazi loot and gold though there was no longer fear of nazi reprisal [Music] uncovered by investigative reports deep in switzerland's own national archives are details of at least three shipments of gold ingots to switzerland in one week by romania's fascist government an attempt to keep it from the russians radio atlantique and lisbon's most important daily newspaper both reported that millions of reichsmarks in gold were sent from the national bank of bucharest to the national bank of switzerland the gold suspected of being a part of german loot was shipped in spite of serious allied warnings as late as 1944 oss director william donovan in a secret memorandum to roosevelt complained not only of the gold sales but that switzerland continued to supply the bald bearings that were urgently needed by hitler's army roosevelt's reply was succinct please take this up with the secretary of state right away we ought to block the swiss participation in saving the skins of rich or prominent germans a refusal of the swiss to heed these warnings may have led to the one bombing of switzerland by the allies in 1944 targeting the ball bearing plant in schaufhausen nobody really knows why american planes bombed shaft housing there's still quite a mystery about this some people say that it was an accident as some people say that it was deliberate because here was this complacent rich country that had escaped a lot of the damage of the war and somebody in the us bombing crew wanted to have their revenge as american forces advanced into germany in 1945 the reichsbank tried to hide its ss gold and plunder what it couldn't ship out of the country was stored in an abandoned salt mine in the bavarian town of murkers when general eisenhower and his troops discovered it they were stunned merker's mine essentially it was an aladdin's cave in fact there was an estimate one point that murkers represented the richest spot on the face of the earth and what was there were thousands of gold bars thousands of suitcases and bags of wedding rings of jewelry of gold teeth of valuables of every description as well as probably the greatest art collection ever assembled in one place they were found there at markers with germany's defeat in may 1945 the concentration camps were liberated [Music] more than 11 million people had died in these factories of death the nazis had succeeded in murdering two-thirds of the jews of europe six million men women and children [Music] scattered across europe the survivors of the holocaust tried to piece together their lives many were so traumatized that they made no attempt to recover what had once been theirs some who did paid dearly in poland two thousand returning jewish survivors were murdered by their own countrymen after the war when they sought to reclaim their homes and businesses in paris says throughout europe the once thriving jewish quarter had all but disappeared jews would return to find that their houses were now lived in by others their possessions gone french writer marek halter speaks of a europe unrecognizable to the jews who've made their way home that's only 50 years after the world we begin to speak about it because you know just after the world the first the first the survivors want to know is to who survives who survived nobody thought that that the apartment is important and money in the bank is important the survivors discover that they live in the biggest cemetery in the world who will go to speak about money in that cemetery most jews turned their back on europe altogether some choosing the difficult journey to palestine and entering a new war for the creation of the statehood of israel for the jews who crossed the atlantic to america alone or with the few family members who survived the war the charity of refugee agencies would sustain them through the first impossible years after the holocaust [Music] slowly the survivors began to think of justice and recovering what rightfully belonged to them or their murdered relatives in 1947 when i was 18 i got married after i got married my uncle sigmund brown told me that in 1939 my father had begun depositing money in banks in switzerland and in paris in fear of the nazi persecution but in 60 already we started to inquire and we found a lawyer and we told him what happened and he hired another lawyer and the two of them were able to get the money out of paris but the swiss they couldn't get near what do you mean they didn't they couldn't get any information out of them they tried and it was just useless so they dropped it so i took the money what i got from paris and that was it much of the difficulty lies improving claim to the accounts with bank books and deposit slips lost during the holocaust little evidence remains of their family's money banks even ask survivors for death certificates of relatives killed in concentration camps or have charged costly fees to conduct searches and there are instances where people have come with the details with even instances where people came with receipts and said you know we had this money where is it and the bank's account the bank's answer very often is we don't know what happened to it or we can't find it like veronica katz estelle sapir had no difficulty in recovering the family's money in england and france again it was switzerland that would prove difficult in 46 i went to switzerland to geneva and went to teddy swiss and i went in and i said to the lady and i told her the story and she left she said you wait here and i come back to you ten minutes later she comes back she had my paper what i give her she had that old chat and her head and i saw his little g sophie joseph sappy and she's i asked her this this is my father's because she looked me she says you have to wait here a man maybe 10 minutes should come out the man and he asked me you the daughter i said yeah you have probe size issue you have a death certificate from your father i said what what is a death certificate he says when somebody dies you have to have a prophecy profession equally discouraging was louis sultan's return to switzerland after the war first time i went to europe in 47. in zurich i went to that stamp dealer and i said uh do you have any record of how my father paid you and the answer is where is your father's collection