Looks like they got away with more than just murder. But we already knew that.
Only one-fifth of the property that was stolen from Europe’s Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators has ever been returned, leaving at least $115 billion in assets still missing, according to a new study obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
Many Western European governments paid restitution for only a fraction of the stolen real estate, investments, businesses and household items, while Eastern European countries under Soviet control paid almost nothing at all, according to the study.
Even the highly publicized campaigns over the past decade for more complete compensation barely made a dent in the problem, said the study, compiled by economist Sidney Zabludoff, a former CIA and U.S. Treasury official.
Elan Steinberg, a former executive director of World Jewish Congress who helped spearhead the 1990s push for Holocaust restitution, said he was “shocked, but not surprised” by the study’s figures and called for a rapid resolution to the problem to benefit destitute, elderly Holocaust survivors.
“This is an extraordinary finding and what makes it most tragic is that despite the efforts at restitution, we have so many Holocaust survivors at the end of their days … who are not being taken care of,” he said.
Zabludoff’s study showed that before the Holocaust, Jews owned property in Europe that was worth between $10 billion and $15 billion at the time. Most of that was never repaid, translating into a missing $115 billion to $175 billion in current dollars, the study said.
So, you think anything will be done about it?
There is little chance of a new push for restitution because Western European governments feel they already did their share, Eastern European governments feel they are too poor, Jewish groups are too splintered to mount a major campaign and the U.S. and Israeli governments are too preoccupied with other issues, the study said.
Uh-huh. But that Holocaust, it was a myth, see, and since it was a myth, this property was never stolen in the first place, see, and—well, you get the drift.
And if you think there’s going to be a change in the future, think again. The international commission that is guarding the secrecy of the Nazi archives in Germany is still not letting anyone in to look at them.
Just a thought: Among other things are lists of the belongings of Holocaust victims. Not letting anyone in until those survivors that are left die off would be another way to prevent restitution.
Why does this not surprise me?
Actually, it is not that they want to prevent restitution, they just want to prevent the knowledge that he governments and banks of various countries such as the swiss took over the Nazi bank accounts. Also they do not want to have to admit that they stole the bank accounts of the Jews that the Nazis did not get their hands on.
Where/when does restitution end? Do we give Indians back ‘their’ land? Do we hold present citizens responsible for the actions of past politicians? Do we apologize for the imprisonment of innocent Germans and Japanese during WWII?
I don’t have the answer, but I will do whatever I can to make sure ‘Never again…”.
Earl, it isn’t a matter of restitution. It is a matter of returning stolen property. It’s a well-known fact that many of the recipients of that property worked very hard to delay any kind of action in the hopes that the survivors would die first.
And Swiss banks still haven’t fairly recompensed the Jews they stole from.