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Report of the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons

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Report on Dormant Accounts of Victimsof Nazi Persecution in Swiss Banks

Introduction1. This Report on Dormant Accounts of Vic-

tims of Nazi Persecution in Swiss Banks by the In-dependent Committee of Eminent Persons (“ICEP”or the “Committee”) represents the culmination ofa three-year investigation.1 The guiding principle ofthis endeavor has been to find as much of the truthabout the fate of these victims’ accounts, dating frombefore or during World War II, and their treatmentby Swiss banks, as is feasible, given the passage ofhalf a century. We are now confident that theCommittee’s investigation has produced a record ofthe past on this problem that is, in fact, as completeas is now possible.

2. Part I of this report reviews the background,the modus operandi, and the factual results of theinvestigation in accordance with the mandate to theCommittee. Part II sets out certain recommendationsflowing directly from the investigation described inPart I. These recommendations are directed to theSwiss Federal Banking Commission (“SFBC”) andother authorities of the Swiss Government, and tothe established Claims Resolution Tribunal. Theyconcern the appropriate handling of the individualaccount records identified by the Committee, thepublication of account names, the means of resolv-ing claims by victims of Nazi persecution or theirheirs to accounts in Swiss banks, the use of the es-tablished Claims Resolution Tribunal, the further

search for accounts of intermediaries responsible forthe accounts of these victims and looted assets, andthe appropriate treatment of dormant accounts in thefuture. Annexes and appendices provide the support-ing details.2

Part I – FindingsSignificance of the Investigation

3. The Committee was established by an agree-ment between the Swiss Bankers Association(“SBA”) and the World Jewish Restitution Organi-zation and the World Jewish Congress representingthe Jewish Agency and Allied Organizations re-corded in a Memorandum of Understanding of May2, 1996.3 Under this mandate by these founding or-ganizations, the Committee’s investigation had twomajor objectives: (a) to identify accounts in Swissbanks of victims of Nazi persecution that have laindormant since World War II or have otherwise not

1 “Dormant accounts” is defined broadly for the purposes of the ICEPinvestigation to mean those accounts with respect to which there hasbeen no withdrawals or additions by, and no correspondence or othercontacts with the account holders or their representatives or with thebeneficiaries since at least the end of 1945 as well as accounts thatshould have been dormant as described above but for the fact that thefunds in the account are unavailable for reasons other than their returnto the original depositors or their legal representatives. A list of abbre-viations and a glossary are in Appendices V and W.

2 Annexes 1-9 contain various specific analyses of important aspects ofthe investigation, and Appendices A-W contain the texts of relevantdocuments.

3 Appendix A contains the text of the Memorandum of Understanding;see also Appendices B and C for statements by the late Prime MinisterRabin of Israel and by the Swiss Federal Council.


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been made available to those victims or their heirs;and (b) to assess the treatment of the accounts ofvictims of Nazi persecution by Swiss banks.

4. The Committee’s investigation focused ona specific banking issue: the fate of funds entrustedto Swiss banks by victims of Nazi persecution. Mostdirectly, the objective was to provide for simple jus-tice for those victims (and their heirs) with unsatis-fied claims on accounts in Swiss banks. It is also amatter of great importance for those banks them-selves and their reputation. But it has significancebeyond the people and institutions directly involved.

5. The investigation is only one part of a largereffort, as the Twentieth Century rapidly fades into anew millennium, to explain to ourselves and to ourposterity how a century marked by so much mate-rial progress could also have made genocide a tragi-cally familiar word and spawned two terrible greatwars. This search for the truth has been made pos-sible by a unique confluence of events. The end ofthe Cold War has encouraged a renewed debate onsubjects that were previously submerged. Archivesof old documentation were opened giving new per-spectives on past events. Leadership has focusedrenewed attention on matters of great moral impor-tance.

6. All of this has had special significance forSwitzerland. As a country and as a community ofpeople, it plainly cannot be held responsible in anyway for the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany orfor World War II. But Switzerland is unique in thesense that, during that War, it was surrounded onevery side by Axis powers. It was struggling to sur-vive as best it could in very trying circumstances,in almost total isolation in the heart of the conti-nent. This truly difficult situation has been reflectedin a typical Swiss view of Switzerland as an inno-cent bystander maintaining its firm policies of de-mocracy, neutrality, and banking probity, amongother values. That uncritical view came up againsta growing intensity of calls from outside Switzer-land, and from within, for a review of the past, in-

cluding the role of Swiss banks, in the light of newinformation. The Committee’s work is an outgrowthof a willingness in Switzerland to undertake thisreview with fresh eyes, and with the expectation thatthe review would be both objective and fair.

7. In Switzerland, this self assessment and re-evaluation of history extends beyond banking to therole of Switzerland more generally during the pe-riod of Nazi dominance in Germany and WorldWar II. A December 1996 Federal Decree estab-lished the Independent Commission of Experts:Switzerland—Second World War under the chair-manship of Professor Jean François Bergier (the“Bergier Commission”) to conduct historical andlegal research into topics relating to Swiss commer-cial and political activity during the War.4 ICEP inrelying on this Commission5 to follow up on thework that has been done in certain areas; in particu-lar, the Committee’s investigation of intermediar-ies and the identification of possibly looted assetshas developed leads for further analysis.

Background8. The anticipation of war and economic dis-

tress, as well as the persecution of Jews and otherminorities by the Nazis prior to and during WorldWar II caused many people, including the victimsof this persecution, to move their assets to countriesdeemed to provide safe havens (importantly includ-ing the United States and the United Kingdom) de-spite increasingly tight currency exchange restric-tions. In view of neutral Switzerland’s borders withAxis and Axis-occupied countries, Swiss banks andother Swiss financial intermediaries were also re-cipients of a portion of the assets in search of safety.6

4 The text of the Federal Decree is in Appendix F.5 See Statement of Coordination and Cooperation with the Bergier Com-

mission, Appendix K, and Annex 6: Intermediaries and Looted Assets.6 Some of the assets that moved to Switzerland in the first half of the

1930s left Switzerland in the later years of that decade with total on-balance-sheet foreign liabilities falling by about a third from SFr. 1.5billion in 1937 to a low of SFr. 1.0 billion in 1941, after which timethey began to rise again. The threat of German invasion of Switzerlandand its neighbors was undoubtedly a factor in this outflow of fundsfrom Switzerland. See Appendix R: Swiss National Statistics on For-eign Liabilities.


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Subsequently, extermination of much of the Jewishpopulation of Europe as a result of Nazi actions re-sulted in concern that the victims or their heirs wereunable to claim assets legitimately entrusted to oth-ers for their safekeeping. Strong claims were pressedthat their assets were, deliberately or not, kept un-available in dormant accounts in the Swiss institu-tions in which they were placed for safety or thatthey may have otherwise disappeared as a result ofneglect or deliberate fraud.

9. Soon after the War, there was a vigorousdebate in Switzerland and elsewhere on what to doabout the assets of the many account holders whowould never come back. Typically, their heirs couldnot document a claim or might not even be awareof the existence of the accounts. In the years thatfollowed the War, the most direct approach towarda solution, the collection and publication of thenames of the missing account holders, was not ac-cepted. Several early surveys by the banks them-selves, under the auspices of the SBA, identifiedonly a small number of accounts of customersknown or suspected to be victims with a total valuewell under SFr. 1.0 million. Recognizing the inad-equacy of these findings, the Swiss Government in1962 required all Swiss financial intermediaries toreport assets of foreign or stateless persons knownor presumed to have been subject to racial, religious,or political persecution, and then invited claims. Thisprocess resulted in the identification of only 739additional accounts in the banks with a value ofSFr. 6.2 million. Responding to criticism that the“heirless assets” problem had still not been solved,the SBA, 33 years later, in 1995, initiated anothersurvey of foreign accounts (not only victim ac-counts), and 775 such accounts, with a value ofSFr. 38.7 million, were identified. Not only did someconsider this survey to be inadequate, followingupon repeated earlier failed efforts to obtain a fairaccounting, but there was also dissatisfaction withthe lack of results in locating dormant accounts bythe Swiss Banking Ombudsman, an office estab-lished by the SBA, one of whose functions was toassist victim claimants in their search for such ac-counts.

10. Based on the belief that there were manymore accounts, and much greater values, than hadpreviously been identified, and that justice to thesedepositors had yet to be done, the World JewishCongress, under the leadership of its President,Edgar Bronfman, became the principal proponentof an independent investigation that could give acredible answer to these longstanding questionsabout the size and fate of Holocaust victim accountsin Swiss banks. In Switzerland as well, there was agrowing recognition that previous investigations hadbeen neither conclusive nor done full justice to theclaims of many victims of the Holocaust or theirheirs. The Swiss banking community concluded thatthe time had come to undertake an independent andbroadly ranging examination of what many in Swit-zerland itself had come to consider serious insensi-tivity and even negligence, veiled by an overly pro-tective and a broadly interpreted policy of bankingsecrecy.

11. These converging views brought the Swissbanks, acting through the SBA, under the leader-ship of Georg Krayer, Chairman of the Association,into discussions with the World Jewish RestitutionOrganization and World Jewish Congress, represent-ing also the Jewish Agency and allied organizations.The result of these talks was the Memorandum ofUnderstanding of May 2, 1996 (referred to above)that established an independent committee to con-duct an investigation of the conduct of Swiss banksand of dormant accounts in these banks (includingdeposits and other assets and financial instruments)originating before, during, and immediately afterthe Second World War. It also provided that inde-pendent forensic accountants would be mandatedto carry out this task under the instructions of theCommittee.

