Forward Editorial
September 13, 2002

The long quest for justice for victims of Nazi persecution may have gotten a little bit longer last month, after a self-styled "grass-roots" group of Holocaust survivors decided to challenge a federal court's plan for distributing a piece of the Swiss bank restitution fund.

They're tussling over a tiny portion of the $1.25 billion fund that's been set aside for humanitarian aid to needy Holocaust survivors. The Brooklyn court overseeing the Swiss case wants most of that humanitarian aid directed toward destitute survivors in the former Soviet Union. The challengers say that's unfair. They want a bigger chunk for themselves.

The challenge is the latest in a long series of delaying tactics that this group has seen fit to mount, adding as much as a year to the painfully slow process of winning the victims their due. It's time they stood down and let justice be done.

The restitution fund was created in 1998 as part of an out-of-court settlement of lawsuits against the Swiss banking industry, which was accused of hiding fortunes in World War II-era deposits belonging to Holocaust victims and survivors. Under the agreement the banks handed over a lump sum of $1.25 billion, on condition that the settlement cover all future Holocaust-related claims against Swiss banks and industry. That includes not just looted bank accounts, but profits from Nazi slave labor, looted European Jewish property and any other ill-gotten gains.

In addition to those categories of claimants, a token $100 million fund was set aside to provide humanitarian aid for needy Holocaust survivors around the world, whether or not they had documented claims against the Swiss banks that put up the money. That token fund is what's now in dispute.

Under a distribution plan drawn up two years ago by a court-appointed "special master," New York attorney Judah Gribetz, 75% of the humanitarian fund is to be spent in the former Soviet Union. Gribetz's logic was that Holocaust survivors behind the Iron Curtain are "double victims," having suffered first under Nazism and then under communism. Moreover, reports from the region suggest dreadful levels of poverty and hunger, far surpassing anything in this or any other Western country. Gribetz rightly reasoned that the humanitarian money, lacking any specific claimant, should be allocated not per capita but according to need.

The challengers, led by Miami attorney Samuel Dubbin, say the Gribetz plan isn't fair. They peevishly demand more for American survivors, which means less for Russians. Some in the group reportedly have had the effrontery to suggest that Holocaust survivors in the former Soviet Union aren't necessarily Holocaust survivors, since many avoided the Nazis by fleeing to Siberia. That's outrageous.

Admittedly, what the challengers want isn't inherently unreasonable. They're demanding better home health care for the increasingly aged and infirm survivor population in this country. We'd like the same thing. As this newspaper has noted before, America is the only nation in the industrialized West that doesn't recognize healthcare as a human right but leaves it to the whims of the market. Even within this country, government-funded care varies wildly by state.

According to one recent study, state spending averages on home healthcare for the elderly range from a per capita high of $1,131 in New York to a low of $60 in Florida, Dubbin's home state. No wonder his clients want more. They're entitled to it. But their beef isn't with the Swiss banking fund. It's with their own legislators.

As it happens, Dubbin and company withdrew their original challenge last year, after one of the lead attorneys in the case, legal scholar Burt Neuborne, offered to endorse a healthcare plan — if they submitted one — during a second-round payout, once the bank accounts were sorted out. They resubmitted their objections last month when the court announced that more money was available. The new money, however, is not the predicted second-round payout. It's simply a chunk of interest that has accrued on the main $1.25 billion fund while it sat awaiting claimants.

It should be pointed out that while at least 26,000 Swiss accounts have been identified by an international audit as "probably" belonging to Holocaust victims, fewer than 300 claims have been settled and paid so far, thanks in large part to Swiss stalling. We shouldn't lose sight of who the victims are, and who the offenders. Nor of the fact that while Switzerland profited off Jews' death, the killing machine was not Swiss but German.

It's often been noted, throughout the painful Holocaust restitution campaign, that perfect justice can never be achieved in the face of history's greatest crime. Even partial justice can't be done, though, until everyone involved — defendants and plaintiffs alike — ends the stalling and permits the signed agreements to move forward. The clock is running out for the survivors.

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