Commissioner Bill Nelson. I want to thank you all for your presence today. I am Bill Nelson, the State Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal of Florida. I have conducted many of these hearings because I had the privilege of being in the United States Congress for years, and then you all sent me to Tallahassee 2 ½ years ago as your State Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner. We are gathering here today to hear the testimony of Holocaust survivors and [their] descendents. It is important for us to be here to support the continued effort to restore justice to the victims of the Holocaust. This is a special hearing of which there are a number around the country. I’m going to introduce my colleague from the state of Washington, Deborah Senn, in a few moments, who is the chair of our working group in our National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and who has spearheaded this effort around the country. We’ve had a hearing and taken testimony in Washington, D.C., in September, and a few weeks ago in Chicago. This is the third in a series of hearings that will continue in New York as well as California. Why those locations? Because those are the locations where most of the Holocaust survivors live today. New York has approximately 15,000. California has approximately 6,000 and Florida has approximately 5,100 survivors living today from the Holocaust. We today in this special hearing are going to hear the testimonies of the survivors, including Igor Kling of Aventura, a Schindler’s List survivor, Erica Brodsky of Pompano, Michael Jordan of Palm Harbor, and others who have filed claims against insurance companies in order to collect unpaid insurance claims from policies that were taken out either before or during the big War, World War II. Now with us in Florida as having the third largest population of the registered Holocaust survivors, we estimate that as many as 2,000 in Florida may be entitled to life insurance benefits. It’s our hope that we’re able, with your help, to contact as many Holocaust survivors as possible. It’s of great importance that if you know of someone, have them contact the department of insurance and there is a hot-line and a help-line, an 800 number, that will be listed on the information that is distributed to you. Otherwise, a call is as easy to me as to the local office. I have an office here in Miami. We have an office in Broward, in Plantation, and we have an office in Palm Beach, in West Palm Beach. If you believe that you have a claim or that anyone you know has a claim, and it can be life or health or property insurance, taken out in that time period, we want you to contact us and give us the details. Now you’ll see, as the testimony goes on today, that maybe it’s a recollection that is insignificant to you, but it might be very valuable to this cause. And so any kind of information that you can remember, or documentation that you can produce, might be crucial to this effort. It might, for example, be a policy number, without any overt significance to you, or it may be the name of an insurer, or any recollection of any premiums that had been paid prior to that claim being denied. So please take time and search your memories, and then, justice, we hope, will be served. Now I would like to introduce my colleague, Deborah Senn. She’s from exactly the opposite side of this country in the state of Washington. Only about 11 states elect their insurance commissioners, as we do here in Florida, although my job is combined as State Treasurer as well. In the state of Washington, they elect their insurance commissioner, and she continues to be re-elected with wide margins. So let’s give a great Florida welcome to the chair of our working group, Deborah Senn, from the state of Washington.

Commissioner Deborah Senn. Thank you very, very much, Commissioner Nelson. I really am very pleased to be here in the beautiful state of Florida and to participate in this incredibly important task. Let me give you just a little bit of history. Just several months ago, we began hearing, as an outgrowth of the Swiss banking issue, the Swiss gold issue, that records of insurance claims started to be revealed and we began hearing how many survivors of the Holocaust, how many families from the Holocaust, never received payment for their life insurance, their property and casualty insurance. Last Sunday we had the 59^th anniversary of Kristallnacht – the shop owners in Germany never received payment for the claims for the damage to their shops. And for dowry insurance, which initially was a challenge for us, because we had not heard of dowry insurance, but this of course was an annuity product that was taken out when a baby was born and used after age 21 to pay for the wedding. And we heard about claims for all these types of insurance, and as you know there are 50 commissioners in the United States, one for each state, and we have a national association, so we put together a working group. And actually one of the first people we talked to and that I asked to participate, because we felt that we could not do a good job without him, is Commissioner Nelson from the state of Florida, because of the importance of the state, the importance of the survivor community from this state. And we have hearings around the country. We had a hearing in Skokie, Illinois, last week. There will be a hearing in Philadelphia, there will be hearings in California, but very high up on the agenda of course is the state of Florida. So we are here today to listen to the survivors’ stories, as Commissioner Nelson said, any piece of information which might not be that important in your mind, could be helpful to us in our search for data to help us put together the claims requests for survivors. In the state of Washington we have not quite as many survivors, but we have many active files. We actually have people who have found their policy, who have a policy number, who have a recollection, who remember the name of an insurance agent. So all this information is important to us in order to move forward in this process. So we are here to take testimony, to take information, we will take our information back to the entire association in December and meet with them. And let me just say this. There are 20 insurance commissioners from around the country that are on this working group. This is unprecedented. We had a hearing in Washington, D.C., and I have to just say that in my five years as insurance commissioner, I have never seen a response by insurance commissioners as I have seen in the last few months. And so I believe that they stand ready, around the country, to assist consumers in their state, because that is what we were elected for or appointed for. So with that, I will just say on the agenda today we have survivors, we also have Rabbi Israel Miller from the Material Claims Conference in New York, and we also have an insurance archaeology firm that is going to give us testimony on how to begin the process of getting these claims handled. We are determined, as Commissioner Nelson said, we are determined to seek justice. This issue is about justice for the survivors of the Holocaust, for their heirs, for their families, and so we thank you for your participation.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you Deborah. We want to thank the Mears Transportation Company, as well as Eli Feinberg, for providing the transportation today, and I’d like to call on my colleague from the Florida State Government, Representative Elaine Bloom, for her opening comments.

Representative Elaine Bloom. Thank you Commissioner Nelson. There are several reasons why I’m here. Number one, I’m here as the member of the legislature whose privilege it is to represent this very beautiful spot in the state of Florida. I represent most of the city of Miami Beach plus nine other cities, so I welcome you to our district. Also, we have a very high concentration of Holocaust survivors in this community, but I also wanted the people of this hearing to know that our commissioner, our state insurance commissioner, who is also incidentally the Treasurer of the State of Florida, is somebody I had the pleasure of serving with in the House of Representatives. He then went to the United States Congress where he had a very distinguished career. He even managed to become an astronaut, the only member of Congress who can make that statement, and we are very proud of the fact that he has taken leadership with Commissioner Senn in this particular area. But there are several issues in addition to insurance that I would like to make mention of now. Since you are also the State Treasurer, and as part of those responsibilities you serve on the State Board of Administration, which places funds overnight or for longer periods of time in various banks and various instruments, I’d like to call attention to the fact that we need to be as sure as the people in California and New York are that we are not encouraging some of those very Swiss institutions that are being very, shall we say, close-minded and obstinate at this particular moment in history, and I would like to ask that you encourage your staff to make some search as to how we interface with some of those major Swiss banking institutions. And also the fact that many of the insurance companies that may be mentioned are also partially owned or part of, major Swiss banks as well. So I would hope that you would use this as one avenue to get back to the other issue, where state funds of the State of Florida, might inadvertently be placed in the very institutions that we need to question, or at least do some major influencing of. I’d also like to make mention of the fact that in my "day job" I work with the great Israeli university, Bar Elan University, and I’d like to have the pleasure of asking whether you have already worked with people from the State of Israel, or the Consulates of Israel, to determine whether they can be of assistance in giving you even more material information that would help your particular study of what’s happening in this field. And if possible, I would like to assist you in this as well.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Representative Bloom. We appreciate it very much. All right, let’s start. Mr. Dubbin is going to be our lead-off witness. Sam Dubbin, of the law firm of Greenberg-Traurig, is a Board Member of the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center. Sam has testimony to present to us. Mr. Dubbin.

Mr. Sam Dubbin. Thank you very much, Commissioner Nelson. It’s really an honor for me, and a privilege, for me to be here on behalf of the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center, which, as many of you know, is the premier institution located at Florida International University in North Miami. I’m here on behalf of Rosita Kenigsberg, our Executive Vice President, who also has the privilege of serving as a board member for the National Holocaust Memorial Museum Council and would be here today except for the fact that she’s in Washington at the Executive Committee meetings. But on behalf of the center, and on behalf of the 18 Holocaust survivors’ clubs in South Florida that we work closely with and represent, I’d like to welcome the subcommittee here and for taking the time, I want to say, as a Floridian and as a friend of Bill Nelson’s, I’m personally grateful for your involvement and I want to let the people here know that when Commissioner Nelson gets involved in an issue like this, you can be sure you’ll get the follow through in effective enforcement that problems of this magnitude require. And we appreciate that. So on behalf of the Center and the clubs, we give a warm south Florida welcome. I’d like to say a little bit about what the Center has been involved with, in regard to these many issues. Today, of course, we’ll hear testimony in regard to the uncollected insurance claims from insurance policies that were never paid to Holocaust survivors and their heirs. There are more than 125,000 survivors living in the United States and over 500,000 around the world. South Florida is home to, we think, the second-largest survivor population in North America, and actually the largest geriatric survivor population in North America. And because our Center is known as the central address of survivor concerns and of the survivor population, it’s not unusual that we would be involved in an issue such as insurance claims that are being heard here today. Many of our aging survivors still suffer from the permanent injuries they endured at the hands of the Nazis. They continue, even to this day, to enlist our help regarding problems with the German government. In particular, their particularly narrow and stubborn response in regard to reparations issues, for example, which are a major source of indignity, not to mention injustice. As you know, to this day, they still require that survivors produce a document that details their internment, even over 50 years after the fact. Last Thursday, we are proud to say that Concurrent Senate Resolution No. 39, which calls on Germany to expand and simplify its reparations process, was unanimously passed by the United States Senate. And we want to thank everybody here who had a hand in bringing these issues to the attention of the Senate. We have copies of the Resolution, if they haven’t been passed out yet, which they might have, I placed many of them on the table out there so you can pick them up. One of the unique concerns of the South Florida Survivor Community and when Representative Bloom reminded me of your role as State Treasurer, it’s important to note that one of the major goals of this community would be to see that if German reparation money is made more readily available, that health insurance for survivors be made a top priority. It is a shame but a fact that many of our elderly survivors in the Jewish community lack adequate health insurance to deal with regular problems, not to mention the unique problems they have as survivors. And that’s a Resolution that’s been unanimously adopted by the survivor clubs and it is included in the Senate Concurrent Resolution and it may be another insurance-related issue that may be coming to the fore very shortly. As we are about to focus on the issue of unpaid insurance policies, those of us at the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center ask that very careful attention be paid to every survivor who comes to testify today. Of course each one of their lives emerged from the absurdity of the Holocaust. Each one of their voices carries more than just remembrance of pain and de-humanization and horror. It’s not just that they were individually detained and marked for destruction, but what is of course most important is that their stories survive and that they’re here to tell about a people whose glory is restored, a people regaining their dignity, and every word they tell us reminds us again and again that as long as there is someone to tell the story, as long as there is life, as long as there’s someone to listen, there’s hope. And of course our hope is that even 52 years after the fact, justice will be served and dignity will be restored. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you Mr. Dubbin. Appreciate it. We want to make note of the fact that we’ve had some very hard working staff. Ellen Wilcox of the NAIC staff in Kansas City is here with us. Janice Friebaum of Deborah’s staff, all the way from the state of Washington, is here, and Karen Asher-Cohen of the Florida Department of Insurance, who has been involved in this representing me and setting up this meeting as our Director of the Division of Insurer Services. All right, let’s turn to Mrs. Harriet Martin, who is a case manager for the Jewish Family and Children’s Service/Holocaust Survivors Assistance Program of Palm Beach County. Ms. Martin, we welcome you.