12. Partly in response to the commencement ofthe ICEP investigation in August 1996 and withICEP’s encouragement, the SFBC ordered Swissbanks to report foreign and Swiss accounts, as wellas those of unknown or uncertain domicile, that hadbeen opened prior to May 9, 1945 and dormant since


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that time. In July and October 1997, Swiss bankspublished in the world press (and on the internet)names of 5,570 foreign accounts. In addition, 10,758accounts of Swiss and of unknown domicile werealso made available to the public in Switzerland.7

The banks also reported an additional 63,738 do-mestic or unknown domicile accounts of SFr. 100or less that were not published.8

Nature and Scopeof the Investigation

13. The Independent Committee of EminentPersons created by the Memorandum of Understand-ing is composed of three members and two alter-nates appointed by each of the founding organiza-tions, and a chairman representing neither of theappointing parties.9 Drawing on a membership withexperience in finance, international affairs, account-ing, and government, the Committee turned its at-tention first to formulating its investigative programand to selecting the audit firms to carry out the in-vestigation. The Committee then directed and moni-tored the investigation, meeting approximately quar-terly—a total of 15 times—to carry out these func-tions.10

14. The Memorandum of Understanding pro-vided that the detailed investigation would be con-ducted by an independent accounting firm with aninternational reputation and licensed to audit banksin Switzerland so as to obtain unfettered access tobank books and records relevant to the investiga-tion. In fact, five such firms were eventually re-tained.11 From the beginning, the Committee recog-nized the job was much too big for any one firm,and it only expanded in scope as it went forward.The use of multiple firms was also necessary be-cause of considerations of conflicts of interest andthe desirability of encouraging a culture of compe-tition in excellence among the firms.

15. As could be expected, given the differentperspectives of the founding organizations, therewere lively discussions in the Committee about the

scope of the investigation, the most effective meansof implementing it, and about how to interpret itsresults. Despite widely different initial perspectives,the Committee has achieved a broad consensus con-cerning the factual conclusions reported here.

16. Declared as an “official special audit” by theSFBC,12 ICEP’s investigation covered a period ofmore than 60 years. All available records related tothe Relevant Period (1933-1945) of some 254 Swissbanks existing in 1945 were examined. These banksrepresent 82 percent of the Swiss banking systemin 1945 and nearly all deposits of foreign accountholders, and include all banks most likely to haveattracted significant deposits from Holocaust vic-tims.13 The investigation has been intensive andprobing, employing the forensic experience andskills of five major international accounting firms.Inevitably, it has been intrusive in its search for docu-ments and records. Nevertheless, cooperation wasmaintained by all but a few banks.

17. The external cost of such a comprehensiveinvestigation—in the range of SFr. 300 million andutilizing some 650 forensic accountants at the timeof their peak efforts—was substantial. To thesedirect costs, borne by the Swiss banks, must be addedthe banks’ own large internal costs related to staff-

7 See Annex 5, paragraphs 50 to 57, on the 1997 Survey and Annex 8 onthe claims resolution process conducted by the Independent ClaimsResolution Tribunal for the 5,570 foreign account holders.

8 The 74,496 accounts that were not published internationally in 1997were reviewed independently in the ICEP investigation.

9 These members and their affiliations are listed in Annex 1.10 See ICEP Press Releases in Appendix D. The Committee also created

an operating entity to contract with parties carrying out the investiga-tion and to monitor progress. This entity, the Independent Associationof Eminent Person (“IAEP”), is a Swiss association with the character-istics of a corporate entity.

11 The audit firms retained by ICEP are: Arthur Andersen, Coopers &Lybrand, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG, and Price Waterhouse. Duringthe investigation, in July 1998, Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhousemerged. The separate teams from each of the two firms that worked onthe ICEP investigation maintained their separate identities during thefull course of the investigation. The firms and their affiliates whichparticipated in the investigation are listed in Appendix U.

12 The SFBC declaration is in Appendix G. See also Letter from SFBCChairman Kurt Hauri and ICEP Chairman Paul A. Volcker to BanksBeing Investigated, Appendix L.

13 See Annex 2 for a description of the Swiss banking system in the 1933-1945 period and the banks selected for the investigation. See also Ap-pendix R containing Swiss National Bank statistics on foreign liabili-ties of certain banks.


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ing, document collection, processing, and analysis.14

Those costs were an object of concern and criticismby some who felt they were disproportionate to thepotential size of the dormant accounts of Holocaustvictims. Moreover, a number of banks questionedwhat they felt was an unneeded intrusion into theiraffairs by foreign accountants who they believedwere unfamiliar with the procedures, languages, andmethods of Swiss banking.

18. The Committee’s perspective on these con-cerns was that its investigation was not simply amatter of balancing costs against account values,but part of a larger effort to develop, for once andfor all, the truth of a matter that had long been asubject of concern to the Jewish community, increas-ingly to the Swiss banks and the Swiss Government,and to the world community. This position has beenbroadly supported by the Swiss banking commu-nity and by the Swiss Government. At the end ofthe day, almost all banks have provided at least thenecessary level of unfettered access that the audi-tors needed to complete their work.15 Many banks,especially the largest, recognizing the validity andimportance of the investigation and its methodol-ogy, fully cooperated, devoting very substantial staffresources working under the supervision of theCommittee’s auditors to the accomplishment of itsgoals.

19. In this connection, this Committee wishesparticularly to recognize the cooperation the Com-mittee has received from Chairman Kurt Hauri andhis associates at the SFBC. From the beginning, theyrecognized the significance of the Committee’s ef-fort and the importance to Switzerland of clarifyingthe role of Swiss banks in dealing with the conten-tious and emotional issues involved in the investi-gation. Without that cooperation, and particularlythe decision to make the Committee’s investigationofficial audits under the auspices of the SFBC, itswork would have been enormously complicated, ifpossible at all.

Investigative Methodology20. After a preparatory phase of historical re-

search and pilot audits, the Committee developed ageneral strategy for the on-site phase of the investi-gation.16 A major part of this strategy involved theestablishment of a documentary record of accountsthat were open or opened in Swiss banks in the Rel-evant Period. That record would, in turn, providethe raw materials for identifying accounts probablyor possibly owned by Holocaust victims and othervictims of Nazi persecution. This effort, which tookone and a half years, involved a very large commit-ment of resources of the auditors and the banks. Inthe end, just over 4.1 million accounts were reviewedand placed in computer databases. No records re-mained for some 2.8 million additional accountsestimated to have been open in the Relevant Period.

21. Two main methods were used to test the ac-counts databases to identify accounts of victims ofNazi persecution.17 The first method was a comput-erized comparison of accounts, name by name, withlists of victims of Nazi persecution.18 These victim

14 A substantial portion of these costs could well have been incurred inany event as a consequence of litigation or the need to improve recordkeeping. The financing of this investigation is described in Annex 3,Part C. An accounting review of these expenditures is in Appendix T.

15 One bank, Banque Cantonale de Genève, did not allow any audit workbeyond the pilot investigation and a preliminary Second Phase reviewto develop a budget. Two banks, Zuger Kantonalbank and Dreyfus Söhne& Cie, limited the scope of matching and analysis of matches. Six can-tonal banks, Aargauische, Basler, Graubündner, Schaffhauser,Thurgauer, and Zürcher, limited or refused access to certain informa-tion necessary to analyze accounts identified through matching, includ-ing analysis of unique name matches (see paragraph 33). By the con-clusion of the investigation, however, only the refusal by BanqueCantonale de Genève to permit the investigation to go forward at thisbank posed a significant impediment to the accomplishment of the goalsof the ICEP investigation.

16 This strategy is detailed in the mandates to the auditors found in Ap-pendices E and J, as well as in Appendices N, P, and Q, which containguidelines and instructions to the auditors. An overview of the ICEPinvestigation is in Annex 3.

17 The audit firms also used other forensic accounting techniques. Theresults of the investigation with respect to other forensic accountingtechniques is in Annex 3. See also Annex 7 on Records and RecordKeeping.

18 This process, known as matching, led to the identification of “matchedaccounts” for which the name of a victim matched to the name of anaccount holder on an exact or nearly exact basis. A “matched account”may result from an identity of common names; thus, while matching isa highly useful tool, in fact the only tool now practically available for asystem wide search to identify accounts that have a probable or pos-sible relationship to victims of Nazi persecution, a match, in itself, doesnot confirm that the account holder and the victim are, in fact, the sameperson. The matching process is described in paragraphs 29 to 33 ofAnnex 3 (“The First and Second Phases of the Investigation”) and para-graphs 7 to 12 of Annex 4 (“Identification of Accounts Related to Vic-tims of Nazi Persecution”).


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lists, provided mainly by Yad Vashem, the IsraeliHolocaust Memorial, and by the Holocaust Museumin Washington, D.C., contain over 5.5 million names,thus providing extraordinarily large coverage of thetotal population devastated by Nazi persecution. Thesecond method involved a non-automated, moretime intensive, process of a selective account-by-account forensic analysis of the available accountdocumentation to determine if specific facts and cir-cumstances suggested a relationship to victims ofNazi persecution.

