“The Holocaust, so large an atrocity, has a way of overshadowing everything including its survivors.” Thane Rosenbaum, The New York Times 6/14/07

Given the depth of the scars inflicted by the Nazis in World War II, it is no surprise that issues of restitution and reparations have refused to go away. The only sad surprise is that even at this late date, this has become a subject of increasing contention.

The sheer scope of devastation in World War II is almost impossible to grasp.  By the time the last shot was fired some sixty odd years ago, a mind numbing 53 million lives had been extinguished in the concentration camps, in the cities, and on the battlefields of half the world. No less huge than the toll of human life was the destruction and theft of property. Wherever the Nazis turned, they not only killed but plundered.

The Jews of Europe, singled out for a special fate, were victims on both counts. They were forced by the SS to provide a precise inventory of all their property, from silverware to real estate, from stamp collections to stock exchange holdings, from furniture to insurance policies and bank accounts. They were forced to surrender all of this, forced to gather in ghettos, deprived of sustenance and in due time were taken away to be shot, gassed or worked to death as slaves.

Have we forgotten those who are the direct casualties of the war?  By focusing on the past and studying history in order to prevent itself from being repeated, has dealing with the survivors and their needs become a secondary issue? The neglect has been widespread.

Today, over 100,000 Holocaust Survivors, primarily living in Israel and the United States continue to receive monthly pensions from the German government. However, this number by no stretch of the imagination balances the equation of losses suffered by the victims and their families.

Holocaust litigation challenged four patterns of exploitative behavior by private entities. First, claims against Swiss banks alleged that Holocaust victims, most of whom did not survive the Nazi death camps, had deposited vast sums on the eve of the Holocaust, only to have banks fail to return the funds to the survivors’ family members at the war’s end. Second, claims against German and Austrian banks alleged that the banks had knowingly profited by playing a key role in the Nazi Aryanization program which forced all non-Aryans to sell businesses and property at a fraction of their market value to people of acceptable racial stock. Third, claims against German and Italian insurance companies alleged that the companies failed to honor life and property insurance policies issued to Holocaust victims. Fourth, claims against German industry alleged that the German industrial complex had reaped enormous and unjust profits from the use of slave labor during the war.

A single thread runs through the four categories of litigation.  In each setting, a non-governmental entity – usually a bank, insurance company or corporation unjustly enriched itself by taking advantage of the plight of the victims. So, what can be done to honor those who survived but seem to have fallen through the cracks of society? One word: transparency, All Holocaust documentation should be made immediately available and easily accessible to the Survivors and their families, not just to the scholars for their archives! While the transfer of electronic copies of Germany’s Bad Arolsen archives to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is imminent, the museum has failed to commit making the archives accessible on the Internet so that the can be accessed easily by Holocaust Survivors and their families.

The percentages are always against the Survivors, Nearly murdered, shamefully defrauded and with the clock ticking more than 60 years later, the Survivors  wait for justice, accountability, and most of all respect.

Greta Brewer

Vice President of Education,

NEXT GENERATIONS

NEXT GENERATIONS is under the auspices of LEAH, League for Educational Awareness of the Holocaust.