Jewish Group Demands Swiss Holocaust Assets Wiesenthal Center Says Austria Also May Owe Victims, Families

A leading Jewish organization pressed its demand Tuesday that Switzerland pay back assets of Holocaust victims, hinting at a similar campaign against neighboring Austria.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also renewed demands for the United States, Britain and France to use $68 million worth of gold confiscated from the Nazis to help needy survivors and families of the dead.

But a member of the three-nation panel that administers the 5.6 tons of gold said it is up to the countries looted by Adolf Hitler to decide whether to give the funds to Holocaust victims.

“The commission is not considering Jewish claims at the moment,” Emrys Davis, secretary general of the tripartite commission, said.

The tripartite commission was set up in 1946 to oversee the return of about $4 billion to European central banks that had been looted by Germany. The United States, Britain and France recently froze distribution of the remaining $68 million pending settlement of the Holocaust compensation issue.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, international director of the Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal center, said Austria should hand over $500 million in gold that it received from the commission.

“If the Swiss who are being forced by world opinion to reconsider, why should the Austrians who fought for Hitler do no less?” Hier asked.

Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938. Many high-ranking Nazi officials and concentration camp commanders were Austrian.

Yet after the war, the Allies paid more than $54 million from seized Nazi assets to compensate the Austrian national bank for gold taken by Hitler. It is now worth about $540 million, Hier said.

Austrian National Bank Director-General Adolf Wala ruled out handing back anything, saying the gold was rightfully Austrian.

“The Austrian National Bank was deprived of its gold by the German Reichsbank, and it did not hold any gold from Jewish proprietors,” Wala told the Austrian Press Agency.