22. The Committee proceeded on the sharedunderstanding that account databases, tested as de-scribed above, would provide the most objective andthorough way—indeed the only way that could beat all comprehensive—of identifying victim ac-counts after more than half a century, given that mostof the individuals who participated in the events inquestion can no longer be identified, and that recol-lections are cloudy, potentially biased, and certainlyfragmented. The methodology based on the accountsdatabases was also thought to be most resistant toany manipulation of the record that might have oc-curred in the past. While most transactional recordsare no longer available, systematic destruction ofaccount opening or closing records of accounts ofvictims of Nazi persecution without detection wouldbe difficult, if not impossible. In fact, no evidenceof systematic destruction of account records for thepurpose of concealing past behavior has been found.

Identification of Accounts

NOTE: This report contains a wide variety of statisticaldata, including importantly the number of accounts in Swissbanks from the Relevant Period probably or possibly re-lated to victims of Nazi persecution, and estimates of thevalue of these accounts. The exact numbers used in thetext to report auditors’ findings may give an appearance ofnumerical precision that is not feasible after half a century.There can be no assurance that all possible accounts havebeen identified or that some have not been misidentified asthose of victims. In particular, the numbers of victims ac-counts reported in this document are those available at thelast meeting of the Committee on November 23, 1999. Moreaccounts may be identified or some identified accounts maybe disqualified as a result of further review by the auditorsof data developed during the investigation.

23. Capturing information on all accountsopened during the Relevant Period was simply notfeasible. Swiss law does not require businessrecords, including banking records, to be kept morethan 10 years, although the practice among bankshas been to maintain more basic account informa-tion, especially account opening and closing records,for 10 years or more after the date when an accountis closed. Moreover, there have been more than 100mergers among banks that existed in 1945. Oldrecords were condensed or destroyed as banks weremerged or acquired or records were computerized.Nonetheless, a very substantial degree of coveragewas achieved. The auditors estimate that a total of6.8 million accounts of all kinds were open oropened in the period from 1933 to 1945 in the in-vestigated Swiss banks. As a result of the investiga-tion, account databases have been able to capturethe names of account holders of over 4.1 millionaccounts, or approximately 60 percent of the 6.8million accounts that are estimated to have existedin the prewar and wartime period at these banks.19

24. The extent of coverage differs substantiallyamong the three main types of banks —large com-mercial, cantonal, and private—and within thesethree categories as well. The highest coverage, at83 percent, was achieved among private banks,which tend to have fewer and larger sized accounts.The three large commercial banks (Credit SuisseGroup, the former Swiss Bank Corporation, and theformer Union Bank of Switzerland)20 follow withan average of 72 percent. The cantonal banks, whichtypically have large numbers of small, domesticaccounts, had an average coverage of 48 percent.Of the accounts probably or possibly related to Ho-locaust victims that were identified in the investi-

19 These data are detailed in Annex 4. Of the estimated total 6,858,100accounts in the Relevant Period, 4,100,100 were identified from stillexisting records and incorporated into various accounts databases. Thedifference between the total estimated number of Relevant Period ac-counts (6,858,100), and the accounts in the databases, is 2,758,000 ac-counts for which no records now exist in these Swiss banks. While thevery large amount of information available made a thorough investiga-tion feasible, it is appropriate to note that records for account openingand closing information and transactional information for 2.8 millionaccounts is no longer available for analysis. The significance of thismissing data is discussed in paragraph 38. See also Annex 7: Recordsand Record Keeping regarding Swiss law on retention of records.


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gation, the cantonal banks had the least relative totheir total Relevant Period accounts, and the threelarge commercial banks the most. Private banks werein the middle, but still far below the three largestbanks.21

25. Given that remarkable coverage of old ac-counts, the challenge for the Committee and its au-ditors was to establish which accounts could be iden-tified as probably or possibly being those of vic-tims of Nazi persecution or connected with suchvictims. Very obviously, the great bulk of the 4.1

million accounts in the database reflected ordinarybanking relationships with Swiss and foreign busi-nesses and individuals. Filtering the database toidentify the relevant accounts from the universe ofthe accounts that were open or opened in the Rel-evant Period was a complex, multi-step process. Theaccounts identified by the ICEP investigation arecategorized22 on a sliding scale from a high degreeof probability to a possibility of having a relation-ship to victims of Nazi persecution (“probable orpossible relationship accounts”). Table A on the pre-vious page and Table B summarizes the filtering pro-

Table AAnalysis of Accounts Open in 1933-1945

in the Swiss Banks Investigated

Account Characteristics Number of Accounts

Estimated Total Number of AccountsOpen in the Relevant Period 6,858,100Less Estimated Number of Accountsfor which No Records Remain (2,758,000)

Total Accounts in Accounts Databases 4,100,10023

Less Non-Relevant (Domestic and Savings) Accounts (1,850,400)24

Accounts for Matching 2,249,700Less Unmatched Accounts (1,972,795)

Accounts Matched 276,905Plus Other Accounts Selected for Research 76,49125

Total Matched and Other Accounts Selected for Research 353,396Less Accounts Determined Non-RelevantAfter Research (See Table B) (299,510)Total Accounts with Probable or PossibleRelationships to Victims 53,886

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20 In 1998, the former Swiss Bank Corporation and the former Union Bank of Switzerland merged to form UBS AG. The two banks making up UBS AGwere investigated separately by separate audit firms both before and after the merger and are referred to in this Report as separate banks.

21 Table 15 in Annex 4 contains a listing of accounts identified by type of bank — large commercial, cantonal, and private. The 59 banks currently inexistence that are recorded in this table represent, through mergers and acquisitions, 254 banks that existed during the Relevant Period. Through thisprocess, the two largest commercial banks account for 141 of these 254 banks that existed in 1933 to 1945.

22 See Annex 4, Exhibit C for the definitions of the four categories of accounts.23 Includes the foreign, domestic and unknown domicile accounts reported in the 1997 Survey. See paragraph 12 and Annex 5: Treatment of Dormant

Accounts of Victims of Nazi Persecution, paragraphs 50 to 57. Domestic accounts were removed by ICEP in the process of filtering of accounts toidentify those probably or possibly related to victims. See Tables A and B.

24 This number includes 1,065,600 domestic accounts and 784,800 savings accounts that were readily identified as being not being relevant to the ICEPinvestigation.

25 The 76,491 accounts specially selected from the 1,972,795 accounts that did not match were chosen by the auditors for further research because in theauditors judgement the facts and circumstances surrounding the opening and closing of these accounts indicated that there was a probable or possiblerelationship with victims of Nazi persecution even though no name match resulted from the matching process.


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26 In a related effort, described in paragraphs 53 to 56, and in Annex 6, theauditors extracted from the database, accounts related to possible Swissagents or intermediaries of funds of victims of Nazi persecution.

27 The details of the matching process are explained in Annex 4, para-graphs 7 to 12.

28 See footnote 25, and Annex 4, for a description of specially selectedaccounts.

cess. Paragraphs 26-34 explain the details of thisprocess.

26. In the first step in this filtering process, ac-counts of Swiss residents were excluded based onrecords of permanent Swiss addresses. Such resi-dents were unlikely to have been Holocaust vic-tims.26 Savings accounts under SFr. 250 were alsoexcluded where testing of these accounts for for-eign account holders demonstrated that they wereoverwhelmingly accounts of persons with Swissaddresses, typically small, and little used by vic-tims. These exclusions amounted to 1.9 million ofthe 4.1 million identified accounts, leaving 2.2 mil-lion accounts with foreign or unknown addresses.

27. The second step in the filtering process con-centrated on identifying, among those 2.2 millionaccounts, the accounts for which there is an exact(or near exact) name match27 between the names ofaccount holders and the names of victims of Nazipersecution. Accounts with a residence in Axis andAxis-occupied countries were also identified,whether or not there was a name match to a nameon a list of victims. Name matches were determinedfor 276,905 accounts and 76,491 other accounts (notmatched by name) were identified for additionalresearch.28

28. The third step in the filtering process in-volved research and analysis of these 353,396 ac-counts to determine (a) whether the accounts wereopen during the Relevant Period, (b) whether theaccounts were active after 1945 (implying activityby the account holder) or inactive after 1945, (c)whether the account holder was Swiss or foreign,and (d) whether the accounts were open, closed, orsuspended.

29. The aim of this research and analysis was toidentify individual accounts with probable or pos-sible relationships between account holders and vic-tims of Nazi persecution. Of these 353,396 accountsresearched by the audit firms, 299,510 were foundnot to be the accounts of victims or to have an iden-tifiable relationship to a victim of Nazi persecution(See Table B). These accounts are mainly accountsthat were determined to be domestic, had no rea-sonable evidence of being open in the Relevant Pe-riod, or for which the ultimate disposition is un-known and were not matched or lacked evidence ofresidence in an Axis or Axis-occupied country. Eachof the reasons for concluding that there was no prob-able or possible relationship to victims of Nazi per-secution are listed in Table B and discussed in de-tail in Annex 4.