Mrs. Harriet Martin. Thank you for having this meeting. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I hope you can hear me? [Pull it a little bit closer to you.] The Holocaust grant is not only from Palm Beach County, it is a tri-county grant. There are three case managers who deal on a daily basis with elderly Holocaust survivors, most of – almost all of – whom are very frail. Almost all of whom are quite ill, who are dealing with injuries or sicknesses that are a result of the Holocaust, in many cases, or remnants of injuries from the Holocaust. They, we, provide a service of home health care and case management. We deal with people on a daily basis, as I said, with survivors and their problems. We help them, we assist them in filling out forms for the German government, which are extremely complicated, for reparations, whether it’s for new reparations for those who felt they really should not apply because they considered it blood money. For those who felt that they had property or their families had property, life insurance policies, in many cases, that were never repaid, and again the forms are very long and complicated. The documentation they require is almost virtually impossible for the survivors to get. And I hate to repeat a quote I read, they didn’t give death certificates in Auschwitz. They didn’t give death certificates in any of the other concentration camps for relatives or friends or family to bring back with them to start their new lives. Most of them came here to the United States and started brand new. They came, they learned the language, they raised their children, and they really should be allowed to live with dignity. And many of them can’t. I don’t know if case studies are appropriate. But I can cite a few. A woman who escaped from Nazi Germany on one of the last possible trains leaving Germany in 1939, she managed to escape to become a domestic in England. The stories she tells of her life under the Nazi regime in the beginning years from 1933 through 1939 were horrifying. She had a successful business in Germany, was married to a gentleman who happened to not be Jewish, and had a child. In 1935, she was told to divorce that husband and to move into an area out of her own home into another area. She had a child and has had no contact with that child in almost 60 years. She had minimal contact after she was divorced from her husband. Her child was raised as a non-Jew. She’s had minimal contact. Now, when the woman, she needs someone, and she says, she was never a daughter to me, I embarrassed her because I was Jewish, even after the War. She had tried to get money from the German government or from the insurance companies for her business. She was turned down. They said she didn’t have enough proof, enough documentation. Another case study. A woman lived in Latvia, of all places. In 1935 she was forced to flee after a pogrom. She now lives, at present, she moved to Uruguay, South America, had a very difficult life, she lives in a trailer park now. She lives on food stamps and social insurance. Has nothing extra. She has nobody. And those are just two of many, many cases that I see on a daily basis. They deserve the chance to have some dignity. Any kind of assistance would be extremely, extremely helpful. Thank you for having these hearings.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you Ms. Martin. Appreciate it. Rabbi Israel Miller of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Rabbi, we are delighted to have you. We welcome you.

Rabbi Israel Miller. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Commissioner Senn, and our special thanks to the National Association for having formed this working committee. I testified before the group, the entire group when we met in Washington, and I was very much impressed with the seriousness of purpose and of implementation that has come about with the formation of this working group, and I’d like you to know that all of us feel, and I speak on behalf of the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany, that what you are doing, in Jewish terms, is a "mitzvah." A good deed. And we hope that not only will you receive your recompense for having just done a good deed, but that the survivor community [will also receive their recompense] in the very near future, because the actuarial clock is ticking away, and they are becoming elderly, frail, infirm. And so whatever we can do for them, as quickly as possible, is certainly of great importance. And so, in our tradition, we do formally express our gratitude first, and then we go on to the issue itself, and so I’d like to come now to the issue, we believe that these meetings have begun a process which will lead, at long last, to some measure of justice. We are really only at the beginning of this process. It took us a long time to even get to it, because none of us knew exactly what was entailed. Had we known, perhaps we would’ve worked sooner. It’s 50 years since the end of World War II. More than 50 years. And it’s only now that the archives have been opened and we’re beginning to look at the records, and that’s why the whole Swiss bank issue which has made the media, the press, and where the Conference on Material Claims serves as one of the members of the humanitarian fund which just the day before yesterday, began the distribution to Holocaust survivors in need, began in Latvia, since Latvia was mentioned, in Riga, where there are only now left some 80 survivors of the Holocaust. The Jewish community consists of only about 3,000 Jews now. It was a thriving community, only about 3,000 left, about 80 of them Holocaust survivors in need, and all they will get out of that Humanitarian Fund, is $1,000, the first payment of $400 will now be made. And so we’re at the beginning of this process, which deals not only with monetary claims, but as Commissioner Senn said, this is a question for us of justice and morality. I think what you are doing is of tremendous importance. In the materials that the people here received, there is a description of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. I’d like you to know who we are. We represent 23 organizations nationally in the United States and internationally. We are 46 years old. We really observed our 45^th anniversary of the signing of the first agreement with the German in Luxembourg on Sept. 10, it was signed in 1945, and thus we observed just this past September, the 45^th anniversary. It’s been a struggle. A very difficult struggle. This international organization is trying to represent the survivor community, not merely in the United States, we heard here that the Bar Elan University, a great university, most of the survivors reside in Israel. Most of the survivors who are in need reside now in the countries that have just been opened up in Eastern Europe. And they have taken, for us, sort of a priority concern. On this coming Monday and Tuesday, we are again negotiating in Bonn, we have a working committee too from the Conference on Claims, for the East Europeans, we have one working group, and we have a whole series of eight claims, some of which deal not only with people who are in need, but with people who suffered and who deserve to have something which will make their lives more meaningful now that they are coming to an end. So we work together, not merely with our government – I will say that the United States has been most helpful. Last Thursday, I was in Washington when that Resolution was passed that I think you all have a copy of, I spoke with Senator Moynihan, who introduced the Resolution together with many other Senators, it’s a Concurrent Resolution. I’m sorry you were not there, Commissioner Nelson, to vote for it in the House. But it’s going to be both of the Houses of the Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives will pass it. I met with the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who said to me, "Rabbi, anything that we can do, our government can do to help, we certainly will." But it’s not really up to our government. We can do the pressuring that has to be done. But the Germans, that is not an easy task. I speak not merely on behalf of the Claims Conference, but also on behalf of the World Jewish Restitution organization, which we helped form. I think many of you may know the institution only by the name of its president, Edgar Bronfman, because they’ve taken the lead in the work that’s been done on behalf of the Jewish survivor community, and the entire Jewish community, and the world community of humanitarians, in terms of the Swiss gold and the dormant accounts. We have not come to the end of that process yet, but I’d like to say that in restitution matters, the World Jewish Restitution Organization also represents the State of Israel. So Israel is represented in what I have to say to you today. We have no knowledge of the dimensions of this problem, of the insurance problem. We in the Claims Conference have met with the officials of Allianz, which is one of the largest of the insurance companies in Germany, and tried to impress them with the seriousness of this issue. And the need to deal with it expeditiously. When I say that we have no knowledge of the dimensions of the claims, but that we are certain that they are considerable, Allianz had 25% of the insurance policies in Germany in the mid-1930s. And Allianz is still a major, major international insurance firm with many affiliates here in the United States, and in Israel as well, by the way. We estimate that one-half of the policies which it had were not paid out. And we have urged Holocaust survivors, and their heirs, even as you did today, Commissioner Nelson, and as Commissioner Senn has done throughout the country, we urged them and their heirs to make claims, even as we have urged the insurance companies in Switzerland, in France, in Italy, and of course in Germany – these are international firms – to institute a simple procedure for these claims. Basically, the Claims Conference has three demands of the insurance company, and we gave them to the Allianz, they will be having a board meeting at the end of next week, and this matter is on their agenda, and whatever you can do as commissioners to impress upon them the need for their acting as quickly as possible on these demands would be most helpful to us. The first of them is to find out, for us and for themselves, just how big this problem is. We would like them to establish a joint commission, together with the world Jewish community, a lá the Volker Commission, which is a non-partisan commission which is made up of eminent personalities, half from the insurance companies, half from us, which would independently, professionally, meticulously study the audits, the records, which they have, by the way. It is so interesting that they maintained their records, despite the fact that some of the companies claimed that their records were destroyed during the War. They have maintained these records and they have formed a study committee of their own. It is not sufficient. It’s not good enough for us. We would like to have some part in that study, and that’s our number one demand of them. Secondly, to establish an acceptable procedure for publishing and paying dormant policies to the beneficiaries, or to their heirs, as soon as possible. Time indeed is running out, and we would be very pleased to help them, if they only reached out for help, even as the insurance commissioners, as I saw them, and as you are part of them, I know would help them here in the United States, in the 50 states, and would help even through these family agencies such as we just heard testimony from. The Claims Conference, we have tried to help those who were most in need in 22 states here in the United States, together with family agencies and with committees of survivors to make some kind of monetary compensation of a minimum nature, to be sure, but something to help these people. And number three, our demand, not merely for the people who are alive. Many people died and left no heirs. Why should they be the heirs for that which they took from our people? And we ask, as a matter of justice, that they establish, even as the Swiss have established, immediately, a humanitarian fund, which will help survivors in need. Why should it only be a fund of $200 million dollars, which really is a pittance when we’re speaking in terms of $1000 per survivor in need, when these companies also have heirless funds. We are, the Claims Conference is, the successor organization. Read about what that means in that little brochure, a pamphlet which is reproduced for you. We have established a fund for the help of survivors which comes from heirless property in East Germany, in Dresden, in Leipzig, etcetera. If you think documentation is difficult, believe me it was difficult to find properties that belonged to Jews. How does one know that property belonged to a Jew? There was no listing which said "Jew" next to the property. We did a massive research project trying to find Jewish names in the property lists. And in Germany that’s very difficult. Take a name like Adolf Rosenberg. He was one of the chief Nazis. You and I would think that a name like Rosenberg was a Jewish name. And yet, there are these problems, and we decided to err on the other side – to claim every property that we thought might be Jewish and then to withdraw the claims if they were not Jewish. And fortunately there are still many heirs that came forward, or original owners, we withdrew our claim. But we do have some money that came to us as the successor organization, and we have distributed thus far over 100 million dollars, not deutsche mark, but dollars, throughout the world in terms of needy survivors, and of institutions, plus some 20% of our money goes for research, for documentation, for information on the Holocaust. We don’t want this to be the last generation that will speak of the Holocaust. Dear friends, I could sit here and talk for hours. I am finished. We are concerned about the Holocaust survivors, about their beneficiaries. We are concerned about heirless policies, but we are also concerned about the fact that there are insurance companies, here in the United States, with whom you have contact, that are also part of this network. They have to be pressured to do that which is proper. There are many American citizens involved, and therefore our country is also involved. We anticipate maintaining contact with you, even as we maintain contact with the survivor community, the umbrella organizations for survivors, the American Gathering/the Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in the United States, [it] is part of our Claims Conference, even as the umbrella group in Israel is part of the Conference. We hope that the insurance companies will act honorably and morally to discharge their obligations to the victims of the Holocaust or to their heirs. The Holocaust victims have a right to seek relief in any form which they can use. We are doing what we can to efficiently handle their claims and we urge that you urge them to work as quickly and as properly as possible in response to the need. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Rabbi Miller. We appreciate your comments. Dr. Weiss, will you come up? Dr. Thomas Weiss, Chief of Opthamology at the Miami Heart Institute, knows that his father had a Czechoslovakian annuity policy worth the equivalent of $50,000 before the Nazis dragged him off to Auschwitz, and that was in 1944. He has a wealth of information to bring us. For 52 years after the end of the War, and 12 years after his father’s death, he worked to get the accurate information from his father’s insurance company. And so, Dr. Weiss, you honor us. Tell us about your situation and give us any information that will be helpful as we pursue this course.