i said well where everything else went no we don't have any records obviously they didn't want to get into it from there i went to the three main swiss banks and i asked the same question does my father have an account with you almost an identical answer from all three of them from the three banks we cannot tell you we have bank secrecy but if you will come in the afternoon i'll nod my head yes or no if it's yes you can go through the proper legal channels all three said no once more in 1954 estelle sapir attempted to retrieve her father's accounts this time i said i've gotten strong and i went into the bank when i find my father and the sad story i can do nothing for you until you not give us a dead certificate and i say well he wants me to wake up him hitler i mean i cannot find him he claimed him and when i run out i was kind because i could not stop screaming like people stopped me they've been very nice but this man in the back he had no heart for me he was a naughty swiss response to stolen jewish artwork was also one of indifference it took paul rosenberg 10 years to recover the many impressionist paintings known to be in swiss galleries and even then it took an oss investigation and a court trial after the war rosenberg really went on a crusade to get his things back and the swiss government was really not very cooperative at all um they kept saying they would make a commission to look into it but there was never any swiss commission which looked into this and uh when the oss was withdrawn the whole investigation stopped and nothing more happened and i think this happened with almost everything that as long as allied pressure was kept up certain results were achieved but as soon as it stopped then the whole thing died down the swiss however demonstrated a far different attitude toward nazis with bank accounts in switzerland and who are now trying to flee to south america despite switzerland's promise to freeze german assets nazi money and gold made its way across the atlantic by diplomatic pouch bank transfer and even submarine to south america especially argentina it was deemed the greatest exodus of capital in history this population of eichmann's and mengeles didn't come there because they liked the climate or they wanted to learn how to tangle they came there because that was an environment that welcomed them and they welcome them because they paid for their welcome in one of the communications there's talked about 20 million dollars worth of billion and that was back in the 40s 20 million dollars in the 40s being taken by submarine to argentina the swiss didn't stop with just helping the nazis transfer their loot out of the country safe haven records make it clear that swiss authorities helped the nazis themselves to escape the swiss government was not only anxious to get rid of german nationals but also to make sure they made a considerable profit german nationals paid swiss officials as much as two hundred thousand swiss francs for the temporary residence documents they are required to have the nazis were then booked by swiss air on the dutch airlines klm and flown to south america to safety and even prosperity by war's end europe was in ruins but not switzerland at the end of the war a lot of europe had been devastated it was the bombing the countries were financially exhausted by the cost of the war even the victims britain was crippled in switzerland which had been a rather poor country in the in the 19th century it becomes one of the wealthiest european countries in that sense clearly appeared as an island in this sea of destruction and carnage and waste [Music] the western allies were determined to track down all the looted gold and with it begin the process of rebuilding europe what's more there was a new enemy and a new war to fight the costly battle against soviet communism [Music] arrival at a berlin airport of delegates to the tripartite conference mr truman is the first american chief executive to set foot on german soil since woodrow wilson's visit after world war one the allied gold commission recovered 400 million dollars of gold from germany most of it from merker's mine incredibly it was estimated that an equal amount of the nazis gold was held in switzerland but the swiss would refuse to give up any of it finally after almost impossible negotiations the swiss agreed to release a mere 58 million dollars worth the allies took it and closed the books over the next 50 years 377 tons of the gold were returned to the treasuries of europe except for the last few tons worth 70 million dollars today sitting in new york and london at least part of this gold had been taken from victims of nazi persecution not one cent was given back to holocaust survivors at the end of the war neither the americans nor the british nor the french uh decided it was worthwhile to determine what bars of gold were bank old what were not and i find that you know that that it disturbs me enormously that at the end of the war there were only two things that were everybody's mind to clean this thing up and to worry about the russians coming from the east it's taken a half century for the gold and the memories of the survivors to resurface to haunt the world's conscience for more than 50 years the inquiries into the swiss bank accounts by the survivors and jewish organizations in israel and the united states have been met with mostly silence only small amounts of money were ever returned to the claimants it's impossible to ever get a clear accounting as to how much money was placed in their vaults by jews in 1946 swiss banks said they found 248 000 swiss francs and dormant accounts in 1949 they found 309 000 swiss francs and dormant accounts and in 1962 they found 2 million swiss francs those figures should make it very clear that it showed the lack of sincerity of the methodology then edgar bronfman came to switzerland's door in an effort to finally get a clear accounting of the jewish money bronfman met with the swiss in september of 1995. the president of the swiss bankers association george cryer instead offered bronfman a deal a settlement for all unclaimed jewish accounts 32 million dollars no questions asked here i had to make a giant decision uh you take the money uh and say goodbye and thank you very much