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Table BAccounts Researched and Analyzed with No Identifiable

Relationship to Victims

Number of Accounts

Total Accounts with No Identifiable Relationship to Victims 299,510

Accounts Determined Domestic Through Research 117,898

Accounts With No Reasonable Evidence of Being Open inRelevant Period 60,090

Accounts Closed to an Authorized Party 16,036

Accounts with Account Holder Activity After 1945 26,283

Accounts Closed Before Axis Occupation of Residence ofAccount Holder29 12,640

Ultimate Disposition Unknown Accounts30 56,823

Unmatched Accounts with Allied/Neutral Residence, AccountsPaid to the Swiss Government, and Accounts Paid to theHungarian/Poland Fund 3,017

Accounts Published Internationally as a Result of the 1997 Survey31

and Other Surveys 6,72332

_______________

29 This line also includes 2,997 other matched accounts closed before 1946 for which the residence of the account holder is outsideof an Axis or Axis-occupied country.

30 These accounts were not matched or they did not have a residence in an Axis or Axis-occupied country. Ultimate DispositionUnknown Accounts having either of these characteristics are contained in Categories 1, 2 and 3. See Annex 4.

31 As previously noted, 5,570 foreign accounts were published in July and October 1997. See paragraph 12 and Annex 5: Treatmentof Dormant Accounts of Victims of Nazi Persecution, paragraphs 50 to 57.

32 Some proportion (about 20 percent) of the 5,570 foreign accounts that were already published and are now under adjudication bythe Claims Resolution Tribunal are accounts related to victims of Nazi persecution. See paragraph 12 and Annex 8: The ClaimsResolution Tribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland.


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30. An identification of known victim accountsor accounts with a probable or possible relationshipof bank accounts to victims was established for53,886 accounts. As emphasized again later in thisReport, identification of accounts as having a prob-able or possible relationship to victims of Nazi per-secution means only that a sufficient question hasbeen raised by the facts and circumstances surround-ing the accounts to warrant a claims resolution pro-cess with respect to these accounts in order to de-termine more definitively whether the accountholder was, in fact, a victim of Nazi persecution.The inclusion of an account in this group is not nec-essarily conclusive evidence that any one accountis in fact that of a victim of Nazi persecution or thatsuch accounts have been withheld, deliberately orotherwise, from Holocaust victims.

31. The current status of these 53,886 accountsidentified as having a probable or possible relation-ship with victims of Nazi persecution is set out inTable C. These accounts also have been analyzed infour categories38 reflecting different characteristicsbearing upon the strength of their relationship tovictims.

Table CTotal Accounts with a Probable or Possible Relationship

to Victims of Nazi Persecution Disposition by Account Categories33

TOTAL ALL TYPES 53,886

Total Open and Dormant34 2,726

Total Suspended35 12,180

Total Closed 38,980

Closed without Explanation in Surviving Records36 36,258

Closed by Bank to Profits and by Fees 2,305

Paid to Nazi Authorities37 417

33 Table C summarizes the numbers of relevant accounts findings of theICEP investigation. In contrast, as noted in paragraph 12, the 1997 searchfor dormant accounts ordered by the SFBC that covered both open dor-mant and suspended accounts identified 5,570 accounts of foreigners(not just Holocaust victims). The ICEP search has identified an addi-tional 14,880 such accounts that probably or possibly relate to victimsof Nazi persecution. The 1997 search did not cover closed accounts,while the ICEP investigation identified 38,980 mostly matched closedaccounts with probable or possible relationships to victims. Compari-sons between the two searches are not exactly comparable because ofthe different search criteria and because the 1997 search covered morethan 74,000 domestic and unknown domicile accounts that were notpart of the claims resolution process for the 5,570 foreign accounts thatis described in paragraphs 50-52 and Annex 8: The Claims ResolutionTribunal for Dormant Accounts in Switzerland.

34 Open and dormant accounts are accounts that are currently carried onthe books of account of a bank as a liability of the bank but are dormantin the sense there has been no contact between the account holders ortheir heirs and the bank for an extended period of time.

35 A suspense account is an omnibus account that is a current liability ofthe bank into which individual dormant accounts are consolidated forcollective management, usually for the purpose of reducing adminis-trative costs. In Swiss banks during and after the Relevant Period, sus-pense accounts were generally not assessed fees or other charges anddid not earn interest (although interest may have been paid if the ac-count holders or their heirs subsequently returned to claim a deposit).

36 These accounts are referred in this Report and its Annexes as accounts“closed unknown by whom.”

37 Accounts transferred on instructions that were coerced from the trans-feror by Nazi authorities.

38 See Annex 4, Table 15 for a breakdown of the number of identifiedaccounts by category.

32. Category 1 is composed of 3,191 RelevantPeriod accounts that remain open and dormant, wereplaced in suspense accounts, or closed after someperiod of dormancy, and matched exactly or almost


11

exactly with names of known Holocaust victims orclaimants. Category 2 is made up of 7,280 accountsthat do not meet the exact or near-exact name match-ing test,39 but nonetheless have other characteristicsthat suggest that there may be a probable or pos-sible relationship between the account holders andvictims of Nazi persecution—Relevant Period ac-counts of people who were resident in an Axis orAxis-occupied country during that Period,40 thatwere either inactive for at least 10 years after 1945or, in some cases, identified by the bank as the ac-count of a victim, or otherwise met certain crite-ria.41

33. Accounts in Category 3 are composed of amuch larger number of closed accounts—30,692—open in the Relevant Period by residents of Axis orAxis-occupied countries, matched exactly or almostexactly to names of victims, and were closed (ex-cept for Germany) during or subsequent to the yearof Axis occupation of the country of residence ofthe account holder or after the war. These charac-teristics are indicators of a probable or possible re-lationship of these accounts to victims. However,these accounts have no direct evidence of an ex-tended period of dormancy, or of unauthorized clo-sure, important elements of the presumption thatthere was a relationship to a victim. Nevertheless,14,716 of these accounts have unique name matchesor have confirming factors. Of these accounts, 5,776matched uniquely to only one name of a victim ofNazi persecution, and 4,283 names matched to twonames on the victims list. An additional 4,657 ac-counts matched to more than two names but hadconfirming factors, including the families thatmatched to the same or different victims lists (1,755),and common cities (1,026), and countries (1,851).These 15,980 unique or almost unique matches in-dicate a significantly higher probability that the re-lationship of these accounts to victims is not simplya coincidence of common names but are genuinematches between account holders and victims ofNazi persecution.42

34. Category 4 consists of another 12,723 nomi-nally foreign accounts43 opened in the Relevant Pe-

riod that could not be matched to victim names andlacked evidence of a residence by an account holderin an Axis or Axis-occupied country during the Rel-evant Period. Some 8,400 suspended, unknown andsavings type accounts in this Category come fromSwiss Volksbank (now a part of Credit Suisse Group)and Banque Cantonale Neuchâteloise. Althoughthese banks had a predominantly domestic retailbusiness during the Relevant Period, they also hadmany contacts with foreigners. All of the accountsin this Category were considered as having a suffi-ciently possible relationship to Holocaust victimsto warrant their inclusion in Category 4.

35. On the basis of information now available,no valid estimate can be made of the aggregate valueof the accounts due victims of Nazi persecution ortheir heirs until a claims resolution process has de-termined which claimants are properly entitled tosuch accounts. There are two main obstacles to suchan attempt:

• As indicated earlier, identification of an ac-count as “probably or possibly” related to avictim does not in itself indicate the validityof such a relationship. The identified ac-counts vary widely in the degree of prob-ability attached to them, and there is now noway of determining the number of accountsthat will be claimed or that will be recog-

39 See footnote 18 and Annex 4 for a description of the matching processand its significance.

40 For a discussion of the probability or possibility that dormant accountsof persons resident in an Axis or Axis-occupied country could be thoseof victims of Nazi persecution, see Annex 4, paragraph 37. This sectionof Annex 4 compares the impact of the larger number of combined mili-tary and civilian casualties in continental European countries with thesignificantly lower number of casualties in the Jewish populations ofthese countries. It also notes, however, that Jewish deaths relative tothe total Jewish population were between 6 to 149 times higher than forthe death rate in the non-Jewish populations in these countries.

41 See Annex 4, paragraph 24 for a description of the additional selectioncriteria.

42 See Annex 4, paragraphs 32 to 37 for a detailed analysis of unique namematching and confirming factors. The same type of confirming factorsnoted for the matches to more than 3 names were also present for someof the unique name matches and the matches to only two names on thevictims lists, thus further strengthening the probability or possibilitythat the matched accounts are related to victims of Nazi persecution.Some of these probable or possible relationship accounts with unique,almost unique, and confirming factors matches were closed after Axisoccupation of the country of residence of the account holder but beforethe end of the war making it unlikely that these victims received thebenefit of their accounts since they were imprisoned and executed priorto the end of the War.

43 See Annex 4, Exhibit B for the definition of foreign accounts that wasused in the ICEP investigation.


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nized for payment by the claims resolutionprocess. In that connection, more than halfthe identified accounts have been closed forreasons unknown.

• Moreover, for about half the identified ac-counts there is no information on accountvalues. For accounts with such values, thereis little consistency in valuation dates, un-certainty as to fees and charges paid or in-terest credited, and the proper valuation ofsecurities in custody accounts.