Dr. Tom Weiss. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson, and thank you to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for having the perspicacity and the insight to delve into this matter. I also want to thank Janice Friebaum, who I found on the Internet a couple of weeks ago, who was instrumental in putting this together with the aid of our people here in Florida, Karen Asher-Cohen. As you know, I guess as we all know, one of the lead articles in yesterday’s Miami Herald was regarding my insurance concerns. The insurance concern really reflects a very small percentage of the reality of the…[end of tape]…In terms of establishing how we come here today, I think using me as an example may be instructive. I found myself in Miami Beach at the age of 6 months old through the courtesy of Hias, which was a relief organization, based in New York, that aided survivors of the Holocaust who had permits to come to America and were able to be settled in America. I was born in Prague in 1949 to my parents, my father was 54 years old, having survived Auschwitz at the age of 50. My mother was 42 years old, she had no children, which was probably why she survived. Growing up in Miami Beach was wonderful. I fished, I scuba dived, we did all the things that Miami and Florida is famous for, and it was only as I started getting older that there was a huge dark deep secret that my community, including my parents, were suffering with, and were unable to talk about. As I got older and I started realizing what this was. It became clear that a huge tragedy had occurred, and that I, and others of my generation, were heirs to an unspeakable horror. The details that have now become more public, such movies by Spielberg, Schindler’s List, and others, only speak to a surface of the fear, of the atrocities, and of the rape of an entire nation. The fact that this rape occurred is history, it may have been the basis of the creation of the State of Israel, as a world response to the horror, and consequently, we have an obligation to stand and witness and to let others around us know that a normal, super-civilized, advanced, cultured nation fell into the throes of bestiality with such vigor and by almost all members of their population. This could not have occurred by a select few that were members of a Nazi party or fascist party or any parties. This had to have occurred at a grass-roots level. The fact that this can occur, that man’s nature can stand in all of its roaring bestiality, needs to be identified and we need to come back and realize that this should never occur again. The details. My father was born in a place called Natschelisch (sp?), which was at that time, part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the Hapsburg Empire, and those of us who are not familiar with the Hapsburg Empire, let me assure you that you are all beneficiaries of that empire, because in the 16^th century, the Hapsburgs, which was a monarchy, stood at the gates of Vienna to hold back the Turks. This chaos that you see now in Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia, is a direct end result of the Turkish invasions through that part of the world. And guess what. We’re there again. Our boys are standing guard in that region once again. How the world repeats itself. The Hapsburgs were elected by the Pope at that time, were appointed by the Pope as the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire encompassed what we call today parts of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Germany. The end result of this was that there was a population of Jews that migrated down from Poland through Carpathia and were settled in this area called Sub-Carpathia. This area is important to note because in this town where my father was born in 1895, there were Jews throughout the region. More or less the way you could look at is from the Keys up to Palm Beach, the region we’re looking at more or less. My father was born to a landed gentry family that had mass holdings in real estate and cattle, vineyards, agriculture, so that when my father finished his schooling, which included German schooling, because it was the Austria-Hungarian Empire, he became a commodities businessman, to the point where in 1933, 34, 35, he set up a business that had offices in Prague, Budapest, and in Natschelisch that was selling sunflower oil, rice cakes, walnuts, grains, through the ports of Bremen, Hamburg, Danzig, and on the Adriatic. At that time there was an agent in town by the name of Mr. Schreiber who constantly pestered my father to buy insurance. Mr. Schreiber’s business was located at a desk in the Duna Bank. The Duna Bank had, on its marquee, the royal lion of the company Assicurazioni Generali. We’ll get to that in a second. Mr. Schreiber successfully convinced my father to purchase property, casualty, fire policies and an annuity. My father was in the privileged position of being extremely wealthy himself and marrying an orphaned girl who had an extreme amount of money. So he had much more money than he needed at that time, and Mr. Schreiber induced him to buy a Czech crown policy that was linked to the American dollar, which at that time he estimated dollar-wise was in excess of $50,000. Keep in mind that one crown was able to buy a kilo of bread, and there were crowns to the dollar. We’re talking about an unusual sum of money. Mr. Schreiber also sold policies to many other people in this region, and through the name of Mr. Schreiber, I wrote the different companies throughout the area, basically starting in 1985 to see if we could trace down the policies and the results and claims thereof. My father always brushed me off. He said on the initial application of the Wiedergutmachung geld, and those of us who are not familiar, Wiedergutmachung was German reparations payments that were made to survivors set up by the Allies after World War II. Wiedergutmachung to date has paid out in excess of 60 billion dollars to Jewish survivors and are paying at a rate of one billion dollars a year even today. Wiedergutmachung has all the documentation, and at that time my father further identified his own bank accounts, assets and his other valuables which are recorded in the pages of Wiedergutmachung. The insurance claims – [Dr. Weiss, is Wiedergutmachung a bank?] – Wiedergutmachung translated is to make good once again, it’s a restitution policy, it was the name given to the program that was set up by the Allies to allow payments to come to survivors and to people that were able to document their persecution. Unfortunately I have heard now recently that there were people at that time who did not register at that time and take advantage of the program because, in true German pünktlichkeit und orden, they had created so many hoops that you had to jump through that it was onerous. Most people were trying to put their lives together. My father had some resources that he had put in America so he was in a better position to hire lawyers, which they did at that time. Most survivors were not in that position. The details of my father’s internment are instructive. In April of ’44, my father returned to the town of Natschelisch when he was coming from business in Budapest and the town had been taken over by the Hungarian/German Army. Hungarians at that point had taken over Czechoslovakia and they were involved with "getting things cleaned up." The Jews were put into a Ghetto at that point, they cordoned off, and the way to think about it is your neighborhood, and they took 10 houses and put 3,000 or 5,000 people in it. That was a Jewish Ghetto. This wasn’t accommodations at the Fountainbleau. And there was a very clear, almost checklist procedure, of taking the wealthy men in town and convincing them, by method of beating on their testicles, that they needed to reveal where all of their assets were and how they planned, how they were going to give this to the Hungarian/German Armies. Or, in this case Revan (sp?). My mother remembers being taken back to her house about two days after she was in the Ghetto, because her husband, who was the dentist, had not properly revealed, after a long series of beatings, where the gold from his dental practice was. So my mother said that she’s going to reveal it because she wanted to stop the beatings on her husband at that time. When she went back to her house, all of her chandeliers, her Persian rugs, her London lace curtains, her silverware, her art, her antiques, her silver services were neatly crated and packaged on the sidewalk and there was a truck coming down the street and picking up each person’s properties. So therefore it wasn’t just, let’s get the bank accounts, and let’s get the insurance policies, this was a clear divestiture of every valuable physical asset that the people had. And in terms of their emotional assets, one of my mother’s clearest recollections are that she was forced, at gunpoint, to use her toothbrush to scrub the cobblestones in front of her house, which was in front of the Duna Bank. Her principal of her school was standing there shaking his head in disbelief that these populations have been forced to do this. So there wasn’t a complete complicity by everyone, especially in Czechoslovakia. This was done mainly by the Hungarians and the Germans. They were sent to Auschwitz by train. This is not the Orient Express, folks. This is a hundred people to a cattle car that had one bucket, so that by the time the train pulled into Auschwitz, three days later, many people had died, many people had been dehydrated and were completely unable to stand, and when the doors were flung open, there was a massive forced exodus out of the cattle cars into platforms where Mengele did his selections. Mengele pointed to the right, or to the left. The left meant the gas chamber where all the women and children immediately went, and the right meant work forces. Work forces meant that you had the ability to stay alive a little longer. And the reason that there are more Hungarian and Czechoslovakian survivors than Polish survivors is because they did not go into this concentration camp called Auschwitz and others until May of ’44. They didn’t have four years of horror as Polish populations did. Consequently, they had the ability to survive through the summer. My father was taken right away to various – Auschwitz was ringed by 17 sub-workgroups, including IG Farben, and they worked in different locations there. Furthermore, they also – my mother was taken on Oct. 28, 1944, to a camp at Gross-Rosen, which was a subdivision in a town called Zitau and she ended up making speedometer parts for the firm of Honeker which we know today as Messerschmidt. Being an astronaut, it should be interesting to know that a large part of our aeronautic and space program has its basis in German expertise. We are beneficiaries of that.

Commissioner Nelson. Indeed, the Soviet space program has been a very successful one, and we are now partners with them, drew a lot of that technology from the former East Germany. Including the Zeiss Optical Works.

