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Holocaust Restitution Timeline

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Holocaust Restitution Timeline Holocaust Restitution Timeline 1942 Buxbaum v. Assicurazioni Generali, the first Holo- caust-era lawsuit, was filed in the United States against a major Italian insurance company for policies purchased by a Holocaust victim. Relief granted. 1949 Bernstein v. N. V. Nederlandsche-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart-Maatschappij was filed by a Holocaust survivor seeking compensation for the forcible transfer of his business to a Nazi trustee. Relief granted. 1985 Handel v. Artukovic, the first Holocaust-era class action, was filed in the United States by Holocaust survivors from Yugoslavia against a former pro- Nazi Croatian official in violation of the Geneva and the Hague Conventions, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of the Yugoslavian Criminal Code. Suit dismissed. April 23, 1996 U.S. Senate Banking Committee, headed by Senator Alfonse D’Amato, held hearings on the Swiss banks dealing with World War II dormant accounts. May 2, 1996 The Swiss Bankers Association created the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (ICEP), chaired by Paul Volcker, to audit records of the Swiss banks on wartime dormant accounts. October 1996 The modern era of Holocaust asset litigation began with the filing of the first of three class action lawsuits against the Swiss banks in federal district court in Brooklyn, New York. January 1997 The third class action suit was filed against the Swiss banks by the World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities. xiii xiv Holocaust Restitution Timeline January 8, 1997 Christoph Meili discovered the Union Bank of Switzerland attempting to shred pre–World War II financial documents. March 25, 1997 French Prime Minister Alain Juppe created the Prime Minister’s Office Study Mission into the Looting of Jewish Assets in France (“Mattéoli Commission”) to study various forms of theft of Jewish property during World War II and the postwar efforts to remedy such theft. April 1997 The three class action suits against the Swiss banks were consolidated in federal district court in Brooklyn, New York, before Chief Judge Edward R. Korman, and collectively titled In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation. May 7, 1997 The United States government issued a report, coordinated by Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, criticizing Switzerland for its World War II dealings with the Nazis. July 1997 Swiss banks issued a list of 1,756 dormant Swiss bank accounts. October 1997 Swiss banks issued a supplemental list of 3,500 additional names. October 10, 1997 Alan Hevesi, New York City comptroller, barred the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) from leading a $1.3 billion letter of credit deal. March 8, 1998 The first German slave labor lawsuit, a class action against Ford Motor Company for the forced labor performed at Ford-Werke A.G., between 1941 and 1945, was filed in New Jersey. June 19, 1998 Swiss banks publicly announced in a press conference that they were ready to settle the claims for $600 million and insisted that it was their final offer. July 12, 1998 New York State Controller H. Carl McCall and New York City Controller Alan Hevesi released a statement outlining sanctions they would place upon the Swiss banks in an effort to force the continuation of negotiations in the Swiss bank litigation. Holocaust Restitution Timeline xv August 7, 1998 The first Nazi-looted-art lawsuit, filed in 1996, Goodman v. Searle, over a disputed Degas, Landscape with Smokestacks, was settled on the eve of trial, when the parties agreed to share ownership of that Degas and to place it for public viewing in the Art Institute of Chicago. August 13, 1998 Swiss banks agreed to a $1.25 billion settlement with Jewish groups regarding long-lost assets of Holocaust victims and their heirs. August 25, 1998 Signed by six European insurance companies, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) created an International Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC) and charged it with establishing a just process to collect and facilitate the signatory companies’ processing of insurance claims from the Holocaust era. December 3, 1998 Forty-four governments endorsed the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art (“Washington Principles”) to develop a consensus on nonbinding principles to assist in resolving issues relating to Nazi-confiscated art. December 23, 1998 First French class action bank Holocaust-era lawsuit, Bodner v. Banque Paribas, filed by Holocaust survivors for the banks’ theft of their assets in the aftermath of the German occupation of France in 1940. December 23, 1998 A class action suit against Chase Manhattan Bank and J.P. Morgan & Co was filed in Brooklyn federal court alleging confiscation of Jewish