36. As explained further in Part II, The Com-mittee has developed approaches toward approxi-mating fair current values for individual accountsin situations where the book values are known. TheCommittee, with the support of the banks, believesthat these approaches provide a reasonable and fairbasis for making awards to identified Holocaust vic-tims in a manner that takes account of the fact thatthese funds were unavailable to victims or their heirsfor decades. But this approach cannot reasonablybe aggregated over accounts where neither the bookvalue nor a legitimate claimant, or both, can now beidentified. Such a determination of the overall totalmust await the outcome of the claims resolutionprocess.

37. Finally, while the Committee’s investiga-tions were able to reconstruct about 60 percent ofthe accounts in Swiss banks in 1945, full coverage,if possible, would, no doubt, have identified moreaccounts of victims of Nazi persecution. Conversely,experience with the existing Claims Resolution Tri-bunal confirms that accounts identified in the in-vestigation may, in fact, remain unclaimed. Afterreviewing these and other considerations, includ-ing the known account valuations,44 the Committeebelieves that claims of victims to identified accountscan be met within the amount specified in the agreedclass action settlement now being considered in U.S.District Court, with some part of funds from thatsettlement available for distribution to others cov-ered by the settlement.

Reasonableness of the Findings38. After more than 50 years, identification of

account holders and their relationship to victims ofNazi persecution cannot be precise. Banking recordsare inevitably lost and destroyed, leaving substan-tial gaps in the records available to identify deposi-tors of accounts opened long ago. The fact that theauditors were able to locate the names and otheridentifying information for 60 percent of the 6.8million accounts from the Relevant Period is in factextraordinary but still leaves an unfillable gap ofalmost 3 million accounts that can now never beknown or analyzed for their relationship to Holo-caust victims. No doubt, a number of victims usedintermediaries in establishing accounts, and we can-not now sort out from bank records intermediarieswho were acting for Swiss people and those whorepresented the wealth of foreigners to say nothingof Nazi victims. Moreover, the process of filteringdown the 4.1 million accounts in the database to53,886 accounts was in many respects cautious, e.g.,it excluded, inter alia, accounts with permanentSwiss addresses even though victims may have usedfalse Swiss addresses and by using exact or near-exact name matches despite the common errors intranscribing names. Thus, the number and value ofaccounts with a probable or possible relationship tovictims of Nazi persecution is conservative, but, forthe reasons explained below, not to the degree sug-gested by the shortfall in account coverage outlinedabove.

39. Some name matches, especially with com-mon names, will not, in fact, reflect a family or otherrelationship between listed victims and accounts inthe database. Some evidence in addition to a namematch, even if limited, will be necessary to confirmsuch a relationship that could lead to an award. Simi-larly, a claimant must also provide some evidenceof an appropriate relationship with the victim toqualify for an award of the adjusted current valueof the account in issue. For this and other reasons,the number of accounts that are finally awarded to

44 These valuations are set out in Annex 4.


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victims and their heirs will undoubtedly be less thanthe 53,886 number of probable and possible rela-tionship accounts identified in the ICEP investigation.

40. After studying this matter intensively forthree years the aggregate results of the Committee’saccount identification process appears to be reason-ably in accord with other evidence. Statistical andanecdotal evidence support a substantial inflow offunds into Switzerland by persons who were perse-cuted by the Nazis or who feared such persecution.45

The availability of liquid funds for capital flight inthe amounts identified in the investigation is clearlysupported by the study of the wealth of Jewish com-munities in Europe that was commissioned by theCommittee.46 The terrible loss of life among the Jew-ish population and the population of other victimssupport the presumption, so widely acknowledgedin the years immediately after the War, that manyvictims and their families were unable to reclaimwealth left for safekeeping in Switzerland. In thelight of all this background, the evidence of prob-able and possible relationships captured in Catego-ries 1-4 between account holders and Holocaustvictims clearly seems persuasive enough to be con-sidered in Part II recommendations for an indepen-dent, objective, and expeditious claims resolutionprocedure.

Evaluation of Banks’ Conduct41. In setting the record straight, the Commit-

tee has come to certain conclusions about the ap-propriateness of the actions of Swiss banks in deal-ing with the accounts of victims of Nazi persecu-tion. Assessing the record as a whole, the Commit-tee concluded:

(a) The auditors have reported no evidence ofsystematic destruction of records of victimaccounts,47 organized discrimination againstthe accounts of victims of Nazi persecution,or concerted efforts to divert the funds ofvictims of Nazi persecution to improper pur-poses; and

(b) There is, however, confirmed evidence ofquestionable and deceitful actions by some

individual banks in the handling of accountsof victims, including withholding of infor-mation from Holocaust victims or their heirsabout their accounts,48 inappropriate closingof accounts, failure to keep adequate records,many cases of insensitivity to the efforts ofvictims or heirs of victims to claim dormantor closed accounts, and a general lack of dili-gence—even active resistance—in responseto earlier private and official inquiries aboutdormant accounts.

42. Important among the questioned actions thatare outlined in detail in Annex 4 was, at the least, awidespread lack of diligence in searching for vic-tims’ accounts.49 In a few banks, deliberately mis-leading statements about closed accounts were madeto claimants by bank officials. Earlier inquiries usedexcessively narrow research criteria. Many banksplaced little or no emphasis on the work, and therewas inadequate follow-up. In two egregious in-stances, the SBA itself appeared to counsel limited(and, therefore, incomplete and, consequently, mis-leading) responses.50 The Committee’s concernabout these problem actions is based both on mul-tiple specific instances identified by the auditors ina number of individual banks, and on the record ofrepeated failures to respond adequately to individualclaims or to the various industry or official inquiries.

43. No less important were various actions re-sulting in the closing of accounts. Normal fees andcharges, assessed on all dormant accounts, wereapplied even to victims where banks knew or shouldhave known that the account holder was dead orhad disappeared leading to eventual closing by ex-haustion of the account values. Moreover, long dor-

45 See also footnote 6 for evidence of a counter-flow of funds in the lateryears of the 1930s. The Committee took the development into accountin reaching its conclusions.

46 See Appendix S for the full text of this study.47 The results of the investigation with respect to records and record keep-

ing are in Annex 7.48 For details, see paragraphs 5 to 11 of Annex 5.49 Of the 59 banks investigated, only 8 banks (2 cantonal banks and 6

private banks) had no accounts identified as having a probable or pos-sible relationship to victims of Nazi persecution.

50 For details, see paragraphs 37 to 41 of Annex 5.


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mant accounts were transferred to the banks’ profitaccounts, most without retaining readily availabledocumentation necessary to easily identify the ac-counts of returning depositors. The criticism, appli-cable in this case to the treatment of all dormantaccounts, of such actions is even more pointed withrespect to the extraordinary charges for searches forvictims accounts or to close accounts. This criticismalso applies to the placing of accounts in fee-freesuspense accounts without payment of interest and,in many cases, without adequate documentation. Inthese cases, tracing of ownership was difficult orimpossible, with a consequent greater impact onHolocaust victims whose accounts became invol-untarily dormant. These actions, and those discussedin more detail in Annex 5, led the Committee toquestion whether their duty of due care in their deal-ings with customers was observed by a number ofbanks and their officers in the special situation fol-lowing World War II.

44. In assessing this record, there are mitigat-ing factors. The questionable actions clearly did notappear uniformly among all banks and, in fact, in-dividual banks differed substantially in their treat-ment of dormant accounts, including Holocaust vic-tim accounts, with most of the problems appearingin the large commercial banks. The Committee alsorecognizes that there is ample evidence of manycases in which banks actively sought out missingaccount holders or their heirs, including Holocaustvictims, and paid the account balances of dormantaccounts to the proper parties. The behavior criti-cized above, for the most part, took place years agoin a particularly difficult period with different bank-ing standards.

45. The evaluation of bank conduct also needsto take into account that the problems with dormantaccounts appear to be partly a byproduct of the ab-sence of a Swiss escheat law dealing with unclaimedproperty in banks. Unlike other countries (such asthe United States) where dormant assets are trans-ferred to state governments, in Switzerland dormantassets remain indefinitely with the banks. Until re-

cently, and with the exception of the special Fed-eral Decree of 1962 referred to above, there wereno general rules enacted for these dormant accounts.Accounts that are dormant for long periods are anatural result of that legal framework.51 There arealso large volumes of very small accounts, in partgrowing out of the practices of some banks (par-ticularly cantonal banks) to establish accounts fornewborn children. These circumstances have givenrise to large numbers of dormant accounts evenin settled times. The period of widespread disrup-tion of normal life that characterized the regime ofNazi terror and its aftermath only aggravated theproblem.

46. Banks explained that it was natural, in ac-cordance with Swiss law, for them to continue torely upon the original contract or settled practiceswith respect to charges in the absence of other ar-rangements with the customer. In this way, in amanner completely consistent with contracts, ac-counts could be exhausted and closed. Moreover,the passage of time combined with the absence of aclear legal requirement to maintain business recordsfor dormant accounts (as described in paragraph 23above) inhibit a bank’s ability to recognize the va-lidity of claims for long dormant accounts. Theseviews gain support from the evidence that the banks,for the most part, treated foreign and domestic cus-tomers alike, including with respect to dormant ac-counts. The identification, by the auditors of presentday, of very large amounts of dormant accounts,completely unrelated to victims, in the Swiss banksis consistent with this view.