Dr. Weiss. We respect German culture, science, technology. Our problem comes in that we do not understand how a people, which brought forward morality and what we call today the Judeo-Christian pillars of our civilization that we see as Western Civilization, could have fallen into such bestiality. And I still have questions as to how something like that could’ve happened, in a standard, cultured, civilized society. But to go on with this, my parents were liberated in approximately Spring of ’45. My father had typhus in Dachau. It was Patton’s army that liberated him. He was in fact helped by the medical corps. And in his attempts to get his – when he and other people went back to town, the town had been completely – Jewish houses were completely filled up with Russian populations that had been moved into the area. The Russian populations that had been moved into the area were there to create de facto on-the-ground factions, because Russia then had "a vote" and the populations voted to secede from Czechoslovakia. To become part of the Ukraine, which it did become. So that area was lost. In trying to get the insurance policy, there was continual, regular stonewalling. There are no papers because the Russian populations had taken all the personal articles that were left by the survivors and had burned them, there was no reason to keep photographs of somebody you don’t know. So there has been a very clear, when you say, where have been all these attempts to get, over 50 years, the answer was, the people had no policy. As we’ve said earlier, there were no death certificates in Auschwitz, or any concentration camp, and the ability to get one’s life together was difficult. The fact that there are a large number of survivors today speaks to the resiliency of our people. The fact that there are a large number of people today who are here and that will show up at other hearings that you are holding around the country, I think will be instructive to all of us. I would like to identify very clearly the nature of what we’re dealing with. I apologize for taking the time for creating the history, but unfortunately the history is necessary. As Hitler so accurately pointed out, the death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions of people is so numbing that it’s not comprehensible and therefore has no effect on you. Today, I have some economic data just to give you some idea of what we’re talking about. Recently Allianz of Germany had their financial statements published in the press. They’re taking over another company in Europe, and their financial statement is interesting because, you would imagine that a company that’s doing well has 10 or 20 or 50 billion dollars. Allianz has 277 billion dollars of assets listed on their economic sheets. They’re considered number one. Assicurazioni Generali, which is considered number five, has 134 billion dollars on their economic sheets. Of assets. Just to give you an example. Allianz, last year took in 65 billion dollars of premiums last year. You think that would be a nice interest overnight float? There is an average of the top five companies of approximately 200 billion dollars net assets. So that’s one trillion dollars. One trillion dollars. Assicurazioni Generali had 80% of the eastern and central European insurance business. Assicurazioni Generali states that they are a company founded by Jews in 1807 incorporated in 1831, all true. They were part of the Hapsburg Empire and they had a company in Triest. Well, Triest, folks, was part of Austria before the War. Assicurazioni Generali had severely understated its assets because they value their real estate and asset holdings on 25-year old accounting principles so that they’ve never taken it up to date, which Allianz has. So Assicurazioni Generali’s probable net value exceeds 500 billion dollars today. What we’re talking about is the potential of 2-3 trillion dollars in the top five companies. And there are 15 companies named by law firms for a class-action suit in this country, which I just found out about, as a matter of fact. So I think that we need to realize that there was a huge transfer of wealth from populations in Europe to these insurance companies. And I think, Commissioners, that you realize, and you have stepped forward, because you know in your gut, that the Swiss bank accounts pale by comparison to the net asset value of these companies. What needs to happen here, and what can you do?

Commissioner Nelson. And if you could draw that into a concluding statement for us, we would appreciate it.

Dr. Weiss. I think that we need to call for an accounting of all the policies, especially the life policies that haven’t been paid. Because as you know, as insurance commissioners, people buy life policies and they all have to be paid out. The actuaries work on the statistics as to how this is going to affect the premium. So if an insurance company says they don’t have the records, that’s bogus, because all of those life policies that have not been paid out are still recorded. Number one. Number two, we need to hire actuaries, the same way that actuaries project out to the future and tell us about what the potential loss and life and death possibilities are, which is how they arrive at the premium cost, we need actuaries to be historians now and to go back to the financial statements of these companies in the 20s, 30s and 40s, and to say, this is what their payout should have been. And, the fact of the matter is, it wasn’t. They have accumulated this wealth and seen it grow by using mostly Jewish money and therefore that money needs to come back to us. Back to the State of Israel, back to the local Jewish community center, the local Yeshiva and day school and the local outreach programs. The policies, the companies have stonewalled their holders. Allianz and others have set up 800 lines and have hired Coopers & Lybrand as well as Arthur Anderson to do their auditing. Assicurazioni Generali has hired no one, has allowed no one access and they haven’t allowed any of the people with outside auditors to analyze their data or to look at their policies. Gentlemen, in conclusion, and I apologize, in conclusion, you are fighting the good fight. This is nothing less than the last vestiges of World War II. The same way that World War II was the last good fight that we all agreed on, of good versus pure evil, I would say to you, do not let these insurance companies laugh at to you by holding on to the trillions of dollars that they have illegally and unjustly and immorally accumulated. You have the ability to do what’s right and to do the right thing. Thank you.

Commissioner Nelson. Dr. Weiss, thank you very much. What we’re going to do, we’d like the panel of five survivors, if you will come up and be assembled in the course of the panel we may take a five-minute recess. But let’s go ahead and start with the panel. Mrs. Linda Gerstel, who is the attorney for the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit brought by Holocaust survivors and their heirs. Mr. Michael Jordan, Mr. Igor Kling, Dr. Peter Siegler, Mr. James May, Ms. Erika Brodsky, if you all will have a seat at the witness table we would appreciate it. Mrs. Gerstel.

Ms. Linda Gerstel. Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for holding these hearings. I have with me today a panel of survivors. Some are plaintiffs in our lawsuit and others have contacted our law firm over the period of time since April. As you know, we’ve filed, the law firm of Anderson Kill & Olick, and a number of other lawyers, some in Philadelphia, Ed Fagan, who I thought would be here today, and lawyers in California have joined together and filed a lawsuit in New York, which is intended to include not only New Yorkers, but all people of the United States and even outside of the United States, who have claims against European insurance companies based on their having bought, or their families having bought, policies between the years of 1920 and 1945 in Europe, which claims have never been paid. Just to give you a little bit of background of the status of the case, then I’ll let the survivors here tell their stories. The complaint was filed in April against nine European insurance companies, Allianz, Generali, Reunione Adriatica di Sicurth, which is owned by Allianz, Gerling – at the time, other companies were enjoined two months later. Swiss companies, Zurich, Basle, other German concerns, Gerling concerns, a French insurance company, Union des Assurances des Paris Vie, and over that period of time we have kept on hearing from more and more survivors who had stories about other claims and other insurance companies who didn’t pay over the past 50 years. At this point in the litigation, the judge has scheduled preliminary motions. At the outset he wants to hear jurisdictional motions and then motions directed to whether New York or Europe should be the proper forum for hearing this case. After that, we’ll move for a class certification for this action. Shortly after we began the lawsuit, the insurance commissioners got involved, set up this working group and have set up these hearings that have taken place, one in Skokie last week and one next week in California. You’ll see, based on the people who will speak today, that everyone shares a common story in that they all had purchased policies that had never been paid. As you’ll see based on this panel, there are varying degrees of evidence that people have with regard to those insurance claims. I found Dr. Weiss’ testimony interesting, because Danu was a name that’s been mentioned to our firm on a number of occasions, and when you listen to more and more survivors, you pick up pieces that connect the pieces to who is the possible successor to the liability of a particular company that a survivor has mentioned to us. One thing these survivors share in common, regardless of whether they had little evidence or in fact policies, and some people will show you that they actually could produce policies, is that regardless of what type of evidence they had, the answer from the insurance companies was always the same: we’re not going to pay these claims. This was so, even in the case of people who could actually produce a copy of a policy. And you’ll hear from Dr. Siegler today, and also from Michael Jordan, who have copies of policies, but even in those unusual circumstances these insurance companies didn’t pay on claims. With no further ado on this part, although I will close in just urging you to fill out forms that you’ll see at the table at the entrance, not only for the Insurance Commissioner of the State of Florida, but also a form that we’ve set out front, in regard to joining the class action. Every piece of information that a survivor brings to our table adds to and assists other survivors in figuring out, in those cases where there’s little evidence, what the whole story might be. So in that regard, I’ll urge you to pick up the forms and fill out not only the Insurance Commissioner’s form, but also the one from our law firm. At this point I’d just like to introduce you to our panel.

Commissioner Nelson. Okay, do you want to just start in the order that they are listed, Michael Jordan first?

Ms. Gerstel. I think somebody has to catch a plane here, and that might be Michael Jordan, so I may start with Michael Jordan, I might try to keep it per company, so I’ll introduce you to the Generali claimants at the outset, Michael Jordan, among other policies, has a policy with Generali.

Commissioner Nelson. Mr. Jordan, you’re recognized, and if the chair would gently nudge each of the witnesses to be to the point, as you can imagine we have a number of witnesses left. Mr. Jordan, you’re recognized.

