Commissioner Deborah Senn – I’m going to go ahead and get started. I’m Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn and this is the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Working Group that was formed in September to look at the issue of Holocaust Insurance Claims. This is Commissioner Kerry Barnett from the state of Oregon, this is Commissioner Jay Angoff from the state of Missouri, we also have representatives from other departments whom I will ask to introduce themselves – Madelynne do you want to go ahead?

>>I’m Madelynne Brown. I’m the assistant director for the state of Illinois.

>>I’m Danielle Wilson. I’m the Assistant Superintendent for New Mexico.

>>I’m Leslie Tick, Staff Counsel from California.

Commissioner Senn – Senator Art Berman and Representative Louis Lang and Representative Jan Schakowsky are here, and we appreciate their presence very much. By way of introduction, as you know, this working group was formed in September by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. It is a working group of the E Committee, which is the Special Insurance Issues Committee, it is chaired by Commissioner Mark Boozell from the state of Illinois, and Commissioner Boozell has been very supportive and helpful in helping us put together this meeting today. Let me just say at the outset, just a couple of things, and as we go through the day, we’ll be happy to give information about what this process is. We have approximately 20 states involved in the working group. As many people know, insurance is regulated by the states, and each state has an insurance commissioner or superintendent. We have formed this working group to look into the allegation and concern that insurance claims of Holocaust survivors have not been paid by a number of insurance companies that do business in Europe, and many of these insurance companies have subsidiaries in the United States that are licensed to do business in the respective states. So we put this working group together. We are holding a number of interim meetings across the country. We had one in Washington, D.C., in September. This is the second meeting, of course in the Chicago area. We will be going to Miami on November 20, and later we will have a hearing scheduled in Los Angeles, and there will be one in Seattle in December, and finally we will have one in New York. We have asked people to come and tell us their stories, give us information and we have learned some remarkable things. People do have copies of policies, which is unusual and in some ways unexpected; they do have information about claims. For example, in the state of Washington, we sent letters out to survivors and questionnaires, and we have about 50 active files where people have information, some actually have policies as I said. And so we are endeavoring on this working group to find a way to work with survivors so that we may ultimately assist them in getting their claims paid. The survivors around this country are the consumers in the respective states that insurance commissioners are sworn to protect. Let me also, and I don’t want to go on very long at all, let me also make a note here that today and yesterday does mark the 59^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, and as many people know, the shops and homes and synagogues of many in the Jewish community in Germany were destroyed. And interestingly, as part of our investigation, we’ve learned a great deal about that night, because many of the businesses were covered by insurance, and the claims were apparently not paid. So it is interesting that this is the 59^th anniversary. In addition, of course, tomorrow is Veteran’s Day, and so many of the people in this nation who fought so hard will be honored tomorrow, and we do have a liberator who has honored us with his presence and has come here to speak briefly today at this interim meeting, and so we will call on him at the beginning of the agenda. I would like now to ask Commissioner Angoff and Commissioner Barnett if they want to add any comments, otherwise we’ll move forward.

Director Jay Angoff – I’m looking forward very much to hearing the testimony of all the witnesses. As I said at our hearing in Washington, D.C., in September, none of us here are sure what the National Association of Insurance Commissioners can do on this issue, but anything that we can do, we will do. It’s already been useful, I think, to many of the commissioners, who, believe it or not, were astounded at the stories they heard in Washington from survivors, so to that extent I think it’s already been useful, and I look forward very much to the testimony.

Commissioner Senn - Yes, I will add to Commissioner Angoff’s remarks that we had 23 commissioners who came to the first hearing in D.C., we have an unprecedented number of states involved in this working group, and we have had the personal commitment from many commissioners across the country to do what they can to assist survivors. So there will definitely be a collective effort. Without any further ado, I will invite our first panel up, we’ll do it in panels so that we can move the process along, and this would be Rabbi Ira Youdovin, from the Chicago Board of Rabbis, Mr. Charles Lipshitz, Sherith Hapleita – the umbrella organization for the Chicago area Holocaust survivor groups, and Mr. Narsay Serges, veteran and liberator of Buchenwald concentration camp. Rabbi Youdovin?

Rabbi Ira Youdovin – Welcome to Chicago. [Thank you very much.] It’s particularly appropriate that you’re meeting here in Skokie. Skokie is home to the preeminent community of Holocaust survivors and their families in North America. This hasn’t always been for good, for some of you recall 15 years ago a party of Neo-Nazis chose this locale to stage a march to spew their hatred and venom in the streets of Skokie, something which caught national attention and became the subject of a television drama starring Danny Kaye, among others. A few months ago, Skokie was also chosen by the government of Switzerland as the site of the first appearance of the Swiss Ambassador, Alfred DeFago meeting with the Jewish community in a synagogue not far from here. And that’s part of the healing process, and we welcome you as an important next step in that process. It’s fitting that you’re meeting on the day after Kristallnacht. The damage was done 59 years ago last night. And this morning, 59 years ago, the Jews of Germany went out and looked at that broken glass, glass from their homes, their synagogues, their places of business. And they saw the shattered pieces. This morning, you come here to help put together some of those shards, some of those shattered pieces of glass. Only the Nazis bear the full blame for the Shoah or the Holocaust. But as Eli Wiesel and others have pointed out, there were countless bystanders. Individuals and governments, who did nothing or even impeded rescue operations while 6 million Jews, 11 million human beings, went to their deaths. Not only the good citizens of Germany and other countries, including France, but even the American government, which actually turned away at least one ship, 700 people fleeing the Nazi terror, were turned away from Miami and sent back to Europe where most of them perished. And indeed the American Jewish community itself did precious little to help, whether the American Jewish community during the 1940s could have saved Jews is a point we will never know, but they didn’t do enough to try and that’s clear. There were exceptions, certainly, the King of Denmark and his family walked out in the streets of Copenhagen wearing the yellow star, there were underground fighters, there were righteous Gentiles who hid Jews at the peril of their own life. There is a society here in Chicago of hidden children who survived, who owe their lives to that kind of heroism. But not enough. There were Americans as well, and I’m privileged to be seated next to a gentleman who was part of the group that liberated Buchenwald, and I look forward to hearing his testimony. But the important thing is that you who are here, now continue that record of overcoming a history of indifference, and that’s of critical importance, and therefore I salute you, Commissioner Senn, your fellow commissioners, the staff that has put this together whose messages are well-known to my voice mail, and mine to theirs, Jim Stevenson who handled publicity, Janice Friebaum who is an absolute gem, who wrote her own proverb that "All beginnings need not be difficult" if you have somebody with intelligence and skill and dedication to pull together the many loose ends, and locally he just came in at just the right moment, Charles Lipshitz, who is the head of Sherith Hapleita, the umbrella organization for all the survivors’ organizations here in Chicago, who typically was asked at the last minute to put something together and he did so magnificently. Let me take just one more moment to try to put this into the larger context. Your effort, your initiative, is part of something that’s happening throughout the world. The Swiss, the apology of the French Cardinals a few weeks ago, the statement that Patriarch Bartholomew, His All Holiness, who is the head of the Greek Orthodox church, what he said at the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington, what he said three weeks ago and which he reiterated here on his visit here to Chicago last week. The trial of Maurice Papon, an official of the Vichy government, in France and now you. Why is all this happening at once? Why now? Well part, as Charles will tell you, the survivors are aging. It’s a community that is beginning to erode and disappear. And if nothing is done now, then nothing can ever be done for them, and that’s pressing. But I also believe that there’s something about the approaching millenium, and the end of this century. A movement for good and worthwhile to clear out the debris that’s been left in this century, to right the wrongs insofar as they can be righted, to overcome history insofar as history can be overcome. And you’re part of that process. The big pictures notwithstanding, the beauty of your effort is that it focuses on individuals. And if you can make good a justifiable claim of even one individual, and I’m sure you’ll be able to do that for many individuals, to bring some security, some well-being, some unexpected financial wherewithal into the declining years of someone who lost everything, and has never quite regained it, that is a blessing. For in Hebrew the word for insurance "bituach" is related to the word for security "bitachon," and in Biblical Hebrew, the word "bitachon" is very much synonymous for the word for faith. What you are doing with your insurance, your "bituach," is providing "bitachon," security, and restoring faith throughout this community and through the country. I salute you, I thank you. "Baruchim habaim." Welcome to Chicago.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. Mr. Lipshitz, welcome. We had you on the agenda next, if you want to speak. While Mr. Lipshitz is getting ready, I would like to introduce Ellen Wilcox, from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners staff who has put this together as well, and I apologize for my bad manners in not introducing you earlier. Mr. Lipshitz?

Charles Lipshitz – Thank you. I’d like you to know, I’ll make it very short, because for some survivors this is still a working day. First I’d like to say thank you to Deborah Senn, the Washington commissioner, and Mark Boozell, the insurance director of Illinois. It’s gratifying to see that you take an interest in the affairs of the Holocaust survivors. Now we’re here, I think this is the case, of deceit, betrayal, and all we do is seek justice. The Holocaust survivors in this community are very upset about the latest revelations. This is another case of betrayal by these major international insurance companies, and how they deceived the Holocaust survivors. Mind you, we are talking now about after the War was over. Hitler already was defeated. They had nothing to fear anymore. These high-caliber executives very well knew about these claims which belonged to the survivors. The few of us who miraculously survived were desperately, in those times, in need of help to start our new life. Instead of doing what was just, in those desperate times, these insurance companies disregarded our needs, and hid the truth under the carpet. Now 50 years after our liberation, we are now here and we are hoping you’ll come up with a justified figure, including interest, which rightfully the survivors have coming. Now I have a message to the commissioner of Illinois, Mr. Boozell. We all know that insurance is regulated by the state. Now the state of Illinois is a major center of survivors. Whatever you are successful in securing for the survivors, there’s a strong leadership in this community, and we would like, together, the survivor leadership together with the community leadership, to make the decision on our own. We don’t need, even so, the leadership, the very sincere, but the survivors are very sick and tired of all these committees and making decisions and by the time anything will come up for us, we are already getting old, we cannot wait. How long will it take to get through with these decisions and come up with a justified solution? Thank you very much.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you Mr. Lipshitz, thank you for your testimony. Mr. – do I pronounce it correctly? Mr. Narsay Serges?

