Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee

Hearing on the Eizenstat Report regarding Holocaust Assets

10:00 a.m., Thursday, May 15, 1997

Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Committee,

I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before your Committee on behalf of the Government of Switzerland. On a previous occasion, in December 1996, 1 had the honor of testifying before your counterparts on the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services. At that time I described the initial measures and studies taken in my country with regard to investigating the activities of Switzerland before, during and after World War II. At that hearing, I also made a number of commitments as to how we would move this issue forward. Today, as I appear before you, I am able to report that these commitments have become, or are in the process of becoming, reality. Let me use this occasion to tell you today what measures Switzerland has taken to shed full light on Swiss history during and after WWII, on the dormant accounts of Holocaust victims, and to assist victims.

1. In May 1996, the Swiss Bankers Association together with Jewish organizations created a Committee of Eminent Persons headed by Paul Volcker, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to search for dormant assets that may still remain in Swiss banks. A comprehensive forensic investigation of all Swiss banks will allow identification of all assets that possibly could have belonged to Holocaust victims. This ongoing process has already begun to bear fruit and, as the banks have. promised: not one penny that may have belonged to a Holocaust victim will remain in a Swiss bank.
   
   
2. The release of the names of account-holders killed during WWII - a constructive suggestion of yours, Mr. Chairman - will undoubtedly enhance this process. I am pleased to announce today that the Swiss Bankers Association will hold a meeting with the Swiss Federal Banking Commission next week to define the speediest way for this proposition to be translated into action. A coordinated release of the names, in Switzerland, Europe, Israel and the US, is now envisioned. I am confident that the publication of these names will accelerate the claim process. The publication in January of the lists of account-holders whose assets were transferred to Poland and Hungary has already led to some success.
   
   
3. In December 1996, the Swiss Parliament unanimously passed a law creating an independent commission of nine international experts mandated to study all legal and historical aspects of Switzerland's role as a financial center before, during, and after the war years and its relations with Nazi Germany. The Commission is chaired by one of Switzerland's leading historians, Professor Jean-Frangois Bergier, and includes internationally noted historians such as Sibyl Milton of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Saul Friedlander of Tel Aviv University and Harold James of Princeton University. For the purposes of this investigation, Swiss banking secrecy regulations have been lifted. The Swiss Government is committed to do all in its power to ensure that any assets held in Switzerland and belonging to Holocaust victims will be returned to their rightful owners or their heirs.
   
   
4. In close cooperation and consultation with all interested groups, especially the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and thanks to the significant financial contribution of the three major Swiss banks and Swiss industry, we have established a humanitarian fund for the survivors of the Holocaust and their families. This is not a restitution fund; it is in no way connected with the independent investigations under way by the banks and our government in their own search for the truth. As of this moment, the fund has a $185 US million endowment, including a $70 US million pledge by the Swiss National Bank. The fund will give support to Holocaust survivors, as well as their descendants in need. The Government believes that it is essential that distributions from the Fund begin as soon as possible.
   
   
5. Although human suffering can never be compensated for, the people of Switzerland believe it imperative to extend a compassionate hand toward the survivors of the worst tragedy in the history of mankind. As evidence of this, in August 1996, one million CHF was donated to AMCHA - the Israeli Foundation providing traumatized survivors with psychological assistance and to the Lauder Foundation for the conservation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial.
   
   
6. On March 5, 1997, the President of Switzerland presented to the Parliament a proposal for the creation of a Swiss Foundation for Solidarity. The goal is to establish a very substantial endowment that would generate an income of several hundred million $US per year. This project looks resolutely towards the future, addressing both the causes and consequences of human misery. It seeks to enhance national and international solidarity, while helping to alleviate the fate of those who presently suffer from poverty, human rights violations, genocide and war. This proposal will be submitted to a public referendum next year.
   