47. Without the transparency and oversight im-plied by publication or state surveillance, the courseof least resistance is to neglect careful accountingfor funds held in a fiduciary capacity over the years.In logic, however, a time unlimited obligation torepay deposits should create a concomitant obliga-tion to carefully and fairly account for such depos-

51 A comparison of Swiss law on the treatment of dormant accounts to thelaws of other European countries and the United States is in Annex 9.This analysis indicates Switzerland is not unique among European coun-tries in not having an escheat law.


15

its and to keep records that would at least containinformation on the current status of accounts andtheir owners. The ICEP investigation indicated thata surprising amount of old records were in fact pre-served. However, those records were largely inac-cessible without very substantial effort and still ob-viously insufficient to identify fully and adequatelyall dormant accounts, especially those placed in sus-pense, and accounts closed by the bank to profitsand by fees.

48. The Swiss commitment to bank secrecy anda concern about maintaining the integrity of thatsecrecy—ironically in part a response to foreignexchange controls in Germany and their use to per-secute Jews there—were undoubtedly factors in thedecision not to publish the names of the dormantaccount holders after World War II. Switzerland hadan informed and vigorous debate extending over anumber of years on this subject. Banks were alsoconcerned that too liberal a regime for processingclaims to dormant accounts would result in paymentsto the wrong parties and double liability for thebanks. Unfortunately, the banks and their Associa-tion lobbied against legislation that would have re-quired publication of the names of such so called“heirless assets accounts,” legislation that if enactedand implemented, would have obviated the ICEPinvestigation and the controversy of the last 30 years.An historic opportunity was missed.

49. Finally, the Committee also notes that a fac-tor in the indifferent treatment of many claimantsto the accounts of victims of Nazi persecution wasa fear of embarrassment and litigation arising outof transfers of victims’ accounts to Nazi authoritiesafter these victims had been coerced into signingtransfer papers. At the time, ethical and businessdilemmas were plainly created for the bank in thissituation. However, the practice apparently adoptedafter the War by a few banks or bank officials ofdenying to claimants in such cases all knowledgeof the existence of an earlier closed account rela-tionship is impossible to justify.

Related Committee EffortsClaims Resolution Tribunal

50. An important part of the effort to deal withjustice for claimants to dormant accounts has beenthe establishment of a Claims Resolution Tribunal.While beyond its formal mandate, the Committeehad an instrumental role in creating and designingthe Tribunal with the agreement of Swiss banks.Several Committee members serve as Trustees ofthe parent foundation. The Tribunal is staffed by acorps of 17 distinguished international arbitratorsfrom seven different countries supported by a ca-pable secretariat in Zurich. It has received 9,776claims to approximately half of the 5,570 accountsof foreign account holders that were published inJuly and October of 1997. The Tribunal, operatingunder substantially relaxed standards of proof, isnow well along in the process of adjudicating allclaims and expects to finish all but the most com-plex cases by the end of 1999, and the rest by mid-year 2000.

51. As of November 15, 1999, a total of 1,281claims have been resolved with awards having abook value of more than SFr. 23 million, reflectingabout one-third of the SFr. 72 million book value ofthe accounts published in July and October of 1997.A total of 5,415 claims have been denied as a resultof decisions by the Tribunal. These claimants failedto make a case that they had a relationship to thedepositors of the accounts for which they had madea claim. Approximately 80 percent of the claims,resolved or rejected, did not, upon a preliminary re-view, appear to involve the accounts of Holocaustvictims. In a study made by the International Trac-ing Service, approximately 20 percent of the 5,570names of foreign open dormant or suspended ac-count holders matched to those of Holocaust vic-tims. Unlike the accounts identified in the ICEP in-vestigation, these accounts published in 1997 wereaccounts of foreigners generally; they were not se-lected for probable or possible relationships to vic-tims of Nazi persecution. Consequently, the roughly


16

20 percent share traced to Holocaust victims shouldnot be representative of ICEP’s investigation.

52. From the claims made in response to theJuly-October 1997 publication, the awards to vic-tims of Nazi persecution made by the Tribunal willbe adjusted upward by application of the currentvalue adjustment factor approved by the Indepen-dent Claims Resolution Foundation. That decisionprovides for a restoration of fees and charges andfor deposit accounts a multiplication of the implied1945 book value by a factor of 10 to reach an ad-justed current value. These adjustments are designedto recognize the special circumstances of Holocaustvictims whose accounts became inadvertently illiq-uid because of persecution. Consistent with theanalysis of a special group of experts, the Swiss long-term bond rate has been taken as a measure of whataccount holders might have earned if they had theability to control their accounts.52

Intermediaries and Looted Assets

53. The audit firms were instructed to search foraccounts opened by intermediaries and to report toICEP any evidence of potentially looted assets thatthey found during their investigations.53 Because ofthe passage of time and the inherent difficulty oftracing the beneficiaries of accounts opened in thename of Swiss residents or persons in other coun-tries, this proved a most difficult area of investiga-tion. Moreover, intermediaries, in the normal courseof their business, could well be acting for personsunrelated to Nazi persecution. Bank records willnormally not reveal information about intermediar-ies’ relationships with their clients and only in veryunusual circumstances will a bank be responsiblefor the actions of a depositor intermediary. The Com-mittee, by its mandate, had no investigative powersoutside the banks themselves.

54. In the circumstances, the approach neces-sarily taken was to request the audit firms to matchthe accounts databases to a database containing thenames of possible intermediaries (including Swisslawyers, notaries, and other intermediaries, includ-

ing those identified by the Bergier Commission).The substantial number of Relevant Period accountsthat were so matched (to some now unknown ex-tent) reflected the likely predominately normal fi-duciary business of these intermediaries. The auditfirms also reported other potential intermediary ac-counts identified as a result of other research. Thus,the investigation, without access to the books andrecords of intermediaries, has made maximum useof available bank records to identify areas of pos-sible further investigation and endeavored to coor-dinate with the broader investigations in this areaof the Bergier Commission.

55. Faced with similar problems with regard topotentially looted assets, the audit firms matchedthe accounts databases against the names of some1,934 potential looters (for example, senior Naziofficials and European Nazi collaborators). The to-tal number of Relevant Period accounts that werematched is 1,622.

56. The Bergier Commission has broad legalauthority to investigate Swiss policy in relation toWorld War II, including concerns about looted fundsas well as misuse of funds by intermediaries. Toassist in its efforts, there has been a mutual exchangeof information, and the Bergier Commission plansfurther investigation.54

Study of Jewish Assets

57. The Committee sponsored a study—Reporton the Pre-War Wealth Position of the Jewish Popu-lation in Nazi Occupied Countries, Germany andAustria55—by Ms. Helen Junz, a highly experiencedeconomist and researcher. The report reviews avail-able records about the wealth of the Jewish indi-

52 See Annex 8 covering the Claims Resolution Tribunal and the work ofthe Panel on Interest, Fees, and Other Charges. The final report of thePanel on Interest, Fees, and Other Charges is in Appendix M.

53 The results of the investigation with respect to intermediaries and lootedassets is contained in Annex 6.

54 See Appendix K for the statement of Coordination and Cooperationbetween the ICEP and the Bergier Commission. See also paragraph 7above.

55 The report was financed by the Swiss Bankers Association, the WorldJewish Congress, and by ICEP member, Mr. Ronald Lauder. The fulltext of the report is in Appendix S.


17

viduals and families in Germany and five Axis-oc-cupied countries on the eve of World War II. Sub-stantial evidence was found in official records andotherwise bearing on the matter. Her work suggestssome US$12.1 billion (in 1933 dollars for Germanyand 1938-39 dollars for all other countries) existedin pre-war Jewish wealth before expropriationstarted. Upwards of US$3.0 billion (or 25% of thewealth estimate) may have been in sufficiently liq-uid form to be available for transfer to, or alreadylodged in, a safe haven destination. Although thestructure of wealth differed, financial assets (equi-ties and bonds) were the single most important sav-ings instrument in each of the six European coun-tries investigated. These countries represented three-quarters of the Jewish population outside of the So-viet Union, three-quarters of the persons that diedas a result of the Holocaust, and probably a some-what larger fraction of Jewish wealth. The reportrepresents a substantial contribution to understand-ing the events surrounding the Holocaust, as wellas providing some check as to the reasonablenessof estimates of the population of Jewish wealth thatmay have been deposited with Swiss banks.

Results in Perspective58. The Committee wishes to emphasize sev-

eral major points implicit in the preceding discus-sion:

• After the passage of so many years, a pre-cise accounting of dormant accounts (or ofquestionable closure of accounts) of victimsof Nazi persecution is simply not possible.The absence of fully adequate records can-not, however, be attributed to systematic orwidespread and deliberate alteration or de-struction of bank account records for thepurpose of obliterating the history of theaccounts of these victims. Indeed, theamount of data available has exceeded mostexpectations.

• The strength of the probable or possible link-age between the groups of Relevant Periodaccounts described above and Holocaust vic-tims varies widely. A name match is a highly

useful indicator of a Holocaust victim rela-tionship but alone is not conclusive, as re-flected in the fact that accounts with com-mon names can have more than one match,although these matches can still containamong them one or more victims names.Judgments of the Committee as to thestrength of this linkage rested on a numberof factors and identification of an accountas probably or possibly that of a Holocaustvictim does not connote certainty, nor doespublication of the names of account holdersin itself imply that these accounts were with-held from them or their heirs.