bank account holders’ assets during the German occupation of France. March 11, 1999 Suits against German banks were consolidated in the Southern District of New York as In re Austrian and German Bank Holocaust Litigation before Judge Shirley Wohl Kram. September 12, 1999 U.S. v. Portrait of Wally, a lawsuit over disputed Schiele paintings, was filed in New York. September 14, 1999 The House of Representatives Banking Committee, chaired by Congressman Jim Leach, held hearings xvi Holocaust Restitution Timeline on French financial institutions’ past misappropria- tions of Holocaust victims’ assets in wartime France. September 19, 1999 Two New Jersey district judges dismissed five German slave-labor class action lawsuits, holding the suits were nonjusticiable and also time barred. October 14, 1999 The Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States (PCHA) issued a preliminary report on the so-called Hungarian Gold Train. The report told the story of a 42-wagon freight train loaded with goods stolen by the Germans and their Hungarian allies from the Jews of Hungary, captured by the U.S. Army at the end of World War II. December 1999 Under the guidance of U.S. presidential envoy Stuart Eizenstat and German representative Otto Graf Lambsdorff, a comprehensive settlement was reached over all claims against Germany and its industry relating to World War II conduct. December 6, 1999 The Volcker Committee report on dormant accounts was published, finding 53,886 accounts in Swiss banks that could have been linked to persons persecuted by the Nazis. September 5, 2000 Abrams v. Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais was filed against the French national railroad for its role in transporting Jews in cattle cars from both occupied and unoccupied France to death camps in Germany and Eastern Europe. July 17, 2000 The United States and the Federal Republic of Germany signed a formal agreement concerning the German settlement and allowing creation under German law of the “Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future” Foundation (“German Foundation”). November 27, 2000 The Austrian Fund for Reconciliation, Peace, and Cooperation was established to compensate former slave and forced laborers of the Nazi regime. January 18, 2001 An agreement was signed between the Government of the United States and the Government of France concerning Payments for Certain Losses Suffered Holocaust Restitution Timeline xvii during World War II (“Washington Agreement”), in which French banks agreed to pay $172.5 million to sixty-four thousand known account holders and other undocumented claimants. The payments to the victims would be made through the French government’s Drai Commission. May 2001 Hungarian Gold Train litigation began with the filing of a class action suit against the United States in the Southern District of Florida by Hungarian Holocaust survivors, Rosner v. U.S. March 22, 2002 The Swiss government’s Bergier Commission published its “Final Report” detailing Swiss activities during and after World War II. August 2002 Federal Judge Patricia Seitz rejected the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss the Hungarian Gold Train litigation. June 23, 2003 The U.S. Supreme Court issued American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, finding unconstitutional the California law aiming to force European insurance companies doing business in the state to disclose their prewar and wartime insurance records. June 7, 2004 The U.S. Supreme Court in Republic of Austria v. Altmann held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) could be applied to all actions of a foreign government, regardless of when the acts underlying the claim took place, even before the enactment of the FSIA in 1976.The litigation involved artworks of Gustav Klimt, which are claimed to be Nazi-looted art by Holocaust survivor and plaintiff Maria Altmann. The case was remanded by the U.S. Supreme Court to federal trial court and set for a November 2005 trial date. December 20, 2004 The U.S. government settled the Hungarian Gold Train litigation. January 2005 Under an agreement reached between the Swiss banks and the plaintiffs’ representatives, the Swiss made public an additional twenty-one hundred names of Holocaust-era bank accounts. xviii Holocaust Restitution Timeline April 2005 The Swiss Claims Resolution Tribunal issued, and Judge Edward R. Korman approved, the largest Swiss dormant account award, $21.8 million, to the Bloch-Bauer family, formerly of Austria. April 2005 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 panel decision, overturned the dismissal by the federal trial judge of the lawsuit against the Vatican Bank and related entities by Holocaust survivors for slave labor and looted-assets profits which were earned by the Nazi puppet regime in Croatia and which allegedly passed through the Vatican Bank and related entities..
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