News from
Within July 1997
Zionism and the Judeocide:
the story
of the Nazi assets in Switzerland
Shraga Elam
For a long time, Switzerland's
role in the Second World War was mainly of interest to
historians and other novelists. In the last two years, however,
it has suddenly turned into one of the main items on the
international political and journalistic agenda. This process -
which was initiated by the wrong people, using the wrong means,
and mainly for wrong purposes - may well evolve into no less
than a turning point in global political and economic
developments. This statement may sound somewhat pretentious or
even megalomaniacal, but the more one becomes acquainted with
the materials and circumstances involved, the more reasonable it
appears.
It all started in a quite
harmless fashion. For years, both private persons and Jewish
organizations claimed that assets that had been deposited in
Switzerland (both before and during the Second World War) by
victims of the Nazi Judeocide [genocide against the Jews] were
still being held by Swiss banks. In 1974, and as a result of
external pressure, Switzerland announced that it was ready to
pay 9.5 million Swiss Francs on account of these so-called
'heirless' assets. Neither many heirs, who could not
convincingly prove their claims, nor the Jewish Agency, which
saw an opportunity to claim the mantle of the Nazi victims both
financially and morally, were satisfied by this solution. But in
the absence of concrete proofs, they could only speculate about
the sums involved.
Akiva Lewinski, who put in
charge of this issue by the Jewish Agency, was very persistent,
and made several attempts to recover the money for his
organization. However, the Swiss Jewish community had no
interest in seeing the issue raised in a forceful manner. This
was one of the reasons why Lewinski refrained from directly
contacting the Swiss Jewish historian, Jacques Picard, who had
been selected in 1992 by the Jewish Agency to obtain the
necessary proofs. Picard, however, did not know who his real
employers were, and thought he was working for the British
Mail on Sunday and the BBC. But the results of his
preliminary study were disappointing for his employers. The
whole situation changed dramatically in 1995, -after the
publication\)f an article by the journalist Itamar Levin in the
Israeli financial newspaper. Globes (28 April 1995).
Levin, who was directed to the subject by the Israeli ambassador
to the United Nations, Yehudah Blum, found a document in German
in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. He believed the
document constituted an official Swiss declaration that the
Jewish "heirless assets" deposited in that country were worth
300 million Swiss Francs in 1946. According to Levin's
calculations, their present value should be something like 7.7
billion Swiss Francs.
This scoop had a small flaw.
Levin does not understand German, and therefore did not
understand that the document was neither official, nor was it
about Jewish 'heirless' properties. But these unimportant
details did not prevent the story from making headlines in the
western media. The head of the Jewish Agency, Avraham Burg,
presented this article to then Prime Minister Rabin, and the
campaign was launched, with the help of the World Jewish
Congress (WJC).
The Swiss banking community
was surprised and somewhat upset over the bad press they were
receiving, and in September, 1995 promised to pay the Jewish
organizations at least some 38 million Swiss Francs in
hush-money. This step proved to be effective, in that the
subject almost completely disappeared from the media agenda
...until February, 1996. By then it had become clear that the
Swiss were not ready to pay more than their original offer. The
WJC managed to interest US Senator Alfonse D'Amato (Republican,
NY) in the issue, and all hell broke loose for the Swiss.
Those who waged the campaign
were not bothered (at least in public) with such 'trivialities'
as the fact that much of the money that was supposed to be
deposited in Switzerland by Jews, was actually transferred by
Jewish carriers, either private persons or organizations, who -
it seems - embezzled it. For example, this appears to be the
case with loans received by the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee (the 'Joint' or JDC), one of the few
organizations which tried to help European Jewry during the Nazi
period. At that time they experienced difficulties in
fund-raising as US Jews were reluctant to help, and in addition,
there were many problems transferring funds into the countries
occupied by the Germans. One way to overcome those difficulties
was through loans that wealthy Jews in those occupied
territories granted the Joint. In return they got the promise
that the equivalent of this sum would be deposited in 'safe'
countries like Switzerland, and after the war they would get
their money back (therefore, the method got the name of 'apres
la guerre loans').