Mr. Michael Jordan. First of all, I’d like to thank the commissioners for your interest in this claim of the Holocaust survivors. My name is Michael Alexander Jordan. I’m a resident of Palm Harbor, Florida. I was born in Roussle, (sp?) Bulgaria as Michael Alexander Iskovich (sp?). My claims against insurance companies specifically relate to five policies that my father owned, one of which was supposed to educate me, [along with] 14 policies held by my grandfather, Albert Bernard Iskovich. I have copies of most of these policies and recently, by that I mean in the 1940s, had copies of all the policies. However, time has marched by and quite frankly, we had given up the idea that anything could be done for us. The list of some of the companies which we held insurance were companies such as Victoria of Berlin, Phoenix, Krell, Mier, and I could go on and on. In 1939 and ’40 my father was twice put into a concentration camp in Bulgaria, and recognized that it was time to leave. Fortunately, in September of 1940, with visas and our passports, we were able to leave. However, we only told the Bulgarians we were going on vacation, and so the extent of the departure were six suitcases. People at that time didn’t think about putting their insurance policies into their valises. They were just trying to get out of the border and away from it all. However, quite fortunately documents did reach us in the few months afterwards before the Germans marched into Bulgaria. Now, I have listened frankly in total amazement at what’s being said here today. First of all, my family pursued this claim through the Bulgarian claims commission which was convened right after the War. You might not know anything about it because I don’t think you were born at that time. I lived through it. These documents are readily available to you if you simply ask the Bulgarian claims commission to give them to you. And you’ll find out the scope of the problem. My problem is this. I became a good, solid American citizen. I hold the rank of Captain, United States Marine Corps. But when I turn to the government, Mr. Shayner (sp?), Washington, D.C., in 1948 and asked for help, do you hear the silence? [Well that’s what we’re here today for.] And I hope that you are successful, some 50 years later. My grandfather is dead, he died of a broken heart. My father just plain died. Now, the next time we all meet, I have two sons. I’ll send them with the file. Because, seriously, something drastic needs to be done. These people have taken the position and have stonewalled it – i.e., your policy expired, never mind that we couldn’t send money to Italy, that they were part of the Axis power. They don’t want to listen to anything. Well, if that’s the case, I might as well go home, I’ve wasted the cab fare here and back. I’m currently involved in something which is called the Bulgarian Restitution and Privatization Process. They’ve graciously invited me to come back and take what belongs to me. I think we can learn a lesson from that. They thought it was wonderful the day they passed the bill in 1992. In 1997 they are putting every obstacle they can possibly put in my way towards getting this back. I raise this point with you because whatever remedies you give us, make sure that they are enforceable with a two-by-four after you’re finished with them. One of the ways in which the Bulgarians helped us was they said that after 1992, March of 1992, all rentals are accruable to me, no matter how long it takes me to get the property back. So it’s a lose-lose situation from them. And I think you’re going to need to do something like that for us, before all of us die here, because I’ll tell you – you are now talking to the grandson, and look at the rest of these folks and the gray here there. I tell you, the next person that you’ll be talking to are my two sons. And they know the story. But I came here mainly to tell you, I have the policies right here. It’s not a question of having a policy. It’s not a question of having a policy number. It’s a question of having a two-by-four that says you will pay up. The fact that these policies lapsed have nothing to do with it. In one case here, there’s a 20,000 Swiss frank policy that my father was two payments away from concluding. Answer – I’m not going to pay you anything. Come on, even here in the United States I could go and cash it in for what I had put in. [Which company was that?] The subject I believe today is Generali. I could even give you the policy number if you like. They are just wonderful people to deal with. At least they were in the ‘40s and I think it’s even going to be more charming today. So, Linda, I probably got a little bit more passionately involved with this than [No, we want passion.] I didn’t want to get involved into my background because I really don’t think that’s germane to the issue we’re here for today. [right.] The issue is, are we going to get paid off on these policies, and if so, frankly let me put it to you bluntly – what are you all going to do about it? Half the commissioners aren’t even here.

Commissioner Nelson. Well, that’s why you’re here in the state of Florida with me hosting this, with Deborah as chair of the National Association’s study group. There’s one item that might be different here as we convene. And that is, that we are the regulators in our respective states. And a lot of these European companies have subsidiaries that do business in our states. So that’s the hook at which we enter through the door.

Mr. Jordan. I recently contacted Generali to access what additional information they had in their files. The very first thing that they told me was, because this policy was written through a subsidiary of theirs, they weren’t even going to get involved. So you’ve got a lot of obstacles ahead of you, in case you don’t know it, you’ve got a 50-year old problem, not a brand-new problem. Thank you very much for your time.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you very much, Mr. Jordan. Thank you for your time. Ms. Gerstel, who next on Generali?

Ms. Gerstel. The next person, if we’re going to stay through same insurance companies, is Erika Brodsky, who not only has a claim against Generali, but whose father was an agent for Generali.

Commissioner Nelson. Ms. Brodsky, you’re recognized.

Ms. Erika Brodsky. Good morning, Commissioner Nelson and everyone else who’s here to help us. I wrote a letter to NAIC and the pebble became a rock, and I am very amazed. I really only wrote the letter because my youngest daughter writes for a paper in Nashville and sent me a whole bunch of papers and said Mama, you have to do something about this. I’m doing it because I owe it to my father. He’s not here, I’m not as fortunate as Dr. Weiss was. My children are his age. I spent seven years, two as a refugee in Luxembourg, mostly hungry, and five years in camps, the last four years in Auschwitz and in Bergen-Belsen. My father died in Auschwitz of typhoid fever which I had at the very same time. My mother was gassed in Auschwitz in front of me. When I asked where her line went, I was pointed to the sky and told that’s where your mother just went. I cried for her because I didn’t know what was happening. I was a child, I grew up in Auschwitz, and I almost died in Belsen. I had a very difficult beginning. I was very fortunate that I met a beautiful wonderful American man, a brilliant man and he married me and taught me how to become a person. And I’ve done my very best to be as good an American as anybody could possibly be. I owe this country, I love this country, this is my home. My mother was blind. She had retinitis pigmentosa, and maybe if I had known Dr. Weiss a generation ago he could’ve helped her. In 1960, after part of my body was healed, and after a year in the sanitarium and seven months in the hospital, I went to see the people at Assicurazioni Generali because I knew them. My father worked there. About once or twice a year, my twin brother who’s here with me, and a survivor because the Dominican Republic allowed him to come, I wasn’t that lucky, my father used to take us there, to the office, because twins were more or less rare in those days, and about once or twice a year we would visit the office and get to know the people he worked with. When my father was taken away and my mother and my brother and I, we were only 13 years old, were left behind, one of the men at Assicurazioni Generali came to our home, he helped find a moving company that would take our belongings, and pack them in the hopes that someday we would find them, which of course we didn’t. My husband and I went to the Assicurazioni Generali because it was the logical place to go. We went to Vienna where I was born, to try and re-trace my childhood – big mistake – and I recognized two of the men there, and when they saw me, they turned their heads. A very Viennese, very Austrian reaction. They are bad people. I talked to the head of the company in Vienna, who told me that a., there would be no way to find out whether my father worked there, that he worked there, they have no records, the records are gone; b., insurance policies really wouldn’t make any difference, and it would be preposterous to think that a man who spent his whole life working for an insurance company would have no policies. No policies were available, because if there had been any, the payments for the insurance would have lapsed, and I had no death certificates. And I think I’m the original author of they didn’t give death certificates in Auschwitz. I did contact them two or three times after that, and I never even received the courtesy of an answer. I pray and I hope that you will help me, that you will help my brother, and you will keep the fact that my father lived at all alive. I thank you for giving us this opportunity.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Ms. Brodsky, and thank you for coming as well. Ms. Gerstel.

Ms. Gerstel. The last person we have on this panel for a claim against Generali is Dr. Peter Siegler, who actually has policy documents.

Commissioner Nelson. Dr. Siegler, you’re recognized.

Dr. Peter Siegler. My name is Peter Siegler. I am a recently retired physician. I have a home in Naples, Florida. Myself, I’m a survivor of concentration camp Mauthausen. That’s not the primary issue here. My father, who was an attorney in Budapest, Hungary, bought his first life insurance policy in 1926, when I was two years old. Because of the rampant inflation in Germany, Hungary and some other parts of Central Europe after the first World War, the policy was denominated in dollars. The first policy he bought in 1926 as matured in 1946. The premiums were paid yearly, I have the receipts here for the last covering date in 1945-46. As it happens, in ’46 the communist government expropriated, they called it nationalized, all banks and insurance companies in Hungary. So there was no way to collect it, even after the 20^th payment for the last year was paid. When communism expired in 1990, Generali was once more established and was one of the very first vested companies in Budapest, Hungary. But they took the precaution, they don’t call themselves Generali, they call themselves Generali and Son, or whatever. In other words, what they claim, is that they are not the legal successor to the original company. I wrote to them in 1990 and I have the original insurance policies. Incidentally, my father bought a second one five years later. <end of tape>

They are not responsible for it. Now, and there they too claim it is that it was nationalized. Now that presupposes that 20 year premiums, which they are paid in dollars, were kept in the drawer of the desk, so that when it was nationalized they just took out the money from there, and that was clearly not the case. They invested that money for 20 years. And so here we stand. I would only add to it that I’m representing two of my first cousins also. One of my cousins is in exactly the same boat, both original policies and the premium payments, but this cousin lives back in Budapest, Hungary. My other first cousin, the parents they are siblings, and who lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In his case what happened is that the father who was the owner of the policy was killed in the Holocaust, and as it was said before, he himself was a full-time employee of Generali, he was an agent. Incidentally, going back I left it out that my father survived the Holocaust in the Budapest Ghetto and died in 1962 from natural causes. But there was no way to collect whatsoever, and that’s where the situation stands. Now this raises some issues. It raises first some issues as, you know, how trustworthy is this company? Now Generali is a huge company, as it was said, but it was very nimble to get out of its obligations. And I would just rest my case right here, because I gave the essence of it. I think it is pretty well documented. We have the original papers. I have it and Ms. Gerstel has it.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you Doctor. We appreciate it. Mr. Kling, or Mr. May? Mr. Kling, Mr. Igor Kling, you’re recognized.

Mr. Igor Kling. Thank you very much, Commissioner Nelson and Senn. My name is Igor Kling. I was born in Poland, in Boroslav (sp?), in the eastern part of Poland, known for their oil wells. My father was a quite well-to-do man, he owned an oil-drilling factory and he was also president of a local bank. In 1939, the Russians came over to our part of the country and of course, that day we had to abandon our house and live in a smaller house; however, I was able to continue my education. In 1941, the Germans came over and then the hell broke loose. We were put away from our house, all our property, valuables, pianos, paintings, antiques, everything we had was taken away and I was listening to Dr. Weiss’ testimony and I just saw myself. I saw my home, I saw the trucks pulling in front of the house, and we had to load it, and also other Jews from the neighborhood were ordered to load it up the stuff and it was carted away. Later on we were taken to a concentration camp. But before that, I remember, the year before the War, I remember those tensions on the Polish-German border, and once my father was looking through the papers, putting away some old pictures and he shows me an insurance policy. And at that time I was about 14 years old, and I remember it was an insurance policy and the name was Der Anker, and on the side was a Polish translation, which meant actually the anchor, and I remember seeing the logo, an anchor, on that policy. And it says, look, if something should happen to me, at least your mother, your sister and you will be provided for. At that time he was only barely mid-40s or so, there was no reason for him to think of dying, but just in case he showed me this policy. And then subsequently we were all taken to concentration camps, my mother was sent to the gas chamber in Maidanek and I was in Plaszow, matter of fact I was lucky to survive, I was put on the Schindler’s List, so I survived the War. After the War I found out from friends of mine that my father was taken to Mauthausen and was killed in Mauthausen. In 1946 I enrolled in medical school in Vienna and I met somebody who was a lawyer, and I told him about my father’s policy. So we said about Der Anker, why don’t we try to do something? So here is the letter with all the data – my father’s birthplace, our former address, our telephone number which we had, and everything else, and we knew that we had the policy. We didn’t get a reply. So a few months later he wrote another letter, no reply. Of course I wasn’t completely obsessed with this, and one time I met him again, and he says to me I’m going to write another letter, so he wrote another letter, the third letter, and after three months after the third letter there came a three line reply. Of course, in all the letters we stated that he died, he was killed in Mauthausen concentration camp. So they wrote back that they would like to have the number of the policy, the receipt for the last payment and the death certificate, which made me laugh. And they knew that he died in Mauthausen. So after that I abandoned everything, that was in 1947. And since then I haven’t done anything about it. But I think I am entitled to the proceeds, because I know there was a policy, I saw it with my own eyes. So that’s all I can do, is ask, and that maybe you can help me. Make them show the policies and the records. Thank you very much. That’s all I have to say.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you very much, Mr. Kling. Mr. Kling is from Aventura. Now Mr. James May from Palm Beach County, with regard to the insurance company from Germany, Bavaria. Mr. May, you’re recognized.