Mr. Narsay Serges – Thank you for the privilege of being here. I heard one familiar voice a little while ago, Erna Gans, who is so active in the Holocaust survivor work. I have my coat on because I still feel cold from the winter of 1944. That was a horrible year, it was the Battle of the Bulge, the beginning of the end of the Germans. Our unit landed in Normandy on D-12, but we did not move for 45 days, that’s how tough these Germans were. We finally busted through when Patton came in with his 3^rd Army and we went towards Paris and they went towards Brest. Now we rolled along, and we thought the War was going to be over, when we finally got to the German border, that’s when they stopped us. When we got to Buchenwald, we didn’t know anything about Buchenwald, I don’t think anybody in our outfit did, even the officers. It was just unbelievable. It was something we could not see. I wrote home to many friends, in fact when I came home in ’46, it was the first question they asked – "Narsay, did you really see something like this?" – I think they thought I had gone nuts or something, because it was inconceivable that human beings could do this to other human beings. But it reminds me of what Edmund Burke the famous English historian said – that evil men will succeed when enough good men do nothing. And that was a good illustration of this. But anyway when we got into Buchenwald, we just couldn’t believe it. They had barracks for 100 people, to hold 100, and they had 800 crammed into them. The toilet facilities were nonexistent, food was hardly anything, in fact we had to post guards to keep the people from coming into our kitchens, because one good meal would’ve killed them. Anyway we got through all that, and I’m happy to help participate in this. I have worked with Erna Gans on several occasions. I have talked to various high schools in and around Chicago and Skokie, I have talked to elementary schools, I have talked to church schools and synagogue schools, because I feel very strongly about this. I am of Syrian descent, and our people were slaughtered by the thousands, only they were slaughtered by the Turks and the Kurds, only because they were Christians. And if I can do my part here in helping out, I am glad to do so. I have heard I am limited to five minutes, so I will stop here. I don’t know if I am allowed to entertain questions, but I will be happy to do so. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. Let me ask Mr. Felix Weil to come forward. Mr. Weil is actually from Dayton, Ohio, and he would like to testify. Please state your name for the record.

Mr. Felix Weil – My name is Felix Weil, I live in Dayton, Ohio. I was born in Frankfurt Germany in 1927 and I left Germany in 1939, as a matter of fact, on the 10^th of August, three weeks before the War broke out, on the second from last kinder transport that left Germany. After the one after mine there were no longer any kindertransports. I was one of the 10,000 lucky children that survived. Unfortunately I lost my entire family, my mother, my father and my sister were deported from Frankfurt in 1941 to the large Ghetto, my father died later I have found out, at Lodz and my mother and sister, when the Ghetto was liquidated were sent to one of the concentration camps. Of course I never heard from any of them again. Recently, I found out that my father had insurance with the Allianz insurance company. I contacted them several months ago, it took them quite a while but they actually found the policies. In further search, they found that the policies, or at least this is what I was told, had been cashed by my father until 1940 in various increments. They sent me documentation with his signature on, that the policy had been cashed and turned over to the Frankfurter Bank, which I have no idea, I have since tried to contact the bank and have not yet heard, I am not sure if that bank is still in existence. The insurance company claims that all payments were made to the bank, however they advised me that since my father and mother and sister were deported in 1941, there is no possibility that the funds could have been used in their entirety by them and that the funds were used to enrich the Third Reich. So I have a feeling that I should have a claim if the facts are correct as stated by the insurance company, not only against the bank but against the German government. Over the years I have received a very small amount, I believe in 1950 or 60s, for my education, I believe it was in the amount of $10,000 or somewhere in that vicinity, there was nothing ever returned to me for the home contents or loss of life which of course I have suffered. So you can understand that I have some claims that I would like to have corrected. I live in Dayton, Ohio, my telephone number is [omitted], if I can receive some help from the commissioners or the committee that is here today, I would be most appreciative. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. We have a question.

Director Kerry Barnett – My name is Kerry Barnett. I’m the Insurance Commissioner from Oregon, and I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about what you have just told us. First of all, what kind of a policy was it?

Mr. Weil – I can’t tell you exactly, but obviously it was not term insurance because the Allianz insurance company told me that over the years additional sums were contributed to the policy and it had a value, I believe, of at least 50,000 DM at the time of 1941 when it was cashed, and funds were drawn out from the policy.

Director Barnett – So it was some kind of a cash value policy. According to the response that you received from Allianz, the total amount of the cash value had been withdrawn prior to 1941?

Mr. Weil – Exactly, the last increment I believe was in 1940. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my documentation with me, I didn’t have any idea that this conference was taking place today.

Director Barnett – One thing that we are very interested in, as we delve deeper into this issue, is the level of record keeping on the part of the various insurance carriers, and what particularly piqued my interest was the ability of the insurer to go back through their archives and actually unearth documentation of, number one, the existence of the policy, and number two, the withdrawals, and number three, I understood you to say, was it your father? [yes] Your father’s actual signature on the withdrawals, is that correct? How long did it take them to do that?

Mr. Weil – From my estimation? [yes] I would say roughly six months. Because I didn’t initiate any claim prior to that time. So I would say six months. The documentation they sent me, they actually had the policy number on them, these are various receipts where he withdrew these funds. It’s not the policy as such, the receipts of the transfer of funds, from the policy into the bank.

Director Barnett – And it is based on this documentation, it appears that the funds were then deposited into financial institutions [correct] and that is basically the last you know of the existence of those assets. [right] Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. I would like now to actually call upon the legislators who have come to support our efforts today, and I’m going to turn to Senator Berman, because he is also, as members should know, a member of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL), so pay attention!

Senator Art Berman – Good morning, thank you Commissioner Senn. I wanted to come forth and say a few words to welcome this commission of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. I’m here in several capacities this morning. Number one, as state senator, I have been on the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL) for a number of years, and I extend to you, Commissioner Senn, Commissioner Barnett and Commissioner Angoff, the opportunity to communicate with me directly or with NCOIL so we can coordinate if there is requirements for state legislative or administrative action. We stand ready to assist in this process, and I want to thank the three of you and your colleagues from NAIC for undertaking this process of determining insurance claims on behalf of Holocaust survivors. Also, I serve on the Insurance Committee of the Illinois Senate, so we stand ready on behalf of all of my colleagues in the Illinois Senate and the Insurance Committee in particular, to respond to the needs of our Illinois citizens. Also, the people behind me, many of whom are my constituents, because I have the privilege of representing parts of Skokie, parts of Evanston, the far northeast side of Chicago. So on behalf of the people behind me, the people down in Springfield, we welcome you, we appreciate your interest in this, and I want to indicate that Assistant Commissioner Madelynne Brown of the Illinois Department of Insurance, her boss, Commissioner Mark Boozell, I’m sure that all of us stand ready to assist you in helping the people who have claims that arise out of the tragedy of the Holocaust. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you Senator Berman. Representative Louis Lang.

Representative Louis Lang – Thank you Commissioner and good morning. First, let me say that little Skokie has four state senators and four state representatives, and I’m fortunate to be the only one of those that actually lives in Skokie. So many of the people sitting behind me are neighbors and friends, and I appreciate not only your attendance here, all the commissioners and staff, but the interest of those behind me, not all of whom are survivors. Some feel very strongly on these issues, whether survivors or not, as private citizens in the state of Illinois have contacted me over the years regarding this issue and I think it’s appropriate that we respond. So I also welcome you. There are some issues here that concern me that I just want to bring forward, and then briefly discuss some of the things I think government can do in this area. First, we did pass in Springfield this year a resolution calling on the Swiss government to be more responsive to the needs of survivors relative to the assets that have been remaining behind in Swiss financial institutions, and we were proud of that, but of course that’s not enough – a resolution of the state of Illinois is nice, but it has no force of law and cannot force anyone to do anything. And indeed, Switzerland is not the only problem. I have heard from many constituents and have made a speech to a group recently of the Holocaust survivors from Lithuania who left substantial sums of money and substantial pieces of property and personal property in that country and when I contacted the Lithuanian Ambassador regarding this issue, I was told that they had just passed a law in Lithuania regarding these issues and when I asked for information on the law, he was hesitant to give it to me, and I said well, if you really want to help these people and you passed a law to help them, why can’t we get this information? And what I did squeeze out of him, at first, was a copy of the law, many pages long, written in Lithuanian, which I have now had translated, but second, what he told me was for anyone who no longer lives in that area of the world who wishes to make a claim to the Lithuanian government for some aid in terms of return of their own personal assets, they would have to become a citizen of Lithuania. And of course, most have denounced their citizenship or been deleted from the citizenship rolls. And I said, well how do you want them to do that? My constituents are here in Skokie, Illinois and Chicago, Illinois, and the surrounding areas, how do you want them to do that? And he said, well I guess they’ll have to have dual citizenship. So that certainly is not an answer. I am working on this problem, I am continuing to have conversations with them, but for those who believe that the law that was passed there will have some benefit to them, I believe that it is in essence a sham. It’s something we ought to continue to look at. And it has been my understanding through my study of this that many of the nations that have been holding assets, and many of the insurance companies, refuse to cooperate, are playing a waiting game. They’re playing a waiting game, because as Mr. Lipshitz well said, many of the people who have assets to be returned are elderly. And as we know, that generation is passing on, and as the generation who has the debt due them passes on, maybe those that survived them will have less of an interest in this and there will be less and less pressure brought to bear, and so nations and insurance companies are playing this stalling game. Now what can we do in government to end the stalling game, or at least put more pressure on them? I think there’s limits on what we can do, but I do have some ideas that I want to pass on. First, I think the insurance commissioners need to continue to be leaders in this area. I know we have one in this state, those that are here are leaders, but they need to be leaders not only in talking, but in terms of doing, and so I have some ideas for legislation that the states could pass that I would like to see the insurance commissioners not only promote, but be leaders in terms of working with state legislature in terms of passing. First, states can pass laws prohibiting public pension funds to be invested in any company that does business in an offending country. So that our tax dollars or the dollars of our public workers would not be going to feather the nest of any foreign government that is not cooperating in terms of returning the assets to survivors. Second, there are companies that do business in the state of Illinois that have large involvement in some of the countries overseas that have not returned assets: Germany, Switzerland, Lithuania. We could pass laws prohibiting public pension funds being invested in those business enterprises. We could also pass laws prohibiting the states, on an individual basis, from doing business with any insurance company that is proven to be an offender, an insurance company that is on the record as saying we are not going to pay these claims, or an insurance company that is under serious investigation where there’s proof on the table that claims have not been paid. We could pass laws prohibiting the states from spending taxpayers’ dollars doing business with those insurance companies. Finally, as the most drastic step of all, I believe, states could suspend the insurance licenses of insurance companies doing business in states who have been proven to be offenders. If an insurance company does business in the state of Illinois and wants to continue to do business in the state of Illinois, we can go beyond merely keeping the state from doing business with them, it seems to me we should be able to suspend their licenses if the life and welfare of assets of Illinois citizens or citizens of any of your states, is dramatically affected by the error in their ways of those insurance companies by not at least discussing the negotiation of the claims. I’m not talking about doing this in a situation where there’s a mere allegation. I’m not talking about doing this in a situation where an insurance company is negotiating or is in good faith talking about these issues. I’m talking about the situations where we have hard-core offenders in the insurance industry. Insurance companies who refuse to discuss, refuse to negotiate, and are continuing to play this delay game, hoping that the people whose assets are owed to them, will pass on. And so I think here are some concrete things we can do, and perhaps if insurance commissioners around the country would be discussing these types of things, even not passing them, just discussing them, if enough interest is brought to bear on these types of issues, perhaps countries around the world who are holding assets and insurance companies who have been too stubborn to discuss these because of their own desire to keep the assets they have would be a little less stubborn and a little more interested in discussing these issues. The people who sit behind me and thousands of others around the country have a right to have government do whatever it can to promote the return of their assets to them. I pledge to this body, and to those behind me, my efforts to continue to do what I can do to make that happen and I thank you for the work you’re doing.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you Representative Lang. We have a question.