• The 4.1 million accounts in the databasesconstitute an estimated 60 percent of the to-tal accounts in the Relevant Period. Had itbeen possible to capture all or a greater partof the estimated 6.8 million Swiss bank ac-counts from the Relevant Period in therecords, certainly more accounts would beavailable for a claims resolution process. Asnoted above, the coverage was more com-plete for the large banks and private bankswhich were the principal recipients of for-eign accounts in general and victims’ ac-counts in particular. Cantonal banks with alarge Swiss “retail” clientele had relativelyfewer records. Consequently, the total of thenumber and value of accounts with somepresumption of involvement with victims ofNazi persecution identified by the investi-gation is clearly conservative, but not to thedegree suggested by the total shortfall inaccount coverage.

• The accounts identified as a result of theICEP investigation do not, on their face,seem unreasonably large relative to Jewishwealth, the size of Swiss banks, or the pro-portion of foreign accounts in these banks.Specifically, the Report on the Pre-WarWealth Position of the Jewish Population inNazi-Occupied Countries, Germany, andAustria sponsored by the Committee con-cluded that US$ 3 billion (in 1930s dollars)


18

of liquid funds were potentially available forinvestment in safe haven locations (althoughSwitzerland was only one, and probably notthe main, recipient of those funds).

Drawing a Bottom Line59. The members of the Independent Commit-

tee of Eminent Persons are unanimously agreed thatits unprecedented accounting investigation, skill-fully executed with an intensive and sustained ef-fort by a large staff of forensic accountants, and withthe cooperation by the Swiss banking community,has provided as full and complete accounting of thestatus of the accounts in Switzerland of victims ofNazi persecution as is now reasonably feasible.

60. There is crucially important unfinished busi-ness to provide justice to those with legitimateclaims to identified accounts, a matter dealt with inour recommendations in this Report. Moreover, fur-ther investigatory effort is appropriate to followleads with respect to intermediaries and looted ac-counts, an area that extends beyond this inquirywhich has been confined to the activity of Swissbanks.

61. With those reservations, we are agreed thatthe treatment by Swiss banks of the funds entrustedto them by victims of Nazi persecution has now beenfully investigated and analyzed. In that respect, aline can be drawn under this contentious and diffi-cult matter.

Part II —RecommendationsIntroduction

62. Part I of this Report reviews the factual find-ings of the forensic audit of Swiss banks mandatedby the World Jewish Restitution Organization andthe Swiss Bankers Association, and sets forth theconclusions of the Independent Committee of Emi-nent Persons arising out of those findings. TheCommittee’s work and its conclusions have beenshaped in substantial part with a view toward ap-propriate next steps in a number of areas including,

most importantly, an effective claims resolution pro-cess. This Part II of the Committee Report containsits conclusions in that respect and sets out certainrecommendations that are supported by the Com-mittee.

63. As a logical extension of its work, the Com-mittee had an active role in recommending the pub-lication of accounts in 1997 and in establishing theClaims Resolution Tribunal (discussed in Part I) toadjudicate claims to these published accounts. TheCommittee has repeatedly recognized that the suc-cess of its investigation of dormant accounts is de-pendent upon the policies and mechanisms neces-sary to efficiently, effectively, and finally resolvethe claims of Holocaust victims or their heirs to theaccounts identified in its investigation.

64. Common ground in any approach towardthat effort is (1) the development of, and access to,a database of relevant accounts; (2) notice to poten-tial claimants; (3) efficient procedures for an inde-pendent and objective resolution process; and (4)ground rules for resolving claims, including theamount of awards to claimants. The specific Com-mittee recommendations concern the nature, loca-tion, and accessibility of the database; the extentand format of publication of account names; thechoice and approach of a tribunal; and a “formula”for translating known or estimated account valuesinto equitable present-day monetary awards. Thereis a need for follow-up in certain other areas as well.

The Database65. The ICEP investigation, by its nature, has

resulted in the development of a database (or moreaccurately databases) of Swiss bank accounts fromthe Relevant Period, including accounts that areprobably or possibly related to victims of Nazi per-secution. At present, however, these databases arescattered among individual Swiss banks and are notnow freely available for examination. They are, how-ever, effectively under the control of the Swiss Fed-eral Banking Commission, which has the authorityto require consolidation and allow for access. In


19

practice, effective and expeditious handling ofclaims by the Tribunal will necessitate centraliza-tion of the databases and clear rules of access thatare sensitive to the needs of claimants as well as themaintenance of appropriate confidentiality.

66. One effective use of this type of account in-formation, responsive to the concerns outlinedabove, was demonstrated in the important and help-ful 1997 decision of the Swiss Federal BankingCommission to authorize publication of names ofaccounts in Swiss banks dormant since WorldWar II. These foreign accounts were published inleading newspapers around the world and on theinternet.

67. The Committee recommends that the SwissFederal Banking Commission promptly take stepsto consolidate the existing but scattered databasesinto a central archive. Clear and simple rules foraccess to information in the databases—certainlyincluding the name of the relevant bank—by theClaims Resolution Tribunal (or other designatedbody) is necessary to facilitate its efforts to reach aspeedy conclusion to the claims resolution process.

Publication of Account Names68. The extent to which names of accounts that

are determined to have a probable or possible rela-tion to a Holocaust victim should be published name-by-name has been a difficult issue. At the heart ofthe question lies a point that again needs emphasis.

69. The determination by the Committee that anaccount has a probable or possible relationship to avictim of Nazi persecution does not and cannot beautomatically considered as constituting an adversejudgement on the conduct of a bank with respect tothat account. Put another way, inclusion of a par-ticular account on the list of 53,886 accounts deemedprobably or possibly related to victims of Nazi per-secution is not necessarily evidence that any oneaccount is that of a victim of Nazi persecution, orthat these accounts have been withheld deliberatelyor otherwise, from Holocaust victims. The determi-

nation of the probability or possibility of a relation-ship to victims of Nazi persecution has been guidedby certain strong presumptions about account char-acteristics, including name matches. However, theprecision of proof of such relationships normallyapplicable in judicial proceedings will rather typi-cally depend upon evidence that is rarely still avail-able after more than half a century. Therefore, anyclaims resolution process must take this reality intoaccount.

70. At the same time, victims who have beenlong denied justice by circumstances beyond theircontrol—often poor and now aged—deserve everyreasonable assistance in establishing a claim. Onestep toward achieving that result is to provide ac-cess to names of account holders for accounts iden-tified in the ICEP investigation. Such access willenable claimants—who today almost necessarilyare, as a result of the passage of time, not the vic-tims themselves but their heirs—to identify accountsof related family members. A direct and efficientway to provide such access is to publish that list.

71. Strongly competing considerations with re-spect to publication have been advanced to limit thepublication of all account names regardless of thestrength of the probable or possible relationship toHolocaust victims. There is concern that publica-tion of all of the identified accounts will, in the mindsof many, carry a greater implication of widespreadinsensitive and even unethical behavior than is war-ranted by the facts. Recognition of the need to turna presumption into a valid claim, it might be feared,will be lost on the media and the public at large. Inaddition, the banks are concerned that public listingof individual names will compromise privacy rightsprotected by law and induce multiple claims with-out credible supporting evidence.

72. A key factor in the Committee’s evaluationof publication is the experience of the Claims Reso-lution Tribunal process which demonstrates thatpublication of names attracts multiple claimants andclaims by a single claimant to numerous unrelated


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accounts. One danger is that a volume of frivolousclaims to a very large list of published names couldclog the claims resolution process, delay justicerather than serving the legitimate claimants, andintroduce a substantial and undesirable element ofchance into the resolution process.

73. In light of these considerations, the Com-mittee suggests that the claims resolution processbe organized in such a way as to provide for publi-cation of the names of accounts that have a strongprobability of a relationship with victims, and aboutwhich the Committee has accumulated the most in-formation. This will permit depositors who werevictims or their heirs to identify more easily the ac-counts to which they have a valid claim based onplausible evidence, and for the Tribunal to evaluatesuch claims against a significant base of useful iden-tifying information.

74. Of the accounts identified in the ICEP in-vestigation, the accounts with the highest probabil-ity of a relationship with victims are the accounts inCategories 1 and 2, and, with respect to Category 3,accounts for which there are unique, almost unique,or confirming factors matches between victims andaccount holders as described more fully in Part I.Accounts in Category 1 are foreign accounts thatare an exact or near-exact name match to victims ofNazi persecution, that were open or opened in theRelevant Period, and that were inactive after 1945.The accounts in Category 2, which are unmatched,are accounts of account holders resident during theRelevant Period in an Axis or Axis-occupied coun-try that were open or opened in the Relevant Pe-riod, and that were identified by the banks holdingthe accounts as accounts of victims of Nazi perse-cution or were inactive for at least 10 years after thewar. While the accounts in Category 3 do not haveevidence of activity or inactivity after 1945, the factthat many of those accounts are “unique namematches,” and others with supporting information,strongly suggests relationships to Holocaust victims.Nevertheless, publication of the closed accounts inCategories 1, 2 and 3 present a special problem for

some members because these accounts have beenclosed without surviving documentation to explainto whom they were paid. These members have res-ervations about publishing such closed accounts asa general matter, but believe an exception permit-ting publication is justified in the extraordinary cir-cumstances of the Holocaust, and because the Com-mittee is recommending certain adaptations of theclaims resolution process to deal with the specialcharacteristics of closed accounts (see paragraphs79 and 84).56 Therefore, the Committee unanimouslyrecommends to the Swiss Federal Banking Com-mission that it authorize publication of the namesof the account holders for the 25,187 accounts inCategories 1, 2, and part of 3.