Mr. James May. Thank you, commissioners, for your interest and concern in the case of Holocaust survivors and their claims against the European insurance companies. My name is James May, I’m 76 years old, and like my next door neighbor I also was a Captain in the US Army. My father, Heinrich May, was born in 1882, he died in 1954 and he came from a financially well-to-do family in Wurzburg, Bavaria. For example, upon his marriage to my mother, Tekla Singer May (sp?) he was paid 100,000 marks, his share from my paternal grandfather’s estate. This money was invested in the Hugle und Singer (sp?) my maternal grandfather’s dry goods store, located in Heilbronn, and into an insurance policy with the Bar Mein (sp?) insurance company. Bar Mein is a German insurance company which today is located in Wauptshalle Germany. In the ‘50s, after the death of my father, my mother hired a German attorney, Dr. Rudolf Burg, a legal expert in restitution to recover the proceeds of this policy. These efforts were fruitless. Bar Mein requested documents, identification and witnesses and in Dr. Burg’s own words, this was a bureaucratic chicanery. The premium payments were made by Burgermeister Dr. Henkler, a CPA who managed all the ledgers of my father’s and grandfather’s business. One day, in 1938, he came into my father’s office in full Nazi regalia, saluted Heil Hitler and said I cannot take care of Jewish books any further. He did an about-face and left. My father was dumbstruck. Dr. Henkler, who had worked for him and my grandfather a good many years, 10, 20 years perhaps. My parents and my sister Ellen, age 14, were driven out of Germany on September 1^st, 1939, on the very day the War started. They were arrested on that day, put in the Black Mariah, shipped to the bridge overlooking the Rhine river between France and Germany, the men and the boys were beaten up and told to proceed to the Jew Leon Blue (sp?) who was the Prime Minister of France. They were bloodied and penniless, and went for assistance to the Baron Edmund Rothschild foundation. To think that they could have escaped with documents, even their driver’s license, is ludicrous. My mother died in 1961, disillusioned that Bar Mein did not cooperate and insisted on seeing documents such as receipts and cancelled checks that they knew she did not possess, nor could she provide. My mother’s life would have been greatly enhanced and certainly financially much more secure had she been able to collect on her husband’s insurance policies. My mother worked her entire life and lived in a small two-flight walk-up apartment in Elmhurst Long Island. Only yesterday we learned of the very first payment by the Swiss banks to a Holocaust survivor. Let us hope that this event will be an example to the German insurance industry as well. In conclusion, permit me to paraphrase Honore de Balzac, who said, no one has the right to benefit from the misery of others. We must presume that this applies to Bar Mein and the German industry as well.

Commissioner Nelson. Mr. May, thank you very much. Ms. Senn? Linda?

Ms. Gerstel. That concludes this panel.

Commissioner Nelson. All right, I want to thank Mr. Jordan, Mr. Kling, Dr. Siegler, Mr. May, and Mrs. Brodsky, for this riveting testimony. Thank you very much. [break]

Commissioner Nelson. Ladies and gentlemen, if I can have your attention, we have a special guest who wanted to come and address the group. We are very honored to have the mayor of Metro-Dade, now Miami-Dade, Mayor Alex Penelas. Let’s welcome him. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Alex Penelas. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. In a private setting I would of course call you Bill, but out of respect for the position, Commissioner Nelson and Commissioner Senn, and other members of the dais, good morning. I want to start off by thanking you for being here in our county here today. I’ll be very brief, but I wanted to come today, Commissioners, because my administration and I, of course, care very deeply about this issue and recognize the many injustices from World War II that have gone unresolved for over 50 years. So I want to take this opportunity, first and foremost, on behalf of the over two million people that I represent, as Mayor of Miami-Dade County, to applaud all of you, and your colleagues for your extraordinary leadership in bringing this issue to the attention of our community. Although the numbers are somewhat difficult to confirm, we here in the South Florida area are the third, if not the second-largest Holocaust survivor population in the entire United States of America. And of course, we believe that during the winter months, because of our northern visitors, we in fact are probably the largest during that period, during that season. In fact, according to the National Registry of Holocaust Survivors, South Florida is the permanent home to more than 5,000 survivors and their families, of course. However, according to the Holocaust Documentation Center, if you take into consideration the 18 survivor clubs and the possible number of unknown survivors, that number in fact could rise to anywhere from 10 to 12,000 survivors in our South Florida area. But this is about much more than just numbers, and we know that. It’s truly about seeking justice for those that have suffered for more than 50 years. We must not only acknowledge the many written reports on the issue, but I think we are also acknowledging, here today in this hearing, that we must receive them with compassion and understanding. We must ensure that those who have experienced the atrocities of the Holocaust, while the world watched, shall never stand alone again. And I know that both of you, all of you will do just that. So I want to commend you for recognizing the importance of this issue and for being at the forefront of this effort. Under your tremendous leadership, I am confident that this working group that this working group will bring forth the testimony needed to accomplish the monumental task before you. So again, to both of you and to all the members of the dais, on behalf of my administration and the more than two million people who call Miami-Dade County home, I want to commit to each of you today that we, in our county, will do everything in our power to lend our support and resources to assist you and the National Association in this effort to provide restitution and compensation to the families and victims of this horrible tragedy. Thank you very much for having me here this morning.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Mayor Penelas. You are a great leader and you’re doing a great job, and we appreciate it, and we appreciate you taking the time to make that statement for the record today. Thank you, Mayor Penelas. All right. Could we have Mr. Terrell Hunt – okay, there are a number of people that have asked to speak. We have over 20 that have signed up on these request forms for speaking. Because of the confines of the time parameters of this hearing, I’m going to ask you, if you would, try to limit your comments to two or three minutes. Focus in on some of the details that we can build the record that will help us in identifying how we can validate some of these claims. So let me call on Mr. Ben Stern, if several of you will come up at a time, and each sit in those chairs over there so that you will be close to the witness table. Ben Stern, to be followed by Sally, it looks like Alderman, Peter Ziegler, Sam Weiss, and Susan Ronee from Halendale. All right.

Mr. Ben Stern. Thank you Commissioner, for giving me the opportunity to express my feelings. I’m a resident of Skokie, Illinois, and that we managed to put Skokie on the United States map. It’s familiar to you people as a stronghold of Holocaust survivors in Skokie. I happen to represent, being president of Dr. Korszak B’nai B’rith Holocaust Survivor Association which many of the people present here, know of Dr. Korszak of the Warsaw Ghetto. I’m not here to stretch out and tell you how I feel about the importance that the responsibility and the job that you undertook. We greatly appreciate that, and it is important that you should know that we do need people that want to listen to our pain. Our hearts are full of pain after 50 years. Our wounds have not healed. This issue of insurance definitely can and must reach many of the needy, our people, that they reach out, they are on their last leg, before we’re gonna depart, and they do need help. And it is you, the urgency of the time, that I want to stress that point. In my personal life, I’m a Holocaust survivor, born in Warsaw, with a family of eight brothers and one sister, only one brother survived and he left for Israel in 1934. I lost the whole family in the Warsaw Ghetto and so on. I’m a graduate of Warsaw Ghetto, Maidanek, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, all the little schools around. So I’m not here for that. I want to tell you, that, humbly, when the issue of Wiedergutmachung arose in 1952, ’54, I was too proud, I repeat, I was too proud to register to take blood money from Germany. And when I was convinced by others to do it, I was told that I’m not sick enough to get Wiedergutmachung. So I’m not getting any. All due respect to the Rabbi Miller, I sent away forms to register for some money, of this money I was told that I’m not too poor to receive money from them, which I appreciate that too. Swiss gold will never reach me, and I don’t intend to get any. I do feel that I have registered with the insurance company, Generali, whatever the name, and I didn’t hear nothing from it, and I don’t expect too much about it. But I want to thank you for listening, and please, take it to your heart and see what you can do for our surviving people. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you very much. Mr. Stern, of Tamerac, Sally Ackerman of Miami Beach, and there is another Ackerman, are you all related – Leslie Ackerman of Hallendale, is Leslie here? Okay, Sally Ackerman. [inaudible question] Yes ma’am, if you will. And Sam Weiss of Miami Beach, if you’ll come up and take the other chair please, and Susan Ronee, and Michael Ronee will be on deck. Ms. Ackerman.

Ms. Sally Ackerman. Hello, Commissioner and Ladies, I am very proud of you that you had so much feeling and so much understanding that it’s really amazing that you try to do everything for us. I really can’t believe that this could happen, because 50 years ago when I survived, I thought I was born from a stone, because my whole family perished in concentration camps. But I want to go to the insurance problem. If I would have to talk, Commissioner, I could talk day and night and months, I have two tapes, the Spielberg one and the FIU one, because nobody wanted to speak about the Holocaust. Everybody was shaking. But the law for my parents, my father was a doctor, I was the first one to talk about the Holocaust, and the reporters were there and I was in the paper. Coming back to the insurance, my dear friends, is that my parents were very wealthy. My father was a doctor, my family had in Lublin stores, had factories, I remember as a girl that my father used to go to Swiss and come back, and I knew that there was some insurance there. But I, as a child, I went to school, I never mixed in those things. But then later it was at Maidanek when I’m sure that you heard, the Gestapo took a lot of people and they had dig a grave, and they shot them. My parents was shot and had to fall into the grave they dug, maybe 500 people. And my brother was a child, everyone was shot, in their clothes. You’ll excuse me for my accent. My supervisor was an attorney, I’m from the civil service, he used to say don’t lose your French accent, it’s beautiful. So after this happened they took the children away to the train and they were squashed – we were squashed one on top of the other. And they took us to concentration camp. And I don’t have to repeat, you have plenty of people. I have American friends, and they say, they ask, why did you go like this, why didn’t you fight? We couldn’t fight because it was people from the Gestapo with the gun. Whenever they wanted to they killed you. So we were afraid. So I was working, I was 13 years old, it was terrible, horrible, naked and barefoot, it was terrible. And then my two brothers, I saw they killed them, because they went to the wires, they wanted to have a piece of bread, they were like skeletons, so they shoot them right away. So I said to myself, I had a lot of energy, a lot of hope. I said to them, if they died, my parents, I have nobody. I’m going to run. Hitler’s not going to get me. And I run. I ran out of the concentration camp and I heard a lot of shooting, but the bullets weren’t going to go into this precious body. So I’m a miracle child, I can write in my paper I’m a miracle child. I don’t know if it was God, or if it’s a higher power, or it’s something, that I survive. I talked to priests, I talked to rabbis, nobody could give me the answer. I couldn’t understand why, why was the world so quiet. Nobody knew – everybody knew. Everybody knew what happened.