Director Angoff – Representative Lang, thank you very much, and thank you particularly for your concrete steps that you recommended. That’s exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for. Do you know if there have been any laws passed of the type that you set out, whether in this context or any other context? That is, have any states passed laws where they have in fact prohibited pension funds from making certain types of investments?

Representative Lang – I believe the state of New Jersey has recently passed such a law. I don’t have the details in front of me. But in fact, as we discuss the issue of the resolution we passed in Springfield this past year relative to assets in Swiss banks, there was some discussion as to whether we should go farther. There was discussion as to whether we should consider passing some of the things I discussed here. And most of the hierarchy in the Jewish community in Chicago indicated they thought at least at that time, these types of measures would be too strong. But it has occurred to me over the last several months that since we’re not just talking about assets in Swiss banks, which is what we started talking about in the state capitol in Illinois this Spring, we need to do more. I would like to be able to say that the resolution is what has caused the Swiss government to be a little more cooperative, it did happen right after that, but I don’t think that the resolution we passed in Springfield, Illinois, has much to bear on that. But I do think that we need to continue to discuss these things and I think the state of New Jersey passed some measure similar to this, although I’m sorry to say I don’t have it in front of me.

Director Angoff – We’ll look into it. Thanks very much. [Thank you.]

Commissioner Senn – Thank you Representative Lang. Representative Jan Schakowsky.

Representative Jan Schakowsky – Thank you Commissioner Senn and thank all of you for coming to Skokie and coming to Illinois where we have the fifth largest number of people who are registered as survivors at the Holocaust museum and I’m sure most would tell you that’s just the tip of the iceberg, that there are many more. In fact, here in Skokie and here in Illinois, we have some of the major leaders – Erna Gans has been mentioned as one, nationally and internationally, highlighting the plight of Holocaust survivors and the need for restitution. Just last Sunday I went to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and I think many of us have been to Yad Vashem and all of the focus on the Holocaust becomes more and more important as it becomes further and further away from us. But of course though remember we must, I think this hearing underscores that remembering is not enough, that there are some very concrete steps that can be taken, and I think the value of these kinds of hearings is that it does expand the debate. We have now seen a lot of attention focused on Switzerland to the shock and surprise of many Americans, even Americans in the Jewish community, to find out the role that Switzerland had played. And now I think that your hearings, and bringing them here to the Chicago area, will again surprise people, that insurance companies have been part of this kind of well, cover-up if you will, in keeping the kinds of funds away from survivors and their families that are theirs, and deserve to be theirs. So I think that in and of itself, these hearings are very valuable, and of course you will be hearing from people who, I think, will help build the record on what very specifically can be done, and I appreciate all of those who are here to testify, to make the case, and to have their voices heard. As Representative Lang said, we did pass a resolution in the House of Representatives. It was passed unanimously, calling on the Swiss government to require restitution to survivors. As one of the members of the Jewish delegation in Springfield in the House and the Senate, I know all of us are very anxious and willing to take those steps further if they are along the lines that Representative Lang has suggested, or hearing from other states, the kinds of steps that they have taken. The time is really now, and so I appreciate very much your moving this agenda forward and taking these next steps and I look forward to participating with you. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much Representative Schakowsky. I don’t know if you can stay any longer, but if you can that’d be great. I’m going to juggle the order just a little bit to help people’s schedules. Mr. John Fink and Renee Lipshitz will come up together?

Mr. John Fink – Thank you very much, Insurance Commissioner Senn and colleagues, Representatives and Senators. I am one of the very few German Jews, born in Berlin, who lived under the Nazi regime for the whole time of 12 years. I was taken to Auschwitz in 1943 with a transport of 900 some people, and after the War finished we were 13 people left, and that’s about what happened to all the other transports. It’s less than 1%. Now to those people who say the Holocaust didn’t take place, I have here a form, a copy, of my transport which is signed by SS Oberstürmfuhrer Schwartz, who was in Auschwitz, and he reported to Berlin to the main concentration camp which is in Oranienburg about my transport, just like he did any other transport. Just to give you an example, on the 13^th of March 1943, 964 Jews came on the transport, which was the 36^th East Transport, came to Auschwitz. 218 men and 147 women. The men were taken to Breszinka which is Auschwitz 3, the ID Farben complex, and now the last sentence is what’s so puzzling to me – "different accommodations were afforded to 126 men and 417 women and children." You see the different accommodation means those people went into the gas chamber. In the week before, my own parents, who had to sign papers in Berlin when the Gestapo arrested them, were taken to the gas chamber. Now what I want to mention to you is this. I was in Berlin a few years back and there is an office where I was able to get the papers which my parents had to sign three days before they went into the gas chamber, where they turned over all their belongings and all their furniture and everything to the State because they were considered enemies of the German State. I got the papers, I got the copies, and it was most heartbreaking to see my father’s signature and my mother’s signature on papers in Berlin which are in offices of Berlin, three days before they got killed. Now I was supposed to talk about Kristallnacht. I have been asked to talk about Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass. Of course, that was a German name, the German government gave this pogrom the name. It was a pogrom. When that was happening, I had already lived for five years under Nazi terror in Berlin. The year 1938 had seen the Anschluss in March of Austria, with the terrible actions against the Jewish people there. Hermann Göring, the right-hand man of Hitler, who was also in charge of the economic four-year plan, was behind the take over, whatever they called it, übernahmen of the stateless Jewish property. In 1938, Heinrich Himmler, leaders of the SS and Gestapo launched massive arrests and sent the men to Dachau, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. In July 1938, the camps were readied to receive more Jews. That was quite a few months before Kristallnacht. The SA, the Stormtroopers, Brownshirts, started local assaults on Jewish businesses and synagogues. On October 28, 1938, 17,000 Polish Jews, or "Stateless Jews," men, women and children, were driven with a few belongings into "no man’s land" between Germany and Poland near Silesia. The parents of one Herszl Greynszpan were in that group. The son, who lived in Paris, took revenge by shooting the third secretary, Von Rad (sp?) on November 19, 1938. By the way, this Von Rad was actually no Nazi at all. He intended to kill the German Ambassador to France. On November 9, Von Rad died. Also on November 9 was the memorial day of Hitler’s putsch in 1923, also the end of World War I, and by coincidence it was the day where the German parts were united again. An important holiday of the Nazi party. As always the party leaders were in München, - Munich – there the German propaganda master, Josef Göebbels, instigated the attacks by Brownshirts in Germany and Austria which started during the night. The SS was not actually involved. A sign of the rivalry among the Nazi leaders. Jewish property was destroyed. Shops set on fire and plundered. Jews attacked in their homes, on the streets, arrested, attacked and killed. Now I read the figures here which are published and which come from the Nazi leaders. In the meantime, the history professors have found out that those figures are very much underestimated. 30,000 were arrested and treated harshly in the camps by the SS, reports after the War say 7,000 shops were ruined, 36 people, which is not true, there was many more, killed, 29 department stores plundered, untold dwellings burned. 300 synagogues put on fire, like I said, the numbers are not the right numbers. Marshall Hermann Göring ordered the Jewish community in Germany to pay 1 million Reichmarks for the repair of the damage. The insurance companies had to pay to the German Reich the damage which was done by their hoodlums. Stores had to be turned over to the Nazis, survivors of the concentration camps had the chance to emigrate on short notice, mostly to Silesia. Only the Ambassador of the United States was recalled, and because of so little reaction by the Germans, and from abroad, the persecution and terror of the Jews got much worse. I myself lived around the fashionable Kürfurstendamm, and when I went to work that morning and came back in the evening I saw the destruction of the Jewish shops, and the glass in the streets, the burned out synagogues, and it was a horrible sight to see. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. Mr. Fink, I just wanted to ask you a question, one quick question, in your study and your experience relating to Kristallnacht, have you any information about insurance claims of the shop owners?

Mr. Fink – No, I wouldn’t have any information. All I know is that my parents had life insurance with the Victoria VersicherungsAG of Berlin, and I never heard anything about it. Don’t forget we people who were liberated from concentration camps were almost naked. I didn’t have the papers people had who came here before World War II, who can prove what their income was, what their insurance was, we were naked. I was liberated from Bergen-Belsen half dead, 80 pounds with typhus, and I never heard anything that any insurance was there. But I know that my parents had insurance. They were not shop owners, they had to do slave labor in the last few years by such big companies like Siemens and others, and never had any restitution from any insurance company.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. Ms. Lipshitz?

Ms. Renee Lipshitz – My name is Renee Lipshitz, I am a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz. When the War broke out I was 12 years old. I came with my mother to Auschwitz. She was 38 years old, she was taken with the selection to the crematorium, which I knew, the ashes came down, this was part of my mother. I know that my parents had insurance. My parents had two businesses. One in Katowicz in Poland, and one in Sosnowicz. My whole family, our whole family, was in business. Everybody was literate. They all were well-off, comfortable, and they carried insurance. I don’t know what kind. I was a young girl at that time. I was just 12 years old when the War broke out. I survived with my brother, and that’s from the whole family, and all of them were in business, and everybody was responsible and had insurance. I don’t know what kind. I had an uncle, who lived in Bergen, that’s in Germany, not too far from us, he had a bank, and I’m sure that he had insurance too.

Commissioner Senn – Tell me again what town your parents had business in, in Poland?

Ms. Lipshitz – Katowicz and Sosnowicz in Poland.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. We have a call from Saul Kagan, from the Material Claims Conference in Europe, and in order to put that through we’ll take about a five minute break. [break] On our agenda, we were supposed to hear from Mr. Greg Schneider, from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and actually Mr. Schneider is not here, and originally it was Saul Kagan who was scheduled to talk, but Mr. Kagan was called out of the country. Mr. Kagan is on the speakerphone hookup, and he is the Executive Director of the Jewish Material Claims Conference, which is an umbrella organization of 23 national and international Jewish organizations formed in 1951 to represent Jewish survivors in negotiations for compensation from the German government and other entities that were formally controlled by the Nazis. It’s an operating agency that administers compensation funds, recovers Jewish property and allocates funds to Jewish institutions for survivors of the Holocaust. So I’ll ask Ellen to ask Mr. Kagan to give us his remarks, and thank him once again for participating.

Ms. Ellen Wilcox – Mr. Kagan, would you like to go ahead please?