The historian of the Joint,
Professor Yehudah Bauer. described this operation quite well,
and asserts that the loans were never paid back: "The people who
gave their money in return for promises of postwar repayment
never claimed it. They and their heirs turned into ashes along
with their notes, scattered on Polish soil."' In the light of
this statement, it should come as no surprise that since the
start of the "heirless" assets campaign, the archive of the
Joint's representative in Switzerland, Saly Mayer, who was a
very central figure in these deals, has been closed to
journalists. Joint officials say that Bauer is mistaken, and
that the money was paid back, and that the reason that the
archive is connected to the Kastner Affair2 and also
because of Mayer's collaboration with the Swiss 'Alien Police',
Heinrich Rothmund, who was responsible for denying entry to
about 100,000 Jewish refugees, which meant death for many of
them.
Despite the role of Jewish
organizations in that period and their own part in the
"heirless" assets affair, they were very successful in exerting
more pressure on Switzerland in 1996. The story gradually
expanded to include the problem of Nazi gold deposited in
Europe. This new element was based mainly on documents
discovered in archives in the USA and the UK. It was strongly
insinuated that this gold came mainly from Jews, although most
of the evidence indicated that the noble metal had been stolen
from various central banks in occupied Europe, and the Jewish
share in it was relatively small.
The pressure exerted on
Switzerland was not allowed to exceed certain limits, because
the forces behind the campaign - the WJC, the Jewish Agency and
Senator D'Amato - were not interested in seeing the role of the
allies and the Jewish organizations before, during and after the
Second World War open for discussion. Therefore they
concentrated on the gold issue, while avoiding embarrassing
questions such as why the information which was recently found
in the US and British archives concerning the important role of
Switzerland in the Nazi economy did not lead to effective
pressure on Switzerland already during the war and especially
after it. The Nazi gold issue is well-documented, and thus even
here the above question is unavoidable. According to official
Swiss documents, the amount of "German" gold transferred to
Switzerland during the war was at least 1.6 billion Francs, and
the USA was very accurately informed as to the amount.
Nevertheless, in negotiations conducted with the Swiss after the
war, the latter were only made to give up about 250 million
Francs. There are many indications that the Swiss profited from
insider help, because there were circles in the US and other
allied countries that were interested in defending the German
assets.
In US Senate hearings
held in 1945, a senior US official, Russel Nixon, stated that
certain elements in the, US State Department and the British and
French foreign offices deliberately attempted to block the
post-war search for Nazi properties in the "neutral" countries,
because otherwise the collaboration between some interest groups
in the allied states and the "neutrals" would have been exposed.
According to Nixon, this exposure would have hurt certain
economic interests, and the fight against communism would have
suffered.
Many details backing up this
conclusion have been presented in the works of John Loftus and
Mark Aarons.3 Very important in this context are the
activities of the US secret service, the OSS, and its
representative in Switzerland, Allen W. Dulles (later to head
the CIA). The authors bring many proofs that Dulles was very
central to the laundering of Nazi flight capital. He used this
money to finance the establishment of anti-communist espionage
networks. For these purposes he enlisted the services of all
sorts of Nazis as well as, of course, that of the Swiss banking
system.
One of the central, now
declassified US documents dealing with these operations is the
Vincent La Vista Report of 1947. It is interesting to note that
three of Dulles' bank connections mentioned in the report are
Jewish - two in Switzerland and one in Tel Aviv. According to
Loftus and Aarons (who are strongly pro-Zionist) there is
another Israeli angle to this story as well. They argue that Ben
Gurion, who learned about these money-laundering operations) was
able to use this knowledge to blackmail Dulles and company
(including Nelson Rockefeller) to support the UN plan for
partition of Palestine in the November 29, 1947 vote in the
General Assembly. The deal was that Rockefeller would use his
weight and influence on the South American countries to persuade
them to support the establishment of the State of Israel. This
would explain the sudden change of mind of many of the countries
of this region and their support of UN Resolution 181. For his
part, Ben Gurion promised that Israel would not really pursue
the important Nazi criminals. Israel fulfilled its part of the
bargain, the case of Adolf Eichmann being an unavoidable
exception.
There is much additional
strong evidence that Allen Dulles and his brother, John Foster
Dulles, were central figures in the relationships between German
and US industrial combines, like IG Farben and Standard Oil, in
which the Swiss connection played an important role.
