Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy.

• Author: Robinson, Jennifer K.
• Position: Book review

Holocaust Restitution: Perspectives on the Litigation and Its Legacy. Edited by Michael Bazyler and Roger P. Alford, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006. Pp. xviii, 374. $49.00 (cloth), $22.00 (paperback).

Holocaust Restitution presents a retrospective look at the Holocaust restitution movement from the various perspectives of parties and individuals involved in the litigation now that their claims have been settled. The book examines the most important aspects of the litigation including the bank, slave labor, insurance, and looted art claims. Essays in Holocaust Restitution also discuss how the litigation will affect future corporate defendants and question whether the successes achieved in the Holocaust litigation may give hope to other victim groups.

Although Germany has paid more than $50 billion to Holocaust survivors since 1952, many survivors and claims--for offenses such as slave labor--have been excluded. Swiss banks eluded paying compensation to Holocaust victims mainly by obfuscation and under-reporting the actual number of Holocaust accounts in audits. Many Holocaust-era insurance policies were dishonored following the war because companies denied they existed or determined the policies had lapsed because of unpaid premiums. Since the Allies returned art looted and confiscated by the Nazis to the artwork's country of origin, much of the art was not returned to its rightful owners.

Part I of the book provides an overview of Holocaust restitution. Judge Buergenthal, a Holocaust survivor and former vice-chairman of the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland, introduces this section by discussing how reactions to the Holocaust brought about the modern human rights movement. His personal experiences provide a unique perspective. Although Judge Buergenthal's argument is logical and supported by historical evidence, his broad view of the subject seems overly-simplified for its failure to address factors other than the Holocaust that led to the development of the modern human rights movement.

Holocaust historian Michael Berenbaum discusses how the Holocaust restitution movement pushed many countries, including Switzerland, Austria, and Romania, to reexamine their role in World War II. He relates how the archival findings and international commissions led by historians aided many countries in discovering and acknowledging their involvement in perpetrating the Holocaust--rather than just unsuccessfully resisting the Nazis and becoming victims of the Holocaust. His essay, however, does not address the resistance within these "neutral" countries to cooperation with international commissions and historians, and instead inaccurately portrays them as happy, cooperative participants in the search for the truth.

Robert Swift and Robert Neuborne, attorneys for plaintiffs in Holocaust cases, write about the events leading to settlements and the post-settlement activities, respectively. Swift's essay is a well-written account of the major Holocaust restitution litigation and a comparison of the settlements reached. He paints the settlements in a very flattering light, describing them as great successes and glossing over their shortcomings. Neuborne also describes the settlements as highly successful and a great victory for Holocaust victims. However, he flatly denies that their triumph was aided by U.S. law. Neuborne states that "American courts have too often turned their backs on Holocaust victims" (p. 74). He highlights several federal cases where U.S. judges were either actively harmful or otherwise hindered the efforts of Holocaust victims to seek recovery in the federal courts (p. 77).

In the next essay, Roger Witten, former lead counsel for defendants in the Swiss and German settlements, compares and contrasts those two settlements. His bias is evidenced in the first sentence of his introduction stating "Switzerland, of course, was not a belligerent during World War II; it was a neutral" (p. 80). That statement has been contested by the Eizenstat Reports, historians, and by the Holocaust...