Mr. Saul Kagan – Yes, certainly, first off, thank you Commissioner, for giving me the opportunity, I wish I could’ve been in person with you but it simply was not possible. In fact, unexpectedly I had to travel abroad, but I am particularly grateful for the opportunity to speak to this gathering on this date. As we all know, this is the 59^th, if my arithmetic is right, it’s the 59^th anniversary of the burning of the synagogues, and the flames which enveloped the synagogues within a short period of time turned into the crematoria. The Claims Conference, which was formed in 1951 as it was said, was there in order to seek compensation and restitution for the losses and damages that the Holocaust brought upon the Jewish people. We have, in the last 45 years, particularly in negotiations with the German government, developed and were able to recover funds in excess of $50 billion which is an impressive sum but is still is not full compensation for the losses, the material losses that the survivors and the Jewish people sustained. We have tried, in that process, to secure compensation in every area in which losses occurred, but obviously much still remains to be done. With the initiative which the National Association of Insurance Commissioners has undertaken with respect to the claims of survivors for lost insurance policies is very commendable and we will, in every way which the Claims Conference can help and take initiatives, we will do everything within our power. As you know, we have already initiated discussions with Allianz, which is the largest of the insurance companies in Germany and to a considerable extent in other parts of Europe. And Allianz in our discussions is not only the Claims Conference, but also the World Jewish Restitution Organization, which was established a few years ago for the purpose of seeking property restitution in countries other than Germany and Austria which are the primary areas of Claims Conference responsibility and activity. We have endeavored to get the insurance companies, and particularly the Allianz, to agree to a procedure which would help ascertain the scope of the problem, will help to investigate the extent to which the records and documents can be analyzed so that we have a solid basis, a much better basis than we have at the moment, to ascertain the scope of the losses and damages and then to establish a machinery and a mechanism for claiming and recovery. This would follow to some degree or parallel the efforts which have been made, and are now in the process, for dormant accounts in the Swiss banks. There the Swiss banks, as you know, have agreed to a joint commission which is chaired by the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Volker, and it is that joint commission which is now in the process with the assistance of major international accounting firms, to develop solid data and information on the dormant accounts and then lay the basis for their recovery. We have however not been successful thus far to get Allianz to agree to that procedure. The discussions are pending and we hope that we would be able, before too long, to bring about a similar or a parallel approach. I think that what is important at this stage is to ensure that survivors and their heirs, the heirs of the original holders of the policies, come forward so that once a machinery is established and once there is a readiness on the part of the insurance companies to genuinely cooperate, there will be the basis for the individuals and their heirs to come forward and claim. I wish, I think, that as of the moment, there is nothing more tangible and specific that I can report, but we will pursue it, very intensively. I hope that with the cooperation and most of all with the active support of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners who are mainly concerned with assuring that American claimants in particular have a proper opportunity to pursue and recover, the insurance companies, the European insurance companies which are involved in this effort and which should be responding already, will realize that this issue cannot be delayed and that quick and effective response is what is called for. It is not only a financial issue, it is a serious and major moral issue to respond to an unfinished and unsettled chapter in the long list of difficult issues resulting from the Holocaust. It is particularly appropriate, as I said in the beginning, that your hearing and that the meeting is held today, because of its historic significance. Thank you, Ms. Senn, and I hope that this meeting will undoubtedly contribute to the acceleration of the response of the insurance companies. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you Mr. Kagan, thank you very much. I will now call up Ms. Linda Gerstel and Richard Shevitz, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit brought by Holocaust survivors and their heirs, and plaintiffs Ms. Erna Gans, Mr. Hans Herzberg, Ms. Karin Pardo, and Mr. Marcel Thirman.

Ms. Linda Gerstel – Good morning commissioners, Commissioner Senn, Commissioner Angoff and Commissioner Barnett, thank you for inviting us to participate in this working group meeting. We thank you for your interest and as you know, our firm, Anderson Kill & Olick and a number of other law firms have started a class-action on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their heirs against European insurance companies. This action started back in April of this year. Initially, the action was against a handful of insurance companies: Generali, Allianz, Reunione Adriatica, Der Anka, and Weiner Allianz. Once the lawsuit was started we had received an influx of calls from claimants who had similar claims against a number of other insurance companies and then we amended the complaint to add certain Swiss companies, Winterthur, Zurich, Basle, some additional German companies, Victoria, Gerling, and a French company, Union d’Assurances d’Paris. The judge in this case ordered a stay of discovery at the outset and scheduled some jurisdictional motions to be made by the defendants. A number of the defendants, all but two, filed motions in the federal court on the grounds that they don’t do enough business here to be subject to the jurisdiction of the federal court. The two defendants who did not file such motions are Generali, and Italian insurance company, and Zurich, a Swiss insurance company. Generali filed another motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not met the jurisdictional amount in the case. The federal court requirement being that a plaintiff plead an action damages in the amount of $75,000 or more. The defendants will be filing motions in the action on other grounds, on the grounds that this forum is an inconvenient forum for them to litigate the case, preferring instead a forum overseas to litigate the matter. We’re scheduled, just to give you the full status of where the case is at, we’re scheduled before the judge on December 10 in order to ask for some discovery with regard to jurisdictional motions that have been filed. We welcome the parallel investigation which the working group from the NAIC is engaged in and to that end we’ve gathered today some claimants who are in our lawsuit and another individual claimant at the table here who is pursuing his claim against Allianz directly. Each of these claimants are typical of those who have contacted our law firm since the inception of the lawsuit. They have varying degrees of proof with regard to their claim. Just to introduce you to the people at the table here, Richard Shevitz is with the firm of Cohen Malad, a lawyer in Indianapolis – anybody, and I speak more to the people in back of us – anybody who wants further information about this lawsuit is free to sign up in the back and Richard and I will contact you and send you further information on the lawsuit. In the order in which people will be speaking today, Mr. Hans Herzberg is here to testify, not only with regard to his claim with the company Allianz, which he is pursuing directly, but also to bear witness to the anniversary of Kristallnacht. When I spoke to Mr. Herzberg, he told me that he had actually written a book, copies of it are at the memorial museum in Washington and at Skokie and the name of the book is "The Mirror" and he will be reading a number of excerpts about Kristallnacht. Also here to testify about her claim is Erna Gans, who seems to be a local folk hero in this regard. She’s the president of the Memorial Foundation of Illinois, and she actually is a class representative within our complaint, with a complaint against an Italian insurance company, Reunione Adriatica Di Sicurth. Reunione Adriatica Di Sicurth is also owned in part by the Allianz group of companies. Also testifying is Karin Pardo. When I spoke to Karin I thought she was going to be testifying here to represent a group of claimants with claims against insurance companies whose names they don’t know, because they lack the evidence – they were young at the time, they lack the information necessary to pursue claims against the insurance companies. As recently as this morning, Karin informed me that digging through her father’s files she actually discovered some documents that indicated that the claim in fact is against the Allianz group of companies, Allianz Leben, the life unit of Allianz. So while I thought Karin was going to be representative of a group of claimants which have contacted us with claims against unknown insurance companies, with further digging she has discovered that she has actually found correspondence in which lawyers on behalf of her family were pursuing the claim against Allianz in the 1950s. And finally, Marcel Thirman, will testify with regard to his claim against Victoria zum Berlin, a German insurance company that is part of our lawsuit. One last point that I’ll make before you hear the testimony is that I thought it was ironic that the testimony you’ll be hearing today coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht. It appears to be well-documented in chapters of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" that following the Kristallnacht, Nazi officials met with officials of some of the bigger insurance companies in Germany at the time, those officials being terrified at the cost of Kristallnacht to the coffers of the executives. In response to that, there was a tax imposed upon the Jewish community to deal with the damage that had been done on Kristallnacht. We think our lawsuit is not only directed, or we believe our lawsuit is not only directed to the issue of seeking payment on claims, but also to get a full accounting with regard to the relationship between the insurance companies and the Nazi party that occurred during that period of time. And without that full accounting, not only the accounting of claims, but also the accounting of the relationships between these executives, we feel our task will not be done here. With no further comment on my part, I would like to introduce you to Hans Herzberg, who will start with some readings from his book.

Commissioner Senn – Let me interrupt because Commissioner Angoff has a couple of questions.

Director Angoff – I have just one short question. The December 10 court date, what exactly is going to happen on December 10, what is the judge going to decide?

Ms. Gerstel – It’s a conference before the judge, and it will be our first attempt to be before him and asking for discovery with regard to addressing the jurisdictional motions that are before the court. In other words, those companies that have denied doing business in New York, or in the United States, will be faced with our request for discovery with regard to what level of business they actually do here in the United States.

Director Angoff – And that has to be done before you argue the motions to dismiss?

Ms. Gerstel – Right. That date will not be an argument of the motion, in fact on that December 10 conference, the judge will probably set a scheduling order not only for discovery, but also for the plaintiff’s response to these various motions.

Director Angoff – And what do you anticipate that the defendant’s response is going to be to your request for discovery?

Ms. Gerstel – I’d rather not comment further on the litigation in the court, I prefer to set it as status conference and not guess what the defendant’s response at this point.

Commissioner Senn – We have a few more questions, Commissioner Barnett, but I think we’ll let the survivors talk first and then do the questions afterwards.

Mr. Hans Herzberg – Good morning, I would like to thank the commissioners for giving me the opportunity to talk here this morning about my experience with the subject of claims of Holocaust victims and their heirs. My name is Hank Herzberg. My wife and I are residents of the village of Skokie. We are blessed with a wonderful family and a circle of good friends. My wife and I owned a retail establishment in Chicago for almost 25 years. I am now retired, doing some volunteer work at the North Shore Senior Center in Northfield. I am also a survivor of the Holocaust, as a matter of fact I’m the only survivor, my parents were killed in Riga, Latvia, and my brother perished at the concentration camp at Sobibor in Poland. I was born in Hannover, Germany. My father was a physician who established a medical practice after serving as a medical officer during World War I. I came to the United States in the fall of 1941, just a few months before Pearl Harbor, and from January 1943 until December 1945 I served with the U.S. Army both stateside and in Europe. Before we go into the discussion about the uncollected claims, I want to briefly talk to you about another subject. Today, as everyone knows, is the November 10, the 59^th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The night of shattered glass, shattered dreams and shattered souls. I have been asked to read a few paragraphs from a book of my favorite author. In my book I describe some of the events which I experienced on those fateful nights and days between November 9 and November 11, 1938, when I was working as a welder in the city of Dortmund, which is about 200 miles from my hometown of Hannover. Now here are some excerpts. I’ll skip over some of the swear words which are contained in the text:

It was the night of November 9. I had not taken off my clothes for the last couple of nights. Not because of fear, but to be ready for anything. During the past days, some prominent Jews of Dortmünd had been arrested and worst of all, Consulate Officer Von Rad (sp?) died from the wounds he suffered from the assassination. Around midnight, SA troopers, together with a mob, gathered in streets and restaurants. The troopers had been ordered there. A large crowd gathered in front of Münsterstraße 40 where I lived shouting anti-Jewish slogans. Minutes later the doorbell rang, and about 50 Nazis, most of them drunk, some of them in SA uniforms, some of the uniforms of the Hitler Youth, stood at the door holding large iron bars as well as other weapons. "Who are you?" one of the Brownshirts asked me. "Another Jew bastard? Let’s give it to him." Making a lot of noise, they made me stand against the wall with my hands behind my back and then a few of them thought it would be great fun to land some mighty blows on my face. Every time I moved just a little, one of those animals would kick me in the groin or in the legs. I don’t know whether it was the excitement or the fear, but I did not feel any of the blows or the kicks until a few hours later when my whole face and head were swollen and my legs were bleeding. A few minutes later a Storm Trooper entered the kitchen and ordered me to sort out all books in the house that had anything to do with religion or politics or were written by Jews. These so-called "custodians of civilization" wanted to burn all these books and for which the fire was already in progress on Münsterstraße. Reports of destruction came in from all over Germany. Railroad stations were watched by the Gestapo. There was no travelling for Jews. Then came the broadcast from Propaganda Minister Jösef Goebbels. All violent actions against Jews had to stop immediately. It was a temporary relief, but very brief for German Jews. The following morning I was walking down Münsterstraße with a companion. Without being noticed by us before two men approached, one from the left and one from the right. They showed us their Gestapo identification and then took us to the side street. "You’re Jews, aren’t you? Your name, where do you live? Are there any other Jews at that address?" Pointing to me, they said "You come with me." I was so green about all this, what it meant to be in the hands of the Gestapo, all along the way my two so-called friends picked up another sick-looking Jewish man who was walking along with his daughter. The girl was told to go home and Richard Feingold joined us and became a friend to me, or more so I to him for the next one-and-a-half months. From then on I was treated like the worst criminal. It was the first time I had seen a prison from the inside. Short period of questioning followed, name address profession, leave all your money on the table except small change, leave your belt, suspenders, shoelaces, tie, watch, photos and then about-face into the cell. There I was behind iron bars in Dortmünd, in a cell too small to breathe, with 15 other men, ages 15 to 70. What was going to happen to us? Would we be sent somewhere to work, maybe to the nearby next mailand (sp?)? Or to some swamps in Poland? For the first time the word concentration camp and the possibility of being sent there flashed through our minds. I was very nervous and scared. Around 7 a.m., hundreds of Jewish men were lined up in the backyard of the Police Station in alphabetic order. There were 600 of us, the youngest 13, the oldest 92. Many men were very poorly clad, dragged from the homes in the middle of the night, just as they were found, in slippers, shirts and pants only. And those were very cold November nights. In columns of four we were marched through the heavy prison gates towards the railroad station. On the way we were witness to heartbreaking scenes of Jewish wives fainting, crying as we marched by. Some women were knocked to the ground when they tried to reach out. Old men and women were hit with rifle butts. Prisoners who tried to break line for a last farewell with their families were knocked down. For a great many of them it turned out to be their last goodbye. Both sides of the track were heavily guarded, the train arrived, everybody was put on the train, and we thought it might not turn out to be too bad. Because it wasn’t the cattle cars, it was a regular passenger train. And everybody got a seat. The police captain gave us instructions, telling us that the windows had to stay closed. Shades drawn. Everybody was to stay in their seats except for trips to the bathroom, and in that case an accompanying officer had to be notified and the door to the restroom had to be left open. The train started. What would our destination be? A few of the men in our car started to sing songs and others joined in. Even a few jokes were told. How quickly things changed, however. How stunned we were, how rushed we were rushed out of the cars when we came to a stop several hours later. SS Totenkopf, the most sadistic murderers, these guardians of the Third Reich, came blasting into our cars. "Out, you swine! Faster! Drecksecker! (sp?) Slimy Jews." They called us all the names, but drecksecker was their favorite. I never was able to translate that word into English so I left it in its original form. "We will destroy you. We will burn you. We will torture you. We will tell you and convince you who is going to rule the world. We will finally make you pay a thousand times what you owe us." Those were the words we heard by the camp commander. We started to stumble over each other. People fell and they made us run right over them. All night long we could hear cries and groans, but that was not important now, could not the same thing happen to any of us at any moment? So ended the three days of November 9 to 11, 1938. And so began my five weeks at the concentration camp in Sachsenhausen in the city of Oranienburg.

Now you know a little bit about me and my background. I want to get to the main topic now of uncollected claims by Holocaust victims and their heirs. During the years 1923 to 1925, my father took out several life insurance policies in order to have a financial cushion for his family in case something happened to him. Premiums on all these policies were paid, right up to the time of my parents’ deportation to Riga. It was less than three months later that they were killed. I returned from overseas service in December 1945 and shortly thereafter I began to contact various agencies in order to receive information about the fate of my family as well as their belongings. I was in contact with the military government, the U.S. Justice Department Office of Alien Property, and various agencies of the newly established German government. I learned about my family’s fate from several sources but I had no luck finding any trace of assets which I knew were confiscated by the Reich. After many attempts, I finally received valuable information from the Öberfinanzampt, which is the Regional Finance Office in Hannover. They sent me a complete and detailed listing of all properties seized by the Nazi government in December 1941. Among the items listed were the amounts of cash repurchase values of the various policies, including policy numbers and dates of purchase. Years later I did receive reimbursement from the German government in the equivalent of approximately 10% of the repurchase value. In the early ‘50s I contacted the Allianz insurance company, claiming additional payment, and in their reply they stated that they had turned the cash value over to the Nazis and that there was no further obligation on their part. That is where things remained for several decades, until recently when I came across an article in the New York Times which encouraged heirs of Holocaust victims to renew their old claims since the German life insurance companies were willing to review old claims stemming from the period of the second World War. I first spoke to the Director of Press Relations at Allianz headquarters in Munich. He sounded most encouraging, telling me how much Allianz wanted to settle these old claims speedily and turn a past wrong into a right. He then referred me to a person at the headquarters of their life insurance division in Stuttgart. After a lengthy correspondence I received a reply that sounded so familiar. Allianz had met their obligation when they turned the cash value over to the Nazi regime. In my return letter I pointed out that I was claiming the full face amount of the policies, plus interest, since, a) my parents deportation was illegal; b) the confiscation of property was illegal; c) the premiums were paid up to the time of deportation; d) at the time of my father’s death the face amount of the policies should have been paid to his heirs. It was just a few weeks ago that I received a reply from Stuttgart telling me the same old story, adding that they first wanted to handle claims where no compensation at all was received. However, they would take the matter under advisement, I should be patient, and they would get back to me. I do hope that with the insurance commissioner’s help, they will be pressed into paying these claims. I thank you very much.

Ms. Erna Gans – Thank you very much to have me here today. I look forward to this day for a long time. I have a different story. Actually I have three stories but they told me to concentrate on one story, okay. So the one story is that how did I find out about it? I have, thank God, an uncle living in New York who is 92 years old. He told me all the background, because my father and him were very close. They lived not in one city, but anybody who knows Bili, or Bilescu, or Biauer, there were over the river, on one side of the river was Biauer, on the other was Bilic. So my uncle was aware of everything my father did. So when I was born, my father made an insurance policy in my name, when I became 20 years old I was supposed to get 5,000 gold dollars, not regular dollars, but gold dollars, and I tried to find out how much this is, I cannot find out. And this was supposed to be when a girl got married in Europe you needed a dowry. So my father make sure that he has money for the dowry, so he insured me. After the War, when I met with my uncle in 1952, I wrote to them a letter, that was, the company’s name was Reunione Adriatica Di Sicurth in Milano. I wrote to them a letter, asking them for my money. They answered me as follows: that the money from Poland stayed in Poland, and they bought real estate, and when the government changed from the Communist government, they would pay me when they would get back the real estate they bought. But naturally right now I don’t have this letter. It was so many years ago, I moved, I misplaced it. So anyway this is what they said, that when the government will change I would get my money. They didn’t say no, they didn’t say yes. In the meantime the government changed. I went to many lawyers and I asked them. When you buy insurance policies, you don’t ask the company, what are you going to do with my money? My father was not responsible for what they did with the money. He took an insurance policy from abroad because he did not want the money to stay in Poland. Now they are leaving the money in Poland! I know that was my father’s aim, to go abroad, someplace else, to have the money someplace different than in Poland. So that was what the story was then. They never answered me anything else and I did not know what to do. I did not hear nothing. So I gave up, so to speak, my fight. Maybe I should not have, but I didn’t know what to do anymore, and this stupid rejection, and the lawyers didn’t want to touch me. No lawyer, I asked many lawyers, when I was in Rome, invited by the Pope, at that time I went to the American Consul, they gave me a whole list of lawyers. I started calling the lawyers telling my story, again rejection! It was terrible. My background is like this, if you’re interested. I have two brothers, and I was born in Silesia. I don’t know if you know Silesia, it was divided between Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia. And we lived in Bilescu, in Bilic, both names are known. In 1939 when the War started, the next day my family fled to Lemburg, Wolf and there we stayed. Finally I went to school, and we stayed nicely there until the Germans came in 1941. And then they started the trouble for us. We had to go to the ghetto and there was actions. I don’t know if you’ve heard the word "aktion." An aktion was the day when they went into the Ghetto and took the Jews out to wherever they had in mind to send them. I was working for the post office, but I was not selling stamps. I was cleaning the houses of the people who worked for the post office, and they were painting the houses, I was cleaning until the family came in. My brother was also working for the post office, and he was again an electrical repairman for the cars, for the trucks. He repaired the electrical things for the trucks. So we both worked for the post office. One day they had an action and they told them, what papers are good? I don’t remember exactly, there was a stamp on my picture. I don’t know if it was red or black, but it was no good. What my brother had was good. The same piece of paper, except the stamp was different. So my mother said to me and my brother, you have a good stamp, so you’ll be okay, and she told me, you just go to the city. You do not look Jewish, just go to the city and stay there, and I’m going to hide, and I don’t want to let you know where I’m hiding, because better you don’t know. My father had also good papers, with the good stamp. So I went into the city and tried to smuggle myself out of the ghetto and took off my armband and walked around the city all day long. Then I came back around dusk, because they had so many people they had to straighten it out. So I went around the house where we used to live. There was a truck in front of the house. On it I saw my mother and my younger brother, and I wanted to go there, but my mother saw me and she just waved me away. Still today I feel bad when I think about it. Could I have helped her? I don’t think so, but I feel bad. I feel that I let her down. I don’t know what happened. Everybody tells me, don’t do that to yourself. Because you could not have done nothing. You would have been part of the truck. Well I don’t know where that truck went but they never came back. My brother, the one who was working for the German post office, a few days later we got a letter that a Polish lady picked up from the street. The letter said he is in Ilienofska (sp?) concentration camp by Lemburg. So because he worked for the post office I went to the head of the post office and showed them the letter. He was nice enough to say I’m going to go with you to try to get him back. So we went to the Gestapo. The man tried to get him back. His name is Wonsch (sp?) that guy. Anyway he tried to get him back. The Gestapo brought my brother forward so I had a chance to talk to him. He was shot through the heart and he told me how he was shot. They brought him to the camp – he showed them the paper at the gate, and they said the heck with the paper, get on the truck. So he got on the truck. And then they let him take a shower. And there was one soldier with a gun, a small caliber gun, he was shooting at the people in the shower like they would be birds. So Mr. Wonsch asked them, he said I want this man back, he’s a very good man, I need him. So the SS man said we have plenty other Jews, you don’t need him. So the guy said to him: At least have a doctor from the post office come and clean his wound. So he said to him, I heard, we are here to kill the Jews, not to save them. So we turned around and walked out. There was nothing else. It was nice of Mr. Wonsch – he put his life on the line too. So we walked out from the Gestapo. A few days later my father got a note that my brother was dead. And the younger brother went with my mother and the older brother went forever. And now I was left with my father. So my father – I mean I want to talk about it, if you want me to talk about the rest of the stuff but maybe it’s too long? I was in three concentration camps. Yanofska, Proscowa was the other one, Czernstohova was the last one. And then in Chernstohova we walked the death march. It was in January 1945. And we walked the death march. It was a terrible situation. But I’m sure you know about it, you heard about it. One question I have, please. My question. It never dawned on me to ask my uncle about my parents – I’m sure my father had insurance. So that never dawned on me to ask my uncle. Now I have additional money in Switzerland - $50,000. I had the name of the bank that my father put the money in. And then also, I don’t know if you ever heard of it – that was Germany sold my father’s business. Okay fine. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Senn – I just want to say that we do have people signed up to testify, obviously we will get to everybody. If you can tailor your remarks into a little refined period of time that would be helpful. But we will listen to everybody, we’ll stay here however long it takes. Go ahead.