This brief summary shows what
sort of a Pandora's box has been opened by the exposure of Nazi
assets in Switzerland. The further development of this story
depends, to a large extent, on the political forces who will
further the research and demand that consequences, including the
financial ones, be applied. It is not just a matter of
reinterpreting the Second World War and the New World Order
which emerged in its wake; it is the story of money which was
robbed by the Nazis from various sources, and which should be
recovered and redistributed justly. Because two strong Jewish
organizations the WJC and the Jewish Agency, are leading the
campaign at present, the Swiss are ready to pay hush money. They
apparently believe, like many judeophobes, that the Jews really
control the world or at least the banking world, and that if
they are not propitiated, the repercussions will be harsh.
However, precisely because the
process of uncovering new facts cannot be stopped and the
general public atmosphere is very receptive, it is high time to
ask publicly by what right do these Jewish organizations speak
in the name of the Nazi victims. How is it that they and the
State of Israel claim to be the heirs of those victims? Given
the role played by most of the Jewish organizations during the
Judeocide, one has to be skeptical of their right to claim this
mantle. When we examine, for example, the role of the Zionist
movement, we find at the very least a conscious refraining from
any rescue actions which were not instrumental for
national-Zionist goals, i.e., the establishing of a Jewish state
in Palestine. Even more radical is the claim of S.B.Beit-Zvi4
who states that the Zionist leadership sabotaged any rescue
attempts which did not serve Zionist goals. Ultra-orthodox Jews,
as well as both radical Rightists and Leftists accuse the
Zionist leadership, under Ben Gurion, of one degree or another
of collaboration with the SS in the destruction of European
Jewry
The present Israeli
government, which has become aware of the chance to receive
compensation payments from Switzerland, has now reduced its
financial support to 'Amcha,' a welfare organization for
poverty-stricken Judeocide survivors - this while in Switzerland
it frames its claims in terms of the urgent needs of these
survivors. Once again we are witness to Israel's misuse of
Jewish suffering to finance its policy of aggression. Moreover,
it is no longer possible to agree to reducing the scope of Nazi
crimes to those committed against the Jewish people exclusively.
We know well enough that many other people were persecuted,
because of their political views, "racial" origins, sexual
orientation, etcetera. It is also clear that several methods and
mechanisms of mass extermination are still practiced in the
world today, although sometimes in different forms than those
used by the Nazis.
In the political climate which
exists today in Switzerland, there is a good chance to build a
campaign to use the recovered Nazi assets to establish an
international fund to finance grassroots activities for the
rehabilitation of refugees and for peace projects all over the
world. In any such allocation of funds, the Palestinians should
be given high priority. This would not only render a positive
service towards peace in the Middle East, but it would take into
account that the Palestinians may in fact be considered indirect
victims of the Nazis. It has until now been impossible to launch
such a campaign in Switzerland, because most of the non-Jews
supporting such an idea are afraid to come out in public for it
without some Jewish backing, and there is not yet enough Jewish
support locally for such a campaign. For this reason it is high
time to start such an international campaign, which could have a
direct influence on the discussion in Switzerland."
Notes
1
Yehudah Bauer, American Jewry and the
Holocaust - The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,
1939-1945. Wayne State University Press, Detroit,1981,p
329).
2 Israel Kastner was the
representative of the Jewish Agency in . Hungary during Worid
War II, and was accused by an Israeli Court in l954 of having
collaborated in the name of the Jewish Agency with the SS and
being instrumental in the deportation to Auschwitz of 450,000
Hungarian Jews. - selected group of Zionist leaders were allowed
to immigrate to Palestine. The affair has still not been fülly
clarified, and it seems that key information concerning these
events is connected to Switzerland, as much of the negotiations
between Kastner and the Germans took place on the Swiss border.
3 see Mark Aarons and John
Loftus, Unholy Trinity -How the Vatican's Nazi Networks
betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets, St. Martin's
Press, New York, 1992 and The Secret War against the Jews-
How Western Espionage betrayed the Jewish People, St.
Martin's Press, New York, 1994 4 see S.B. Beit Zvi,
Post-Ugandan Zionism in the Crucible of the Holocaust.
Bronfman Publishers, Tel Aviv, 1977 (English edition, in private
publication, Tel Aviv, 1991)