Commissioner Nelson. Commissioner Senn has a question for you, Mrs. Ackerman.

Commissioner Senn. Can you tell us what kind of policies you think your family had?

Mrs. Ackerman. I know they had policies, but how could I know what? I was young, I didn’t know and I didn’t bother. But during the time, 50 years, I didn’t think about policies. Now I learn about policies. We don’t have any documents. The looting, the house was demolished. My house was completely gone. So what should I do?

Commissioner Nelson. Well, Mrs. Ackerman, we’re going to tell you, you should fill out the forms, as I explained to you over the break, whatever information you can give us, if you would put that down on the form it would help us. And thank you very much.

Mrs. Ackerman. Oh, I could talk and talk and talk. And not just talking Commissioner – facts, what happened to me. Oh, I know everybody has a story. If I could have a day with you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Nelson. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. I’m going to recognize, the chair recognizes Mr. Sam Weiss, and would Susan Ronee and Michael Ronee come up please. Mr. Weiss, you are recognized.

Mr. Sam Weiss. Commissioners, good morning. My name is Sam Weiss, I’m a resident of Miami Beach. Professionally speaking, I am president and CEO of a major company that’s headquartered down here in South Florida. At the request of members of the family, I’m going to be stepping down as president and CEO of the company to pursue what I think is a very important issue. My grandfather was born approximately 1849, 1850. He was taken to Auschwitz in 1944 where he perished. Prior to him going to Auschwitz, he was president of a Duna bank. In addition to that, the family had vast lumber forests. My grandfather built and owned half the railroad between Czechoslovakia and Hungary. There is a feeling on the part of members of the family that there were vast insurance policies similar to the FDIC that would cover the depositors in the Duna Bank in Munich from whence the family was removed to Auschwitz. We need the assistance of a state insurance commission towards locating any and all policies or information similar to an FDIC policy so that people that deposited their monies, not only our family, so that people who deposited their monies into the Duna bank could be reimbursed from their losses. Professionally speaking, aside from my having spent many years with ABC News and prior to that with CBS, I am a trained investigative reporter. My daughter-in-law who speaks nine languages, is on the staff of Georgetown University, unbeknown to her will be traveling overseas with me in the next couple of weeks to start this vast investigation. In 1967 I sat down with the Swiss banks after visiting Munich and got absolutely nowhere except the runaround. But I think it’s very important, from a family point of view, not so much for myself, but for the family name, that people that had their money in the banks in Munich should certainly be reimbursed for any of the insurance policies that certainly do exist there. Thank you very much for hearing me. I appreciate your time.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you very much Mr. Weiss. Mrs. Ronee of Hallendale.

Ms. Susan Ronee. My name is Susan Ronee. First of all I would like to thank you, Commissioners, and all the people who have tried to help us. Like the people before, who talked and described, I couldn’t say anything else, the time is good for finding out. 52 years passed by, we are still here. We don’t know how long, it could be very short. All of us who are here, we are Holocaust survivors. I was a young girl, they took me from school with my mother, my father was in a different place. I was in Ravensbruck, Germany, from Budapest, Hungary. My father was in Mauthausen. But all of us have the similar story, I don’t want to take the time for that. I just ask, please help us. I am talking also on behalf of my husband, Michael Ronee, who is a Holocaust survivor whose parents, brothers and sisters were killed in Auschwitz. In 1942, he was deported to a concentration camp, forced labor camp. Since that time, 52 years we wait for an answer, and still he didn’t get not one penny from the German government. I send the letter to Mr. Fagan, myself I came from the family from Budapest, my grandparents have stores, factory, I remember they were beautiful homes, everything was took. I don’t have proof, they all was killed in Auschwitz. We don’t have any papers. But I was a young girl, and I remember that there was talk about this, and about money in banks. I don’t know their name, I don’t have proof, but please try to help however much you could. We are here. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Mrs. Ronee. On behalf of herself and her husband, Michael Ronee. David Shechter of Coconut Grove, William Friedman of Pembroke Pines, and Caroline Lefkowitz on deck. Mr. Shechter? Mr. Friedman, William Friedman, either one? Ms. Lefkowitz? Madeline Berman of Boca Raton. Ms. Burman, would David Rubinstein, of Miami, is he here? How about Eva Rubinstein? Okay, Ms. Berman, you’re recognized.

Ms. Madeline Berman. Thank you Commissioner and distinguished guests on the dais. I was born in Hungary, near the Czech border. My parents, who were pretty well-to-do, were wine manufacturers and also had other businesses. We were deported first of all to the Ghetto, which was in itself very tragic, we were lined up with all the people, outside, and the wagons and trucks came and took all our possessions. Nothing was left except they made room for a lot of people like sardines on the bare floor. Then came the transport, when we left with nothing. Even more than one set of clothing on us. Every one of my family, out of 160 I am the sole survivor. My parents had money in Swiss banks, I don’t know the amount. They also had Bernicks (sp?) insurance company, one of them I distinctly know because it was my dowry. The name of the agent was Grunweld (sp?). In the late 1950s I tried to get some money back. The attorney Kohn, who I presented with the case, told me that he’s wasting his time, he’s not interested. Then I met in Germany, Dr. Humer, who I gave an extensive list of the belongings, jewelry and other things, nothing was made of it. Not a word heard since then. I do have the first reply from him. Now the time is running out, like everybody says. I was liberated after Birkenau-Auschwitz-Dachau-Buchenwald, I was liberated by the 7^th Army, United States, for which I am very proud of. I practically starved here in this United States, that’s how poor I was, but I made something of myself and these upstanding children. That does not give anybody the right to take away from them or from me what rightfully is ours. Thank you, Commissioner, for your support.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Ms. Berman. Thank you. Judith Klein, Lucy Rosenzweig, and Warner Human. Mrs. Klein, you are recognized. Mrs. Rosenzweig. Is Ms. Klein here? Okay, Mrs. Rosenzweig.

Ms. Lucy Rosenzweig. I am born in Poland, I am a survivor of Auschwitz Stutthof, which people don’t talk about. I was in Plaszow, I was in Auschwitz and the last camp of Stutthof, but they don’t talk about this camp because unfortunately the last days, it was the last attack, when the Americans came from one side and the Russians came from the other, so they knew it was the end of the War for the Germans. So they took us all to Danzig. In Danzig there was a ship waiting for us and we heard how the officers were talking, and they said now is the end, a special action, the Russians from one side and the Americans from the other. So of course we understood what they were talking, and we planned how to escape – this was the last minute of our lives. So this was around 3, 4 o’clock in the afternoon, it was March, it was cold, and there was a broken tank on the street. So at the last minute, while the officers listened to a special bulletin, we lay down and hid under the tank. So this was the last day that we ran away, we escaped. This was the last days. So we went to a house, at night, walking, no light, nothing, but somehow, far away, we see a light. So we go towards this light, and so we were afraid to go to where the peasants, the German peasants were still living, so there was a big house. We waited there wondering in the morning, what will happen. In the morning the peasant comes in, and says, "Was machte hier," what are you doing? So of course they took us back and put us against the wall, and they were going to shoot us. This was the last day. The rest of the people, they took them on a boat and they bombed the boat. That’s why you don’t hear about Auschwitz-Stutthof. I want the world to know what happened the last day I survived. And then another thing, we survivors, we are getting some reparations, but what they took away from us, our belongings, our families, they think that paying us a few hundred dollars is giving us a lot? They took away everything we had in the house. No, I didn’t have insurance. I don’t know. But I’m telling you that it’s not right that the survivors shouldn’t get compensation, because they took everything from us, from our parents. We lost our parents, we lost our belongings. I lost a husband, and now we have to wait? For how long? Till we die? Which is very, very unfair. You want to save the policies, the insurance papers? I think you have to save our case too. Thank you.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Mrs. Rosensweig. Sir, you were going to speak on behalf of Mrs. Lefkowitz? Please identify yourself for the record. Mr. Lefkowitz.

Mr. James Lefkowitz. My wife didn’t want to speak because she is a perfectionist and her language in English is not so polished, so she don’t want to speak, she didn’t prepare for a speech. The thing is, I remember as a child, my father’s insurance policies. I know the name of the insurance company, which was, in Hungarian, Madofranciobistoshistarshag (sp?). That was the name. It was almost finished, the policy. I never claimed, I never had anything, I don’t know what’s going on with it. This is one thing, the insurance policy, and the other thing, we, my family, my wife, we started to come out in ’49, to the United States, but we were catched by the Hungarian Secret Police and they took us back and put us in jail. So, it’s not my fault that I wasn’t here in ’53. Because I wasn’t here in ’53, we don’t have nothing from the Germans, we don’t have restitution, we went through, I am using a Hebrew term, Shiva Madira Gehennen, everybody knows what Gehennen is, maybe you don’t know what Shiva Madira is. That’s the 7^th stage of the Gehennen. We went through everything, and we came home sick, with inflicted sickness, and the end of the thing is, that we are not entitled to restitution from the Germans. Everybody has restitution, we are not entitled. I was five years in all over, Russia, in prison camps and we not getting, she is not getting, she was in a Ghetto, and she was in the freight cars for four days, but she didn’t arrive to Auschwitz for some reason. She is entitled.

Commissioner Nelson. Mr. Lefkowitz, do you remember the name of the insurance company? For the record, would you say it again, please?

Mr. Lefkowitz. Madofranciobistoshistarshag. That was a Hungarian, the biggest Hungarian company. As a child I have seen the policy.

Commissioner Senn. Can you write down the name of the company on a piece of paper for us? Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Lefkowitz. Mr. Human?