Ms. Karin Pardo – Hi, my name is Karin Pardo, thank you for listening to me. I am presently living in Chicago, my maiden name was Zachariah and I was born in East Prussia in Königsburg in 1931. We had, my mother had a department store and my father was a lawyer in Lützen, (sp?) also in East Prussia. We went to Berlin, I believe in ’38 and my brother and I were in a Jewish boarding school. So Kristallnacht all we saw was all the Jewish teachers being picked up. But I was rather small so I didn’t know too much about it. We were rather lucky – we left Germany in February of ’39, and went to Shanghai where we stayed until the end of the War in ’47 and then I did come to Chicago. Now thanks to you, I looked through all my papers and I found that my father had put in claims in the 50s against Allianz Insurance, and then there was also Ausproschellangeheft (sp?) insurance. So I do have – the other one was probably a small outfit, it was called Ausproschellangeheft Versicherung but I’m sure that one is gone – because all of East Prussia is gone, we are now in what is now called Poland. So I do have proof of that, but only of my father having written to them in the 50s and claiming that, and I have several other references to his claiming of insurance and other matters. And I think this is the main thing I have to bring up. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Do you know what kind of insurance? The Allianz policy, what kind of insurance?

Ms. Pardo – I would presume it is life insurance, because he did not state the amount of the Allianz insurance, he did say 10,000 marks life insurance for the other one. Now I don’t know if he also had business insurance or anything else, but he does mention Allianz and he says he cannot recall the amounts. You know, whatever.

Director Angoff – Did I understand you to say that your father had placed some claims with Allianz in the 1950s?

Ms. Pardo – I don’t know to whom – he was in contact with – he did have a lawyer in Germany who said his claims were true, but I believe he was not with Allianz but with the German government.

Director Angoff – And what was the outcome of that, of the claims?

Ms. Pardo – Nothing. He just put in the claims. There was no outcome.

Director Angoff – Was there any response?

Ms. Pardo – Yes, there was a lot of correspondence, but I do not think he actually contacted Allianz. Because he wrote to, I believe, I can look back on it but I think it was to the German government that he wrote rather than to Allianz.

Ms. Gerstel – Ms. Pardo just found the files this morning, so I think we’re going to have to look into the documents a bit further and have them translated from German. The final person to testify is Marcel Thirman, with a claim against Victoria.

Mr. Marcel Thirman – I do thank you for the opportunity to speak in front of you. My name is Marcel Thirman, I am a resident of West Broomfield, Michigan. I was born on September 9, 1921 in Uschwald which was at that time in Czechoslovakian Republic. Presently the area is located in the Ukraine. My father, Josef Thirman, owned a freight and loading business, delivering merchandise and moving furniture. We were a middle-class family, very well-known in the area. In 1941 I was conscripted into the Hungarian Army’s labor camp. I spent three years. While I was in Poland I escaped with friends over the Russian front and joined the Czech army in exile. I was discharged at the end of the War in May of 1945. My parents stayed behind at home. There they were deported to Auschwitz where both perished. My sister Irene was deported with them, and she survived and after liberation in 1945 we returned home. Our house was ransacked first by the Hungarian and then by the Russian Army. We managed to find a box containing some documents, including insurance papers. We left our home and moved to the Czech section of the country. In 1948 we moved to the United States. Based on the documents I found, I have proof that my father purchased a policy – I have the number, T-1256441, from Victoria zum Berlin, a German insurance company. My father always talked about his insurance. The premiums were paid in U.S. dollars. The policy was payable in U.S. dollars. My sister witnessed my father pay the policy premium in April 1944, just three days before they were deported to Auschwitz. My sister and I wrote various letters to Victoria requesting the proceeds of the policy. Victoria responded that all assets of the Hungarian branch of Victoria were taken by the Communists and therefore they would not pay their claim. I share with you some excerpts from the letter that Victoria sent to me: "The insurance was managed until 1943 in our independent Czech insurance portfolio. In 1943 there was the transfer of that portfolio which was managed by former director in Budapest." To explain, the city we were living was in 1938 transferred to Hungarians from the Czech Republic. Therefore the policy, and we were living at that point in Hungary, was transferred. "The foreign headquarters in Prague and Budapest were independent branch establishments under the laws of the concerned countries. After the War ended, we were fully deprived of the power of the disposition of those assets that were developed in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Your request for the insurance proceeds are therefore not to be paid." I have the German letter from the insurance company right here. My attorney at the time responded to Victoria that on the insurance policy, not only was the director for the Czechoslovakian branch listed, but also the Berlin principal office was shown. There was no indication in the whole contract which limited the insurer’s obligation to satisfy the claim or to limit the assets in Prague or Budapest. People like my parents brought policies from foreign companies like the Victoria zum Berlin insurance company because they did not trust the local insurance concerns. Such companies should not be able to escape those liabilities by distancing themselves from the local branches they operated. We appreciate the concern and the interest of the insurance commissioners and welcome all your efforts in assisting us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay claims long overdue. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. I think that Commissioner Barnett has some questions.

Director Barnett – I have some questions for Ms. Gerstel. I’m trying to understand, as much as I can, some of the complexities surrounding the litigation, and I certainly commend you and your firm for taking on what is obviously an enormously complex and enormously difficult piece of litigation. We are all rooting for you in many respects. How many – I understand this is a class-action you’ve filed?

Ms. Gerstel – It’s a class-action but we haven’t yet moved for certification.

Director Barnett – How many potential class members have you identified at this point?

Ms. Gerstel – We’ve estimated in the complaint that the class could consist of 10,000 claimants. Different law firms are taking them from different parts of the country.

Director Barnett – And how many representative class plaintiffs do you have at this point – just round numbers, a few dozen? [Ms. Gerstel nodded her head affirmatively.] Am I correct in hearing that you are interested in hearing from more potential class representatives who have some sort of documentary evidence that can be used to show the validity of potential claims?

Ms. Gerstel – Yes, we continue to get calls from everybody. Just as an example, you heard Mr. Thirman’s testimony on the Victoria company. We have a claimant who has produced the financial statements of the Victoria zum Berlin company in 1925, clearly showing that in Greece at the time, Victoria was showing the financial statements of the main office in Berlin. So different people with claims and different types of documentary evidence, clearly paint a whole picture for those with less evidence to their claims.

Director Barnett – Okay, this is a contract claim that you’re asserting?

Ms. Gerstel – There is a contract claim in the action, there’s a breach of fiduciary duty claim, and there’s conversion claim, since as you’ve heard, some testimony from these survivors, the insurance companies have said, in part, that they might’ve paid claims onto third parties, or the Nazi regime.

Director Barnett – Help me, if you would, with some of the jurisdictional issues. Again, I know these are enormously complicated, but these are questions that I’ve had and that I’ve been asked about. How, for example, and I don’t mean this as an argumentative question, I’m trying to figure this out, how is it that the United States courts could or would have jurisdiction over what is at least rooted in a contract that was entered into by a citizen of another nation with a company in that other nation many years ago?

Ms. Gerstel – Since it is a motion before the court, I do not want to get into too many particulars about the jurisdictional motion, but suffice it to say that two companies haven’t contested jurisdiction here, and the elements for obtaining jurisdiction in New York, I’m sure there are similar in some of these states, is not necessarily that the contract be made here, but that the company be doing a sufficient amount of business here so that it doesn’t offend due process concerns to bring them into a New York court.

Director Barnett – Have any similar actions been filed, either by you or others recently, in German court, Polish court, Italian court, in order to seek redress for these individuals?

Ms. Gerstel – There have been no other actions that we know of that have been filed in those countries. But there has been a history of survivors pursuing claims against some of these companies here in U.S. courts.

Director Barnett – Right. Your goal is to begin discovery at some point relatively soon, I think you said the Dec. 10 hearing will kick that off? Is that correct?

Ms. Gerstel – The defendants in their own motion papers have set forth something about the business that they do here, attaching affidavits and the like. Reunione Adriatica, the claim Erna Gans has, against Reunione Adriatica, is a company that has bank accounts in New York. Seven of them.

Director Barnett – I’m assuming that a critical strategic issue here is getting access – you’re fighting the battle over the validity of individual claims, or even class claims in general, is something that – that’s a battle that will be fought in the later stages of this particular war, but initially the key is getting access to the insurance company archives, is that correct? Do you have a sense of how available, how complete those records are for the various companies?

Ms. Gerstel – Some of the insurance companies have admitted in their own ads, Generali for example, took out ads in a massive public relations campaign, admitting that they have the cover pages of all the policies in the various countries in which they operated. Other companies, to show you the other side, have admitted that certain of their offices were destroyed by bombings during the War. So I think it’s a company-by-company investigation.

Director Barnett – Okay. To the extent that, hypothetically speaking, an individual approaches me in Oregon, which is where I happen to be, and says, I believe that I may have a claim against a European insurer dating back to the War, what would you have me do with them?

Ms. Gerstel – The process we’ve set up is that individuals contact our law firm and we’ve been maintaining a database. And we’re not only looking at the claimants who have the policy, because we realize that most individuals were not capable of finding a policy within their archives or being able to hold onto any documents when they were deported to various camps, it’s the more shocking story that somebody actually left the camps and went back to their house and found a box of documents that contained some insurance policies. What we’ve asked people to do is call our offices, we do a preliminary phone questionnaire in which we ask them some basic information about why they think they have such a claim. For instance, a young child at the time can remember a father writing out the premium checks or the agent coming by to pick up the payments to the insurance companies. So we take down that information and then forward on to these claimants a more detailed questionnaire that they then return to us and we have them entered into our database.