or do you know negotiate i didn't want to do either of those things because i have no idea how much money there really is i had none i still have none so i turned to mr cryer and i said excuse me sir i didn't come here to discuss money i came here to discuss process now that took him totally by surprise he wanted what i meant by that i said look if you want me to tell the whole world especially the jewish world that that's all there is i have to know that's all there is meanwhile the swiss were doing some soul searching of their own and of their accountability during the war [Music] on the 50th anniversary of the war may 1995 then swiss president kaspar villager issued a rare apology to the jews on behalf of his country specifically for turning away the jews from swiss borders [Music] the swiss member of parliament was one of the first in her government to question switzerland's past and launch investigations into the lost jewish accounts i just threw one stone and i couldn't know that the whole mountain comes down you know and i did it first because whatever is nazi and very rightish politics uh from his horror we have guilt by sending back the refugees and we knew that they would die and this is guilt this is not star or frank's we have to accept responsibility and this is our question of our history of our generation at grendel buyers and world jewish leaders insistence the swiss bankers association agreed to appoint an ombudsman and help jewish applicants locate their accounts some 2000 jews applied paying a fee to search through bank records trudy summer was one of them and we're sorry that for the time being we cannot give you better information that was signed by an ombudsman i don't even know what that means and by an administrator and here they sent me the 200 swiss franc back but hundreds are kept about a year ago i filed application with the swiss ombudsman and have not even had the courtesy of the reply i heard about a lawyer in basel and i authorized him to search in the banks and every bank wants money and he has more and more money we couldn't afford sending so much money so i saw that the information is that there is no information so for this i have to pay so i stopped the search i don't want to benefit your lady in this cemetery i want to at least have a life somehow all my life a sacrifice for your family for everybody now okay i have nothing after a year's inquiry in november of 1996 the ombudsman announced he had located a total of only eight thousand eight hundred dollars in all the claims submitted to his office when the swiss banking ombudsman having received some two thousand queries reports that he has found only eight thousand dollars in accounts it is not merely pathetic but an indictment of his methods indeed fees he charged holocaust survivors and the families of holocaust victims to process their claims far exceeds the eight thousand dollars he found unsatisfied with the results of the ombudsman's search gisella weishaus filed suit against swiss banks to reclaim her family's assets sixteen thousand claimants have joined two class-action suits on behalf of jewish survivors demanding a total of 20 billion dollars i want to get some justice for those people who were killed unjustly and also wrapped up their possessions i think the swiss banking community understands that it may resist it may not be happy it may be being drag kicking and screaming into this but in fact they finally have to face up to the reality but we all must recognize that no matter how compelling one story it is impossible to locate assets without information however when it was in switzerland's interest to find holocaust accounts it was not impossible at all of the most damaging pieces of evidence against switzerland were records released showing that switzerland used the bank accounts of murdered polish jews to compensate swiss citizens who lost money under poland's communist government it's very clear that when the swiss say they have no records that they're not telling the truth they found money they found accounts that they could give back to the polish government as part of a settlement in the nineteen in the early nineteen seventies and they knew exactly who was dead and who was alive and they only gave back the accounts of dead people they never looked for heirs and indeed in one case 50 years after they did this damnable thing the world jewish congress was able to find a relative you know how they did it they went to a telephone book and they found a relative living in england bowing to international pressure switzerland agreed to two independent inquiries into its country's past and took the unprecedented action of lifting its bank secrecy laws for the investigation first the berger committee will have historians scrutinize switzerland's wartime rule and the questions of looted gold in nazi plunder the second is a bank investigation into the jewish accounts led by an american former federal reserve chairman paul volcker it is called the independent committee of eminent persons i remember the first meeting of the eminent committee was in new york and it was in paul volcker's office and the debate was who was going to pay for the research into what happened and we were insisting that they pay for it and finally george cryer said talking about his consensus constituency people who put him in office he said what do you want me to do ask these people to pay to find out what bastards their grandfathers were yeah they should and i guess they will even with swiss support an inquiry into the jewish accounts would be a monumental task we go to the banks and say we just don't go and ask we were going look let us know about all your dormant accounts whether anybody's asked about them or not but 50 or 60 years have gone by which just makes the trail that harder to follow but we'll do the best we can today i'm convinced that it's a fact that the swiss banks are only acting because of the pressure which is put on them from abroad that's why it's about the pressure put from abroad mainly from the world jewish congress or from senator de meadow even though it's criticized here has been extremely effective in the united states d'amato's aggressiveness on the issue boosted his popularity with jewish voters in new york much