[The following Holocaust survivors presented testimony: Marie Wasser, Edith Karas, Rose Boyarsky. Terrell Hunt and Doug Talley (Risk International) presented the attached written statement with their proposals to reconstruct policy documentation and facilitate recovery of insurance claims. James P. Donovan (Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker) appeared on behalf of Gerling-Konzern Lebensversicherungs-AG, a German life insurer. Mr. Donovan appeared in response to an invitation from Commissioner Senn. Mr. Donovan said Gerling does not do business in the U.S. but has been named as a defendant in the pending class-action lawsuit. Mr. Donovan said Gerling has tried to restore its historical insurance files. He suggested that claims be submitted to Gerling’s home office. Mr. Donovan explained that under Nazi laws, proceeds of insurance policies were expropriated. He said that Gerling did not enrich itself at the expense of the Jewish population. Mr. Donovan referenced Article 134 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. He said the statute of limitations is 30 years. Mr. Donovan said that because of pending court proceedings, Gerling is unable to provide too many details, especially because the presiding judge asked the parties to try the case in court, not in other forums. Mr. Donovan said Gerling has filed a forum non-conveniens motion in the pending class-action lawsuit. Commissioner Nelson introduced Edward Fagan, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the pending class-action lawsuit.]

Mr. Fagan. …monetary insurance information. It’s seeking out the evidence to make these people whole. You have the power to do that, more than anyone. Because you have the ability to touch the very fiber of what goes on in the insurance industry, and that is the ability to do business. The ability to do business is crucial. And some companies do business properly, and some companies don’t. The insurance companies that come forward and speak to you, I commend them. The insurance companies that come forward, and assist you in your investigations, I applaud them. The insurance companies that have historically told these people that there are no policies, we paid the money to the Nazis, the money is no longer there, we destroyed the records, I condemn them. In your efforts, what I beg you to do, is to look around at every face, and see them, because when they go home and close their eyes, they see their loved ones. As you continue your investigations, and you go home, you have to remember to see them, because for 52 years, nobody saw them.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you, Mr. Fagan. Commissioner Senn, you are recognized for entering into the record a letter.

Commissioner Senn. Yes, we have also received a letter from the Union des Assurances des Paris, Vie, or UAP Vie. It says:

Dear Commissioner Senn: Thank you for your letter of October 21^st, concerning the upcoming meetings of the NAIC Working Group on Holocaust Insurance Claims and the invitation that you extended to us to attend these sessions to represent our client, UAP Vie. In lieu of sending a representative, we would ask that this letter be made a part of the official records of the working group. As you know, our client, UAP Vie, has been named as a defendant in a class-action lawsuit currently pending in federal court in New York which concerns insurance claims of Holocaust victims. The suit alleges that UAP Vie is the successor in interest to another European insurer that sold the policy in question. It appears, however, that UAP Vie never had any affiliation with that other insurer. Consequently, UAP Vie believes it has been wrongly named in this lawsuit in a case of mistaken identity and we intend to pursue this point in the litigation.

Notwithstanding this belief, and totally apart from any litigation, UAP Vie considers very seriously and with great concern any claim that it may not have honored its commitments to Holocaust victims and their heirs. Our client feels strongly that the equities in this situation and in particular, respect for the victims of the Holocaust demand that it take the initiative and play a proactive role in identifying and properly settling any Holocaust related claims.

Accordingly, UAP Vie has undertaken and is currently in the process of conducting a thorough review of its archives to identify any unpaid policies or contracts that may be related to the Holocaust. UAP Vie intends to see that any outstanding claims so identified are properly settled.

If, during the course of the working group meetings, you become aware of any person who believes he or she may have a claim concerning UAP Vie, my client would very much appreciate it if you would contact me or give that person my name and phone number so that UAP Vie can give priority to investigating that claim and ensuring that it is properly handled. Again, we very much appreciate the opportunity to submit this letter to the NAIC working group on behalf of our client.

[letter signed by Jeffrey Barist of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, NY, NY, (212) 530-5115]

Commissioner Nelson. Are there others who had filled out a form that I called earlier that did not get a chance – Mr. Kunst is one of those. Robert Kunst of Miami Beach. You’re recognized.

Mr. Robert Kunst. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your conducting this hearing and allowing me to speak. My name is Bob Kunst. I am president of Shalom International, and I’d like to ask your consideration to look at a more extensive investigation to what you are already looking into. What you’re really doing, and this is really quite unbelievable, and I want to support you wholeheartedly, you’re kind of pulling the thread of the sweater, and if you pull hard enough you’re going to open up such a can of worms, I hope you’re prepared for what’s coming down the pipe. As somebody who deals with Holocaust [issues] through Shalom International, and being an active anti-Nazi fighter for the last seven years, I am absolutely astounded at what’s coming down in the media about the Holocaust, just in the last couple of months. It seems like the whole thing is unraveling on such a huge and enormous scale. So I want to congratulate you for being a role model and hopefully, everybody will pick up on where you’re going with this, and I want to add to where I think you need to go. There were several very interesting comments that just came out here in the last couple of speakers that I need to comment on as part of my presentation. Let me start with Allianz, who’s one of the major corporations. It may interest you to know that only yesterday, on Deutsche Welle television, which is German news, revealed that Allianz is now negotiating for taking over AGF, which is a French insurance company, and is going to spend nearly 10.6 billion dollars to be together worth 167 billion dollars in Europe, which would make it the number one insurance company. This is one of your companies that is on this litigation issue, and it’s number two in property insurance, number four in life insurance. The question is, how much of this was taken in the Holocaust, how much of this was stolen, and how much of this is accrued interest, as a result, among other issues. This is just yesterday’s news. What I’m concerned about is the question of where all this money went and property and what have you is involved on a lot of different levels. Only this last week, the German government has announced that it is not going to pay pensions to over 50,000 Nazi War criminals it has been paying for the past 52 years. Nazi War Criminals. So the question is, how many of these people took the confiscated property and policies and apartments and jewels, and God knows what, and artwork, and any number of different things. That’s what I’m talking about in terms of the can of worms. How many of these slave labor corporations, and every German corporation participated in slave labor of over 14 million people, most of whom were either worked to death or led to the gas chamber. Not one dime has ever been paid or compensated to any of the survivors. How many of these incorporations that do business in the state of Florida, Volkswagen, to Mercedes Benz, to Siemens, to BMW, to Lufthansa, what have you, all have a relationship to this issue. But on an insurance level, as well as every other level. What about the question of the banks? What about the 10,000 Nazi War criminals that live in the United States? What about the 60,000 that are Latin America, 30,000 of them are in Argentina? How many of them have traveled here and do business here? How many have businesses here? When we start looking at the can of worms, what you’re really looking at is an investigation, on a full complete level, at every aspect of business these corporations have done and are doing, and the question is, what penalty is available on the part of the state of Florida, to demand accountability, or not to business in the state of Florida. That’s the question that I’m here to ask you to look at. It’s an issue that is not small by any stretch of the imagination. The fact is, we are absolutely astounded at what is coming out in the news, based on what we never thought was happening. But here, all of a sudden we have French clergy apologizing while the church and the Pope are waiting ‘till the year 2000. We have the Red Cross that says, yeah, we actually participated with the Nazis, we knew all about it, we helped to make it happen. What is their culpability? How do we find out, and I think you’re on the right track, to open up the entire dimension of what is going on here and force the hand of every state and every government that does business around the world to open up? It’s amazing that as we speak right now, in the city of Dusseldorf, in Germany, the government in Germany, in Dusseldorf, right now is on a witch hunt against Jewish survivors to try to get money they compensated over the last 52 years. In August of 1993, the German government allowed a guy named Kurt Franz, who had a hand in killing two million Jews, in Buchenwald, Belzec and Treblinka death camps, to be let free and is now living freely in Dusseldorf. There have been over 40,000 new Nazi attacks in Germany alone since reunification in 1990. Nobody is addressing any of these issues and how it plays a role in the bigger picture. It’s not just yesterday’s news, it’s today’s crisis. It’s 29% of the vote in Austria, which today is still doing enforced sterilization. Enforced sterilization. 15% of the vote in France with the Lapin National Front Movement, yesterday it was 7% of the vote in Denmark. I’m giving you ideas of the new movement, let alone the old movement, we have to encounter in this whole process. So my concern here is that when you look at this issue, what we need to look at is the full aspect of what’s happening. And complicating all of this, and one thing that my organization has been involved with very considerably, I’ve been to 31 death camps. And my organization is now trying to deal with [the fact that] there’s a major revisionism, a major desecration, trivialization and commercialism of the death camps now in Germany and Poland and elsewhere. Whether it be McDonald’s opening up across from Dachau death camp, which was the first of 1,600 death camps, or kids fishing in the pond where they threw the ashes from Crematoria 5 and people are picnicking. In other words, there’s a total desecration and defamation of what happened in these places. And my organization is trying to get these camps back so we can show the proper respect for these holy grounds and our cemeteries. What I’m trying to suggestion, I just wanted to add, on a definite level, on a print level, besides what I’ve just advocated to you, the aspect that when you’re dealing with Holocaust, there is no statute of limitations, regardless of what Germany and other companies want to say. This is a matter of life and death for everybody. And the second issue is, to pursue the claims where there are no survivors. That money also needs to go into a general fund, whether it be to get the camps back, whether it be to support survivors that exist today, whether it be to put pressure on the existing governments right now who are not doing their job. Germany has not been playing fair, obviously. It took 52 years even to get to this point. By and large, what they have been waiting for is for the survivors to die off before they do anything. You have a wonderful, moral opportunity to force the hand of the German government. That includes how the State of Florida does business with Germany. To force their hand, to force compensation, to force restitution, to force all these other issues, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Commissioner Nelson. Thank you Mr. Kunst. Felix Brimel. Mr. Brimel, where are you, you asked to be recognized? All right. We want to thank, in particular, all of the meals provided by the American Friends of Children of the Survivors, Inc., and that’s Fred Mingel, and Jack Levine, and Dr. Tom Weiss who we heard from earlier. And I want to personally thank Commissioner Senn for heading up this effort all over the country and taking the leadership that she has, and for coming this far all across the country to be with us.

Commissioner Senn. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. I appreciate your words and your leadership on this issue in this important state. Just one housekeeping matter, for the record, Allianz, which did appear before the committee in Washington, D.C., has submitted a letter. A representative of Fireman’s Fund, which is a subsidiary of Allianz, is here today, and that letter, was put into the record in Illinois, two weeks ago, once again I want to acknowledge that we have that letter from Allianz in terms of their stated commitment to be working on the issue. Once again, thank you, Commissioner Nelson, for your leadership. I want to thank everyone who participated. Everything we heard is useful to us. We are going to move along the process of trying to get these claims resolved, and we appreciate the help and support that we’ve had from all the people who’ve participated today.

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