Director Barnett – Okay. One last question, if I could, just to clarify the potential class on whose behalf this lawsuit has been filed, includes obviously the claimants, the potential claimants, but I’m assuming it also includes the heirs and estates of those potential claimants. Is that correct?

Ms. Gerstel – That’s correct.

Director Angoff – This is directed at the panel. One of the most disturbing things I heard at the hearing that we had in Washington, D.C. was testimony from a gentleman who said that he recalled that the Germans would target Jews, sell them policies, in connection of which they collected a lot of premium up front, knowing, or believing, that the Jews would soon be killed. Do any of you know of any evidence that goes beyond simply any of these European insurance companies not paying off on claims, but evidence of real affirmative collaboration with the Germans during the War?

Ms. Gerstel – The best I could answer at this point is there seems to be enough evidence, I was flipping through my opening remarks and I made a comment about how in the aftermath of Kristallnacht there were meetings between executives of the big German insurance companies and the Nazi party to determine how they would deal with all the property damage that came out of Kristallnacht. So we’ve looked through archives, and there were interrogations of some of the bigger German officials, German insurance company executives at the time, but our investigation continues into the archives to determine the extent to which these insurance executives found their way into the Department of Economics to become the Minister of Finance under Hitler’s regime. So we think the investigation continues in that regard to determine the extent of each of these insurance company’s collaboration with the Nazi parties.

Ms. Danielle Wilson – I had a question about your introductory remarks on Kristallnacht. You mentioned that there were massive property claims. I was wondering – were those claims paid off? And do you have any kind of - following up on the commissioner’s question – do you have any kind of belief that the people who were sending the claims were deliberately targeted for deportation?

Ms. Gerstel – I’m not sure I understand the second point.

Ms. Wilson – Well, was there collaboration between the insurance companies and the government to target people who had insurance so that they would not be able to collect and the German government would?

Ms. Gerstel – I’m not sure at this point if that evidence exists. What’s clear is that in each country that the Nazis occupied, Jews were required to register all their assets, including insurance policies. It wouldn’t be a leap of faith to guess that there were reasons for that registration of assets. It wasn’t for the benefit of the Jews who were being deported to concentration camps to then be sent into the crematorium.

Ms. Wilson – Was there a large payoff on property and did that go to the German government?

Mr. Herzberg – There was general compensation on claims, property claims, however I want to point out that there was a conversion of currency from Reichmarks into Deutschmarks, and this conversion was 10 to 1. Consequently the compensation of property claims was settled in an amount that was 10% of the claim because of the currency conversion.

Commissioner Senn – Let me just add, this issue of the insurers paying off the Nazis for claims, for example under Kristallnacht, has been a subject of some interest in international case law. Who it is that you pay your claims to and whether or not, if you don’t pay to the claimant, you’re still owing on the claim. And that’s one of the issues that we’re looking at and it’s a very good question. Sir you had a question?

Gentleman in Audience - yes I do. I was the last person in my family to get out, just before the War, I was 13 years old, I have no written information, but my question is this – my father was a successful attorney, he must’ve had bank accounts, he must’ve had insurance policies, is there any way that a search can be done to discover what he had?

Commissioner Senn – Let me answer that question. We have, in the state of Washington, and I believe in the state of Illinois, we have sent questionnaires around to the survivors in our state, asking them to give us as much information as possible to jog their memories about where the business was, what type of business it was, who they thought an insurance agent might be, because we can work to do research to begin to put the pieces together. So it’s interesting, in the state of Washington, we have maybe 50 responses divided into different categories. We have one category of people who actually have policies. We have a second category of people who absolutely know that there was insurance, they don’t have the policies – some have a policy number, but they know what company it is. We have a third category where we have, like you, they believe there was insurance, but they don’t know what company it is. And so we are collecting information and doing research on all different levels. So you should fill out a questionnaire because obviously it’s difficult, but we are looking into that. Also let me just say that on the bottom of the agenda here, we’re going to have a presentation from Risk International, I wanted to make sure that the survivors went first, but Risk International is one of a number of companies that does insurance archaeology, that reconstructs lost policies, and so we want to hear from them about some of the things that they do. Commissioner Barnett.

Director Barnett – You situation is, I think, the crux of the problem. I think there are many thousands of people in the same position as you are, where you can reasonably say, there probably were insurance policies, but you have no way of knowing, you don’t have the documentary proof, it’s not that often that parents talk to their 8, or 10, or 13 year old children about insurance policies. How do you know? Well there are two ways of trying to figure that out. Number one is, you comb through the attic and you dig up some documents and you can find that documentary proof. The likelihood that those documents have survived generation to generation, moving from one country to the next, and then a dozen times within a country, is very slim. The better way of establishing that is through the litigation discovery process, where hopefully efforts can be made to uncover the insurance history records. Now as we’ve heard from counsel, in some cases, it appears likely that those records dating back 50, 60, 70, 80 years still exist somewhere, and it’s a matter of getting access to those documents and being able to get the cooperation of the companies and going through that information to determine whether or not such policies existed. In other cases, because of fires, bombs, whatever it might be, those records may not exist anymore. It’s really a matter of beginning to sift through those haystacks and sorting everything out to determine that. But that’s clearly the preferable way of going about it, is getting the access to the insurance company files themselves.

Commissioner Senn – Now let me just ask you – and then Mr. Shevitz is going to talk for a minute and then we’re going to go on and you can come up and we’ll have you talk, or there’s a form in the back of the room.

Richard Shevitz – I was just going to speak primarily to answer that question. My firm is involved in both this litigation as well as the Swiss bank litigation, and broadly speaking, just to echo what’s just been said, a lot of the information is necessarily going to have to come from the records of these financial institutions. Obviously a lot of survivors and the heirs of survivors of the Holocaust don’t have access to the raw data anymore. One of the first steps is to make your name known to the people who are looking into this, and in this case it’s the insurance commissioners as well as my firm and Linda’s firm, and we have set up a sign-in sheet in the back, and I would encourage anyone who has any basis to think that they may have a claim against the European insurance companies to let us know and we can process that information along the lines that Linda just discussed a minute ago. Thank you.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you. Thank you very much to the panel. Since he flew all the way here from New York, I’m going to ask Mr. Eric Wollman from the New York City Comptroller’s Office and then we’re going to have four survivors who are signed up come up. Let me just say that one of the questions that we were asked during the break is some of the survivors are confused because they got letters from the New York Insurance Commissioners office, and they have an 800 number. The attorneys have a class-action suit. We have a working group with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and now you’re going to hear from the New York City Comptroller’s Office. There are a number of agencies that are working on these issues, and we’re all working toward the same goal, to the extent that we can. To the extent that we can, we are attempting to coordinate. So be a little patient that there’s a number of resources out there, because that actually is very good. As the insureds hear from different resources, as recognition of the issue around the country grows, there are probably going to be more public officials involved, so be a little patient with the number of different parties involved. Mr. Wollman.

Mr. Eric Wollman – Thank you. Good morning, commissioner. I want to thank you, Commissioner Senn, and this distinguished panel, for allowing me to briefly describe what Alan Hevesi, Comptroller of the City of New York, is doing to help resolve the complex and inter-related matters of unclaimed funds and looted assets. Comptroller Hevesi’s recent decision to exclude Union Bank of Switzerland from bidding on a letter of credit for a one billion dollar New York City Revenue Anticipation Note was based on the conviction that the bank needed to be sent an important message. Unlike other Swiss banks doing business with the city, and as we’re learning this morning, insurance companies that did business in Europe with people now living in the United States, UBS continues to inhibit the resolution of issues concerning the conduct of the banks and the Swiss government during the War years. Mayor Giuliani and Comptroller Hevesi agree that it would be inappropriate at this point to expand the amount of city business received by Union Bank of Switzerland. Allowing UBS to be awarded additional city business would be tantamount to rewarding the bank when it failed to meet expectations in the international effort to make restitution to Holocaust survivors and victims’ heirs whose assets are being held by banks and insurance companies. Excluding UBS from one of the syndicates bidding on this transaction does not represent an across-the-board severance of our business relations with that bank, nor does it mean that we will refuse to do business with the bank in the future. Rejecting UBS’s bid in this case, however, was intended as a gesture that might help get our message across. UBS has been the focus of intense criticism since it’s security guard, Christoph Meili, discovered a bank archivist shredding hundreds of pounds of documents relating to UBS’s conduct prior to and during World War II. In his initial reaction, bank chairman Robert Studer declared to Comptroller Hevesi that there were other motives behind Mr. Meili’s actions and that the shredded material was not relevant to investigations into Holocaust-era activity. Studer later admitted that according to Swiss law, the records should not have been destroyed and should have been preserved. It has been revealed that they included documents on Jewish-owned property seized by the Nazis. Not long after, in an interview with The New Yorker, UBS Honorary President Dr. Robert Holzach said he was proud to say that there were no Jews in senior positions in the three major Swiss banks. He also said that the issue of Holocaust-era dormant accounts was being raised as part of a Jewish conspiracy to control the international banking market. UBS’s response to these anti-Semitic rantings were merely to disassociate itself from the comments, despite Comptroller Hevesi’s call to sever all ties with Dr. Holzach. In a recent meeting with UBS’s chief operating officers for North America, Comptroller Hevesi was again told that Dr. Holzach retains his title of Ehrenpraisidenten, an office, and secretarial staff. Making restitution to the rightful owners of Swiss-held assets is a moral, as well as a legal issue. UBS’s initial denial that its files were related to the dormant accounts is an example of its undisguised obstruction of the process which cannot be ignored. By denying the bank additional business with New York City, we have underscored our commitment to justice. The existence of the dormant bank accounts and unpaid insurance policies is not a new revelation. Assets have been languishing under Swiss and foreign control for more than five decades. It was only when the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin asked Edgar Bronfman and the World Jewish Congress to represent Holocaust survivors and victim’s heirs in pursuing restitution claims that any international voice was raised in support. Comptroller Hevesi has been monitoring restitution efforts for nearly two years. He visited Switzerland and met with government officials and chief executives and leaders of the Swiss Jewish community to discuss the issue and help keep the process moving. The three major Swiss banks have all contributed to the special fund for needy victims of the Holocaust and have published lists, including one published today, of names of dormant accountholders to begin the process of restitution. Comptroller Hevesi will be holding an international conference on the issue on December 8, to share information and coordinate activities where appropriate. Our office also produces the Swiss Monitor, a newsletter reporting on efforts, such as today’s hearing here in Skokie. We dropped off copies earlier this morning and an article about today’s hearing and your future hearings is on page 3 of the Monitor, which is going out this week to 800 public finance and government offices around the United States, including banking and insurance regulators. The message we are sending to UBS and to anyone else who has a role in resolving the issue of Nazi-looted assets, is that justice must prevail. Those who survived the Holocaust, and those who lost their families to the devastation, should not be denied justice any longer. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to share with you what New York City is doing.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much. And let me give a special thank you to the prior panel for having the courage to come and tell their stories. I’ll do it as a panel - Aron Chen, Eric Kahn, Debra Green, - Debra, is Eric Kahn here? Mr. Kahn left – what about Aron Chen? Jim, did Mr. Chen leave? And Irving Wolf. Why don’t you have a seat Mr. Wolf. We’ll have Debra Green go first.