more helpful to his re-election future than whitewater has been the motto continued to release a weekly barrage of documents incriminating the swiss let me ask and i'd like to understand when i release this i have to tell you this is very personal i get attacked and they deny it and then they say it wasn't secret and then they say was well if it wasn't secret who had it we didn't know about it did you know about it i didn't know about it i tell you that takes a lot of research senator let me let me follow up with that first of all i understand nobody likes to be attacked but from such attacks from such attacks you will not suffer uh the more these attacks come uh from their attacks to to god's ears you don't have to worry about it but i do want to make this one point have you become a prophet now yes yes i have and i'm glad you noticed not content to wait for the results of the berger and volcker investigations possibly years away world jewish leaders look toward a financial gesture from the swiss banks as a sign of goodwill preliminary discussions this uh suggestion is now on the table and we have to find an answer there is already damage down to our reputation the situation in the united states is very serious i think we have to be very careful we are now uh observed as a country and not as a banking place and i was warning from the beginning don't reduce the problem to a technical banking problem it's a political problem of our country the swiss agonized as they tried to determine how much money would constitute an acceptable gesture and how the banks could fund it the director of the union bank of switzerland found it particularly difficult to justify any contribution unless you can clearly point and say now here uh ubs or the other banks or all the banks together have plundered and this is worth a compensation we will do it but up to that point i find it very difficult to go into a direction like this i would uh find it uh difficult whether we shareholders i think we could face shareholder suits shareholders don't count for that much here now that that wouldn't bother me and it's not such a huge amount that you would legally need jail approval but no i'm sure we will do what is expected of us because the way to sell this today is you are contributing to an a procedure to safeguard or re-establish the good name of switzerland as a trading country and as a financial country the swiss banks obviously are image wise under attack i think they would like this problem to go away as quickly as possible and they are also ready to empty up some money just to make it go away as a tax upon switzerland increased in the minds of certain swiss their country's problems were the fault of their own jewish community the discussion about anti-semitism has increased tremendously every major newspaper is bringing lead articles on this topic there is definite tension between being a jew in this country at the moment and at the same time being a swiss citizen [Music] switzerland's growing defensiveness was to culminate in an unprecedented outburst in january 1997 at the end of his year's term swiss president jean pascal de la mara was forced to apologize after exploding in anger charging that jewish calls for restitution amounted to extortion and blackmail regrettable personnel stung by his anti-semitic remarks jewish leaders assembled over lunch in new york to discuss an appropriate response the uh the swiss minister accused us of black males they're very upset about the government but they feel that it may backlash unto the swiss jewish community and also they question whether that much money is involved in fact i met a interesting i met a german on the plane not a german gentile he said well now we're no longer alone in the world we have the swiss partners the swiss government believes we must be [ __ ] because they say we misunderstood what he said we didn't misunderstand what he said we understood it very well let me simply say this if you're going to be called the blackmailer at least call me a blackmailer for demanding 250 million dollars let me state flatly we never demanded a figure from them in fact that will go further that figure was proposed by the swiss to us and that's the third aspect of this which has gotten us very angry having said this i'm not going to say any more i'm not going to give all his titles because he has the best title of them all greville british parliamentarian greville jenner is his country's most powerful advocate for the jewish claimants of holocaust accounts and leading england's own investigation into switzerland two days ago we had the ex-president of switzerland making this extraordinary statement i've never been so pleased that anyone was an ex-president as i was that this man is no longer holding that office because it was to say the very least thoughtless and tactless and stirs up trouble for precisely the sort of people like myself who are seeking to help the swiss to restore their own good name we have no wish those of us who are involved in europe to turn switzerland into its permanent pariah i mean fine if tomato sees fit to turn himself into the ogre of the swiss alps that is entirely a matter for him that is not what i'm going to do we have to work together and we have to recognize that we all exist and the pressures have to come from within europe as well as from outside i believe in the long run the swiss people and the swiss government and the swiss bankers will want to do justice will see that there is a profound contempt for the way that their governments behaved in the days of the war and just before it will want to put matters right rabbi berman i must disagree with you about the good faith of the swiss bankers and the swiss government and i think that we have to consider mounting a worldwide boycott of switzerland its banks and its financial institutions i'm not suggesting we remove the pressure i'm an activist my job is to help apply the pressures i'm simply suggesting to you that there are different ways of applying pressure don't make people into pariahs until they have proved that they should be and be especially careful please about boycotts some of us have been involved in boycotts a lot of our lives and there's nothing worse than a boycott that fails as the emotional