75. The evidence that the remainder of the ac-counts in Category 3 (without unique name matches)and the accounts in Category 4 are related to vic-tims is significantly less strong. For these Category 3accounts, as for the Category 3 accounts describedabove, there is no information about who benefit-ted from the closing of the accounts. However, thecritical elements of both evidence of inactivity andvalues for a substantial portion of these accountsare also unknown. For the unmatched accounts inCategory 4, a different important element of the re-lationship determination—evidence of residence inan Axis or Axis-occupied country—is also unavail-able, and these accounts were concentrated in re-tail-oriented banks. For these accounts, much lessinformation is available to the Tribunal to test theplausibility of claims.

76. Consistent with this approach, the Commit-tee believes that any person with a valid claim to adormant account of a victim of Nazi persecution,whether or not an account name is published, shouldbe provided facilities for submitting such a claim.Claims already submitted to ICEP, new claims sub-mitted to the Tribunal directly, claims filed with the

56 They also believe that residence of an account holder in an Axis orAxis-occupied country is not a sufficient indicator, by itself, of a rela-tionship to a victim of Nazi persecution to warrant publication of theseaccounts to initiate a claims resolution process (see Annex 4, paragraph37) but accept its use as an indicator of such a relationship in the spe-cial circumstances of the Holocaust.


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Class Action Settlement, and claims from the NewYork State Holocaust Claims Processing Officeshould be matched against the available databasesof accounts. If there are matches of such claimantson these lists with the full list of names of accountholders, a claims resolution process should be initi-ated by the Claims Resolution Tribunal. In principle,the Committee believes that all victims of Nazi per-secution or their heirs who submit a claim shouldbe able to have such a claim resolved if the accountholder’s name is indeed found in the accounts data-base by the Claims Resolution Tribunal. In orderthat the Tribunal may test the plausibility of suchclaims, the claimant should be prepared to provideevidence indicating a relationship to an accountholder who is a victim of Nazi persecution.

The Tribunal for Resolution ofClaims

77. The Claims Resolution Tribunal establishedin 1997 in Zurich is now approaching the end of itseffort to arbitrate claims arising from the 1997 pub-lication of 5,570 foreign accounts in Swiss banks.That claims process, cumbersome at first, now func-tions with greater speed and effectiveness. The Trust-ees of the sponsoring foundation are drawn fromthe membership of ICEP; and the Swiss Chairmanand American Vice Chairman of the Tribunal haveprovided outstanding leadership of an experiencedsecretariat and a distinguished panel of 15 interna-tionally recognized and seasoned arbitrators.

78. ICEP has consulted with the Tribunal onpractical methods of speeding an effective and fairadministrative claims process in a manner that isconsistent with the policy objectives outlined above.Such process would continue to entail liberal stan-dards of proof. Administrative resolution by the Tri-bunal secretariat of straightforward claims to ac-counts known to be small could also be possible,with arrangements for review where appropriate bya single arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators.57

79. Important to the management of the arbitra-tion process would be a requirement that claimants

present some evidence of a relationship to the indi-vidual account holder who was a victim of Nazipersecution. On that basis, the resolution processwould be accelerated, particularly for those caseswhere the bank involved concurred in the claim reso-lution. While banks themselves may offer to settleclaims, resolutions should be under the authority ofthe Tribunal. Special rules would also have to bedeveloped for administrative and adjudicative reso-lution of claims to accounts with unknown valuesand accounts for which their disposition on closureis unknown. Finally, allocating the costs of this pro-cess is a subject for further discussion by the Boardof Trustees of Independent Claims Resolution Foun-dation.

80. On the basis of these facts and proposals,the Committee recommends that claims by victimsof Nazi persecution or their heirs to the accountsarising as a result of its investigation be channeledthrough the Claims Resolution Tribunal. The Com-mittee recognizes that a Federal District Court inthe United States is overseeing the settlement of aclass action suit against the large Swiss commercialbanks. The Committee looks forward to the coop-eration of the Tribunal with the Court.

Awards to Claimants81. Fundamental to the Committee’s approach

to the matter of valuing identified victim accountsis the need for a formula for translating known orestimated accounts values into equitable present daymonetary awards. In approaching this problem, theCommittee believes certain principles should be re-spected. These principles basically take as their pointof departure that a Holocaust victim account holderor heir should be reasonably compensated for thede facto nature of the account as a long-term effec-tively illiquid asset since the end of World War IIregardless of its formal designation or original con-tractual relationship.

57 A possible framework for such a process is described more fully inAnnex 8.


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82. Specifically, the earliest known account val-ues on the books of the bank for deposit accountsshould be identified and adjusted to 1945 values byadding back estimated bank charges and deductingestimated earned interest, if any. The 1945 valuesshould then be adjusted to present values on the basisof long-term Swiss rates of return. That adjustmentimplies a multiplier of 10, more than accounting forincreases in the cost of living over the 54-year pe-riod.

83. These approaches are consistent with theanalysis of a panel of distinguished financial econo-mists headed by Mr. Henry Kaufman.58 They havealso been reviewed by the Claims Resolution Tri-bunal. The Committee recommends that these ap-proaches be used by the Tribunal.

84. The valuation problem is more complicatedwhere information about the account value is frag-mentary or, in many cases, lacking entirely. Inevi-tably, an arbitrary solution will be required. Projec-tion of data for known account values over a largernumber of accounts as the base for calculating av-erage values is one possible approach to resolvingthis problem.

Potentially Looted Assets andSwiss Intermediaries

85. As indicated in Part I, the Committee inves-tigation has identified certain assets that may havebeen looted by Nazis. It has also identified multipleaccounts of Swiss intermediaries who, in somecases, may have been acting for victims. There is,at the least, a body of anecdotal evidence that sucharrangements were rather common, and in someinstances, the account beneficiaries may have beenabused by breach of fiduciary responsibilities.

86. By the nature of the situation, these caseshave been difficult to identify. The Committee hasno investigatory authority beyond banks. No doubt,most private intermediaries are now aged or de-

ceased, and their records are lost and inaccessible.Looted assets placed in deposit accounts are notidentifiable without other evidence as to their ori-gins.

87. The Bergier Commission shares our concernin these areas and, in fact, has broad authority topursue investigations in and beyond the banks. Theinformation that the Committee auditors have de-veloped is being made available to the Bergier Com-mission, and it provides leads for further investiga-tion.

88. The Committee anticipates that this workwill proceed, drawing as necessary on the expertiseof the audit firms retained by the Committee in itsinvestigation.

Treatment of Dormant Accountsand Record Keeping

89. The Committee’s conclusions in Part I arecritical of the conduct of some Swiss banks in theirtreatment of the accounts of victims of Nazi perse-cution. They are necessarily a retrospective evalua-tion. Looking forward, it became evident in thecourse of the Committee’s investigation that verysubstantial disadvantages flow from the absence inSwiss banking law of a requirement for the publi-cation of the names of dormant accounts or escheatof individual funds. No doubt, the law and traditionof bank secrecy have contributed to that policy. Inessence, relaxed official policies with respect todormant accounts contributed to an environment inwhich there were accounting problems and laxrecord keeping in some institutions, especially withregard to suspense accounts. There was little incen-tive to search out owners or even to respond to in-quiries.

90. There is clear evidence that today, in the lightof this investigation and publicity, those attitudes

58 See Annex 8 for a discussion of the Panel Report and Appendix M forthe text of the Report.


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have changed. To their credit, some banks have en-gaged in aggressive and costly efforts to find ac-count holders and to improve record keeping. TheCommittee is aware of the new directive of the SBAon dormant accounts and that the Swiss Govern-ment is considering new legislation on unclaimedaccounts that should help reinforce discipline ap-propriate to the treatment of these accounts. In theCommittee’s view, such legislation, together withclarification of the law about record retention, isdesirable.

Concluding Comment91. The ICEP investigation has been a long, ex-

pensive, and difficult process, intensive and filledwith frustration and emotion. It could be justifiedby only one fact: the need, at the end of the century,to bring a sense of justice and closure to one part ofthe horrific experience of the Holocaust.

92. Switzerland and Swiss banks were not re-sponsible for those terrible events. Nor were theyalone in being havens for victims’ funds. The recordis clear, certainly by today’s standards, that the han-dling of these funds was too often grossly insensi-tive to the special conditions of the Holocaust andsometimes misleading in intent and unfair in result.Our inquiry is one reflection of a willingness to dealwith that heritage more forcefully and openly.

93. The Committee is satisfied that its work hasnow developed the record of the Swiss banks withrespect to the funds of victims of Nazi persecutionwith as much detail, objectivity, and accuracy as thepassage of time allows. A framework can be estab-lished for providing a measure of justice to thosewhose claims have for too long been denied. In thatsense, the Committee believes this one chapter inthe long and sad story of the consequences of Nazibrutality can be drawn to a close.


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