Ms. Debra Stern-Green – My mother, Hilda Panderstern is a survivor of the St. Louis, which the Rabbi referred to earlier, that left Hamburg in 1938 bound for Cuba, was rejected by Cuba and then by the United States. She also survived Westerbork camp in Holland and Theresienstadt. She’s out of town, so she asked me to come. Obviously I’m not going to have as much information as she would, but I’ll give it a shot. She was born in 1923. At the time of Kristallnacht she was 15 years old. Some of her most vivid memories include when the owner of the building they were in – her father had a jewelry store on Bogartstrasse in Bochem, (sp?) Westfalia, in Germany. They had metal grates up, apparently similar to what are up in any not-so-desirable neighborhood in any city, to protect the windows of the store. On Kristallnacht, the Nazis came prepared to unscrew the grates. They used those grates to break the windows so not only was their glass everywhere from the broken windows, but they looted the jewelry store, and it was fine jewelry. All of that is gone. And she recalls that the next day, while they were surveying the damage, her father disappeared, and apparently one of the righteous gentiles in the area called anonymously to tell her and her mother that they saw him at the train station boarding a train. It turns out that he was taken to Sachsenhausen, which is where Mr. Herzberg also was. My mother, at 15, was sent out to find somebody to repair the glass. To replace it was very expensive, but she said they did have insurance, but of course they couldn’t collect. Her understanding now is that the insurance company paid the German government, but they did have insurance, they were not paid the insurance, they had to come up with the cash to replace the windows, and she talks about the fact that they were curved windows, they were very expensive. And in fact, last summer, she and I went to Germany, walked down the street where the store had been, there’s a department store there now, saw the site where the synagogue was burned, there’s now a bank there, with a little plaque on the side of the building that indicates that it was once a synagogue that was burned down on November 9, 1938. While her father was at Sachsenhausen, my mother was taken as part of the children’s transport to Holland, where she was able to meet her parents shortly after that in Hamburg where they boarded the St. Louis, so her father had returned. In Hamburg he stayed in the hotel and wouldn’t go out with her and her mother because he was terrified. When the St. Louis was denied admission to Cuba and the United States, they ended up back in Holland at a camp called Westerbork, where they were until January 18, 1944. From Westerbork they were taken by train, she said it was a passenger train, not cattle cars, to Theresienstadt in what’s now the Czech Republic. In fact we visited there last summer as well. And in fact they arrived in Theresienstadt in January 1944. That June she got married in Theresienstadt. In September, all of his brothers and father and her own father were shipped off to Auschwitz, never to be heard from again. So there may be additional claims from her husband’s family as well. I don’t know. Also the night of Kristallnacht, cousins, relatives in a nearby town called Reklinghausen (sp?) also called to find out if the same thing was happening, because it was happening there as well of course. That’s the basic information that I have right now. She and her mother did survive, I’m not sure exactly to what extent she has pursued this, I don’t think she has pursued the insurance aspect at all.

Commissioner Senn – Does she have any documents at all?

Ms. Green – I doubt that she has documents about the insurance, but that’s something she’s always talked about, that there was insurance but she had to go out with cash to replace the window. I don’t know what other insurance, but they were quite comfortable, so from what I understand, there was certainly, insurance for the business, and again, not only was it the windows, the very expensive curved glass that was broken, but they looted all the jewelry they could get their hands on. At the jewelry store they smashed everything up and just took whatever, handfuls of fine jewelry, which was also insured. She has documents from her wedding, she has documents from the transport to Auschwitz that her husband her father were on, she has other documents like that from the camps, as well as photographs. I doubt that she has insurance information. She will certainly follow up on all of this.

Commissioner Senn – Okay, make sure you get a questionnaire. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Wolf, Irving Wolf.

Mr. Irving Wolf – First of all I want to introduce myself. I am not a good speaker in English, so you can correct me or try to understand me. My name is Irving Wolf. I live here in Skokie Illinois. I am born in Czechoslovakia, when it was Czechoslovakia, and suffered through all the way in Hungary. My question is as follows: I could hear they got 50 million, they got 20 million, they got 3 million, let’s stop this kind of talk about how many Germany paid out, but let’s talk about the fact, does anybody know how Germany, the Nazis, was able to come into a town, and get 5, 6,000 people, like this! Does anybody know it? No, nobody studies. They set up a façade – that was their act, they got hold of the president of the Jewish people, they got hold of the Rabbi, and they set up a regular government, a Jüdenrat, and they gave orders for them, and they carried out orders very well with deputies. I came home, I remembered it was the day before Passover, on a Friday, Saturday, and I came home on the train, about 2 o’clock, by 4 o’clock he came over, some deputy came over, a 17-year old kid that I happened to know from our town, he needed 60 people for working, they shouldn’t be older than 30 years maximum. And I was the only one who was below 30, why? Because I went through, I went into the Czech army and then I came home. The Hungarians grabbed me for retraining to be a Hungarian soldier, why? After two weeks in the Hungarian army they started up the so-called labor camps. And labor camps was under Army, under Army auspices, in fact they recruited young people like my nephew, and other ones, age 17, they called them regular soldiers but without weapons. Weapons they couldn’t have. What they usually used to do, they took them to the front, like my nephew, to the Russian-German front, and they let them pick up live mines. You know, and I don’t have to tell you what’s happened to most of them. That’s what they were used for. Now, that’s me. Anybody, I wanted to complain or talk to about the Germans, even during the Occupation, they said you have your own Jüdenrat court, you go talk to them. Now, looks to me that we still have the Jüdenrat. I’m not accusing the Jewish Conference, whatever, they deal with them, you know, I would like to ask the insurance company to see that it deals straight with the survivors and go to court, I have a lawyer right now, it’s almost 50 years ago, I spent a lot of money I had. I was very well off so I could spend the money, and I cannot get the Germans to come to court to here, to American courts. America says we cannot pursue the Germans here. Now do I have insurance? I say to you, yes, we have insurance. Insurance was as follows. When the War was ended, after Nuremburg, they talked to each other, Germans to America and America to Germans, and America said right away, what’s going to happen to these people that had their money taken away, and you know whatever it is, suffering, and whatever, and Germany said, sure, we want to make it good, whatever, we didn’t regret it, but we want to do the best we can, you know Mr. American? We had no money, we had no business, the War killed us out, please, open up the door, let us come in with our cars, and we will sell the cars. And they did, they did very successfully, and they got many privileges for that, just the advertising would not cover the money they spent for survivors, they spent some money, but they really didn’t spend anything. They had a very good bargain. So we do have insurance. Would you please see that I don’t live anywhere under the Jüdenrat anymore? And also that they should talk to the survivors. There are behind me, about 3, 4 from my town, specifically in Hist (sp?) where I came from, all the Germans had a court, they called it tri-county, whatever it is, nobody got anything. They sent me over, after 40 years, they sent me $100 for my teeth that they beat out of me. At that time they cost about $500, so I sent it back, the $100. Then finally, they okayed it, and they made a final decision to the court. So a lawyer from Germany, he sent me a letter that I should send him $100 to him to appear in court. I sent over the $100, he cashed the $100, and I got back from the Germany, well, the lawyer didn’t come, therefore I lost the case. The lawyer didn’t show up. So I asked the lawyer why didn’t you show up, and he said he didn’t think it pays. That’s it. So the insurance should do something, we do have insurance, they made a verbal insurance contract, if you look it up, the facts, the Nuremburg, that was the insurance. Let us sell our cars here.

Commissioner Senn – Thank you very much, and that’s what this working group was created for. We will look into that. Mr. Kahn, Mr. Eric Kahn, I understand he came back?

Mr. Eric Kahn – Hello, my name is Eric Kahn. I have to thank the insurance department of the state of Washington, I knew for months already that they were going after the life insurance and other insurance we had. My brother lives in the state of Washington, he was in concentration camp. I came to the United States in 1941, on the last boat out of Germany. I was born in 1921 and I do know that my parents had insurance. The insurance was with Hamburg Deutsche Leut (sp?) which is one of the largest insurance companies today in Germany. Their main office is in Hamburg. I contacted them. We are trying to get a law firm in Germany to represent us because we had – my parents moved from a small town on the Rhine river to Cologne in 1939. And they wanted to leave for Uruguay, but what happened, they didn’t get the visa, and I was the only one who had the visa to the United States. I left in 1941. In August I arrived in New York, and I don’t want to go into what happened before, I was there on Kristallnacht, and I do remember everything what happened with my parents with the insurance. My parents filled out when they moved from our town to Cologne, they took all their households and my father was a big collector of antiques, which I still have. That was loaded in a very big cart and box, and the firm is in Wiesbaden, the name of the firm is Redenmeyer (sp?), which we contacted. I called them personally on the phone, they don’t want to know anything about it. But I do know we have everything was there, and I had an aunt, who came back after the War, she went to Wiesbaden and looked in the storage space where the stuff was, and the only thing they could find was a few pictures, and she took the pictures and I have them at home. Now I tried to get to Hamburg to get to Deutsche Leut. They told me a lot of things was lost during the War, they had a lot of airplane attacks, and they couldn’t give me an answer. The same thing happened, I brought a key from Germany, I had a little suitcase and a little cash when I left Germany, my parents gave me a key for a safe deposit box in Switzerland, which I still have, and I’ve been in Germany many times, and I’ve been in Switzerland many times, and tried to get to the bank. They laughed at me when they came to the bank. They said they didn’t have a thing like that, this is not our key. Our keys are like that, but the key has the red cross on it and has a number on it. We have not followed up, we didn’t do anything, we are trying to get an attorney in Europe, my son is an attorney, he has been at his firm about a year in Europe, and he learned quite a bit about the European law. He couldn’t do anything either, and he talked to his friends who are German attorneys, and they couldn’t do anything either. They will not handle a case against Germany. There is no lawyer, he contacted approximately 50 to 75 lawyers, called them sent them faxes, and we never got anything in return, they said they cannot handle the case, they are not familiar, they don’t want to handle the case. So we gave up, and this is my story. We know the insurance company, I know the person personally, he came to our house very often, who sold my father the policy, my father was an invalid from World War I, and he took a large amount of insurance out. I don’t know the amount but it was fairly large, and my mother had insurance. My parents had a grocery store and my father and grandfather dealt mostly in wine. So that’s all I can tell you.

Commissioner Sen