climate heated up the talk of boycotts and sanctions increased billions of dollars of u.s investments and pension funds held by swiss banks would be at stake you understand that the senate banking committee can make life very difficult for swiss banks if they want to do business in america and you can't do business worldwide if you don't do business in america maybe someday you'll be able to but not not not right now so this is quite a weapon then in january the worst possible news for the swiss in zurich a security guard at the union bank of switzerland discovered the bank was shredding wartime documents of a smaller bank it had absorbed in nineteen forty five the identity bank the guard turned some rescued pages over to a local jewish organization calling the incident a regrettable mistake bank officials insisted nothing important had been destroyed but the security guard was fired well this is uh it is a catastrophe it's not i consider it to be a catastrophe for probably for most probably very little or nothing but given the emotions we are all in this is very damaging to our credibility there is no question about that what happened the destruction of the documents is stupid despite of the fact that we don't think it has any relevance the documents which were destroyed came all from that tiny bank today which isn't really a bank anymore contrary to studer's disregard for the so-called tiny bank ubs doubled in size at the time of the merger and safe haven records show that the ignaci bank was one of the top 10 in switzerland to take in german investment during the war ubs admitted to shredding hundreds of pounds of documents understandably the response from the jewish world was one of alarm and condemnation in 1997 when the swiss bank shreds records that describe transfers from a bank which was taken over by a swiss bank in 1945 that describes events that took place in the 1930s in germany this is nothing which can be defended under anybody's morality because there's no one standing outside of switzerland threatening to invade switzerland in 1997. in 1997 there is no germany that surrounds switzerland it's just plain avarice the swiss ambassador to the united states resigned after switzerland's ambassador to the united states carlo jagmenty resigned after it was reported that he urged switzerland to wage war against jewish groups and other critics jagmenty's resignation was devastating in the battle for world opinion switzerland had lost within a week switzerland's largest banks including the swiss national bank along with swiss businesses established a holocaust fund of 200 million dollars as a gesture of goodwill then the stunning proposal of a 4.7 billion dollar fund for holocaust victims this one to be created by the swiss government edgar bronfman and other jewish leaders hailed the decision the bad news is they may have shredded some really meaningful records the good news is they made themselves look so awful that they had to do something really drastic to turn it around as creation of the of the two funds i think we had a i said i think it's historic moment because i think what was getting a little out of hand and a little perhaps overly emotional uh is now i think somewhat back on track and hopefully it will stay this way a spirit of cooperation uh and uh determination to find the truth as switzerland awaits the verdict of history the jewish survivors of the holocaust hold on to the hope for justice i feel here the wings of history the wings of memory in the wings of justice in this room i can see the shadows of the millions who perished with bones are scattered all over the world in the thousands of communities all that is left a little circles on the map of europe and the few remnants scattered all over the world we the survivors were presented here in this corner speaking on behalf of all of them throughout the world i see the shadow of my mother whose ring golden ring was forcefully pulled off by a felt treble of the ancestral agenda marie in a little town even in white russia our deepest gratitude to all of you people who did such a marvelous job spirit here is overwhelming it's heartwarming to see finally that even the swiss government is responding to us gentlemen please do justice our numbers are diminishing our people are old and frail and sick and they need support god bless you for all your efforts [Music] i still goodbye to my last minute this is not just the one this is life this is for these people the last few years when they have to let them have a little bit better just not give up recently that american commission appointed by president clinton to investigate the nazi gold issue made public its final report the announcement made headlines around the world the commission headed by stuart eisenstadt the under secretary of commerce confirmed that the nazis did loot countless european banks and much of that money went directly into swiss banks despite repeated swiss protestations after the war that they had never received any looted nazi gold this report is incontrovertible the swiss national bank and swiss bankers knew as the war progressed that the reich banks owned coffers had been depleted and that the swiss were handling vast sums of looted gold and the commission also declared it had conclusive evidence that gold taken from victims of the holocaust was indeed sold to switzerland the report concludes that some nazi victim gold was sent abroad to switzerland and other neutral countries as for switzerland itself it remains uncertain whether that country's legislators will give the green light to that proposed 4.7 billion dollar fund for holocaust survivors and no one can predict after the past few years of devastating revelations what will happen to switzerland's longtime image as a neutral country as one member of the swiss parliament argued if it weren't for his country's collaboration with the nazis world war ii would have been over much sooner and millions of lives would have been saved [Music] [Music] you

Channel: gaylen ross

Views: 76,631

Keywords: Holocaust, Jewish history, Nazi, Switzerland, WWII, Germany, German history, Switzerland history, Jewish studies, Shoah

Id: 2Cpam0TW48s

Length: 93min 15sec (5595 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 26 2020