   
7. In addition to the Government and the banks, a number of grass-roots associations are collecting funds for the survivors of the Holocaust. Mr. Chairman, let me tell you a story about a Swiss citizen, a Senator like you, who out of compassion for the fate of tho neediest survivors of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe has, together with a number of Swiss public figures, established a private foundation and launched a fund-raising campaign in Switzerland. Since last February, over 320,000 $US have been collected. Survivors are now receiving financial support, 85 tons of humanitarian supplies have been shipped to Minsk, Byelorussia, in cooperation with the Jewish community of Basel. Another private Jewish Christian Foundation has raised 180,000 $US for similar purposes. Finally, thanks to their dedicated and touching door-to-door fund-raising, high- school teenagers in Bern have already collected 50,000 $US, which they have donated to AMCHA, and to a gypsy organization active in the Baltic states.

These are but a few examples of the spirit of solidarity that exists among the people of my country. This will show you more about the intensity of the commitment of the Swiss people than any list of the steps, however significant, my Government and the banks have taken. I am sorry that these endeavors have, as of yet, found little recognition and acknowledgment in the United States. While Under-Secretary Eizenstat has repeatedly, and publicly, given credit to my country for these efforts, they remain largely ignored in the US. The Swiss, old and young alike, including the high-school children I just mentioned, are perplexed -and wonder why, in spite of these efforts, they continue to be treated as an international outcast. It would indeed be tragic for all concerned if the numerous individual and collective initiatives taken nationwide in my country should be discouraged and dampened by this harsh and negative campaign. Mr. Chairman, as you can well appreciate, this process has been extremely painful and troubling for my people. It is my sincere hope that you and your highly esteemed Committee will foster understanding in your country for the actions now being taken by Switzerland.

My Government has clearly commended Under-Secretary Eizenstat and his team for the research they achieved in this relatively short time. The Report serves as highly useful material for all historical commissions now at work in Switzerland and in other neutral countries. My Government is thoroughly reviewing the Report and hasn't yet taken a position on its content. In a first perusal, however, it appears that the extremely difficult situation that our country found itself in, both militarily and economically at that time, has not been adequately addressed. Switzerland's policy then constituted a tightrope walk to spare the country and its people, including the many thousand refugees on its soil, from the war, and to preserve freedom and democracy. In addition, there are some assertions in the Report that Switzerland cannot endorse, such as the characterization of the German threat to Switzerland, or whether trade with Germany prolonged the war. But the Report, as you all know, is a preliminary study and is primarily focused on US policy-making. It relied exclusively on documents available in the US Federal Archives. Therefore, we should be cautious in drawing hasty conclusions from this study alone.

Mr. Chairman, our duty to this generation, to survivors and to the future generations is to fill in the missing pieces in a complex historical jig-saw puzzle. This is why I am pleased to announce today that my Government strongly endorses an international conference of expert historians, and looks forward to its convening in the near future.

In this context, my government's opposition to re-opening the 1946 Washington Accord is quite clear. The Washington Accord was negotiated, ratified, and implemented with full knowledge of the relevant facts by all the parties. At no time was Switzerland in a position to deceive the US, a fact reinforced by the new revelations that the US had decoded my country's secret diplomatic dispatches.

More to the point, the assets transferred to the Allies pursuant to this agreement had virtually no impact on the survivors. In contrast, the actions Switzerland is taking today demonstrate real concern about people. We want to go above and beyond the Washington Accord. The priority of my Government is to achieve justice.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, in closing, I would simply like to state that if there was lost time, we are now making up for it with energy and thoroughness. If there were missed opportunities, we are now daring new ideas. We recognize more clearly than ever that we must address these lingering moral questions. We will do our part and do justice to the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs. Responsibility towards our past is the only guarantee for a responsible future.

Please make no mistake about it, for all of us in Switzerland, confronting our past will give us a unique chance to rediscover our strengths. As Undersecretary Eizenstat eloquently wrote in his op-ed piece in the New York Times of last Saturday, "our generation will be judged not by the actions of the past, but by our willingness to face the past honestly and to achieve a small measure of justice, however belatedly, so that surviving victims can live their remaining years in dignity."

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