June 17


SWITZERLAND:

Swiss Banks, Holocaust Survivors Agree


After years of acrimony, Swiss banks have agreed to release records of
thousands of World War II-era accounts that may belong to victims of the
Nazis.

A lawyer for Nazi victims who sued the banks said the agreement could
allow the victims or their descendants to obtain hundreds of millions of
dollars in unclaimed funds. The banks' refusal to release the records had
angered Holocaust survivors and infuriated a federal judge overseeing the
case.

If Swiss banking authorities approve the agreement, Credit Suisse and UBS
AG will publish the names of 3,000 accounts opened during the Nazi era.
They will open databases of Nazi-era accounts for comparison with a list
of thousands hoping to recover family assets from Swiss banks.

A claims resolution center will open in New York to ease the process.

The agreement, made public on Wednesday, could resolve much of the
outstanding contention between the banks and Holocaust survivors, who
agreed to a $1.25 billion settlement of their lawsuit in 1998. It is
expected to be sent to Switzerland for final approval as early as
Thursday.

The survivors and their families accused the Swiss banks of stealing,
concealing or sending to the Nazis hundreds of millions of dollars worth
of Jewish holdings and destroying bank records to cover the paper trail.

The federal judge overseeing the 1998 settlement allocated $800 million
to Jews who had accounts in Swiss banks or to their heirs. But only about
$154 million has been distributed, in large part because account holders
were killed with their families.

But also at fault, some experts said, are the Swiss banks, which released
more than 20,000 names but resisted further disclosure.

More than 30,000 people have claims pending before a tribunal charged
with disbursing settlement funds to legitimate claimants.

Some 2,000 claims have been found justified. Claimants could receive
roughly $270 million.

By the estimation of Burt Neuborne, a lawyer for the survivors, the
agreement reached this week could drive the number of successful claims
far higher.

Under the agreement, 2,000 of the strongest pending claims will be
matched against databases held by the Swiss banks, said Roger Witten, an
attorney for the banks. If the process is productive, 11,500 additional
names will be run against the databases.

(source: Associated Press)





PORTUGAL:

Honoring a Portuguese Holocaust Rescuer


A Portuguese diplomat who defied his government and helped save thousands
of Jews during the Holocaust will be commemorated in special prayer
services in dozens of countries over the next few days.

Correspondent Michael Freund reports that the initiative, launched by the
International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, is in honor of Aristides de
Sousa Mendes, who served as Portuguese consul in Bordeaux during World War
II. Haifa Chief Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Belgium, the
Archbishop of Montreal, and Cardinal Renato Martino of the Vatican are
among dozens of prominent religious leaders taking part.

In Israel, too, special prayers will be recited in Jerusalem, Netanya,
Beit She'an, Hadera and elsewhere.

The Wallenberg Foundation, headed by Baruch Tenenbaum, chose today, June
17, to commemorate Sousa Mendes because it was on this date in 1940 that
he began issuing the special visas to refugees. Despite explicit
instructions from Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar barring the entry of
Jewish refugees, Sousa Mendes issued 30,000 transit permits, including
some 10,000 to Jews, enabling them to escape deportation to the German
death camps. As a result, Sousa Mendes was denounced and stripped of his
post. He died penniless in 1954.

Yad Vashem has recognized him as a Righteous Gentile. Asked once to
explain why he was willing to disobey his superiors and risk his career in
order to save Jews, Sousa Mendes is reported to have replied, "I would
rather be with G-d against men, than with men against G-d."

(source: Israel National News)




USA//NEW YORK:

Jackson Heights Resident Faces Deportation For WW II Nazi Ties


An immigration judge has ordered the deportation of a Jackson Heights
man who admitted three years ago that he once served as an armed guard at
a forced-labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II.

Jakiw Palij, 80, was ordered by Judge Robert Owens to be deported to
the Ukraine for both his involvement with the S.S. and because he
concealed this fact when he immigrated to the United States in 1949.
Palijs citizenship was revoked in August 2003 by a federal judge.

The prosecution of Palij is part of the federal Office of Special
Investigations effort to identify, investigate and take legal action
against United States residents who were members of the Nazi regime during
the Holocaust. Since the office was created in 1979, it has won cases
against 94 individuals and blocked 170 individuals who sought to enter the
United States.

Palij admitted to federal officials in 2001 to being trained at the
Trawniki forced-labor camp. On November 3, 1943, more than 6,000 Jewish
prisoners-including men, women and children-were shot to death in one of
the largest single massacres of the Holocaust.

The Trawniki training camp was a facility that the Nazis used to train
Eastern European recruits to help the Germans in Operation Reinhard, a
mission that aimed at genocide against Jews in Poland. It was a camp known
for its brutality and Palij is accused of having served in the Deployment
Company, which was described in the federal complaint as a unit that was
created to engage in partisan reprisals.

Palij lives on 89th Street with his wife. In a hearing at Brooklyn
Federal Court in October 2002, Ivars Berzins, the attorney representing
Palij, told U.S. Magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky that his client was in
failing health and that he was caring for his wife, who has Alzheimers
disease.

Phone calls to the Palij residence were not answered. A secretary at
Berzins West Babylon office said that he was not speaking to reporters
about the case.

The case against Palij was investigated and prosecuted by OSI Director
Eli Rosenbaum.

The immigration judges decision reaffirms the important principle that
neither the passage of time nor the expanse of an ocean will prevent the
United States from securing a measure of justice on behalf of the victims
of the Nazi regime, said Assistant United States Attorney General
Christopher Wray.

Department of Justice spokesman Bryan Sierra said that it was unclear
when Palij would be deported, noting that the case will now go under a
review process. He believes the case against Palij and others who served
in the S.S., sends an important message from the federal government.

"The message is that if you used false pretenses for coming into this
country, especially covering up the atrocities of World War II, you don't
deserve the fruits and benefits of being an American," Sierra said.

Members of the Jewish community in Jackson Heights said that the
ordered deportation of Palij and the ongoing investigations into residents
who worked in the Nazi camps, brings some measure of closure for them.

"To a large extent because it deprives them of their American
citizenship, which they cherish so much," said Rabbi David Kent, of the
Jewish Center of Jackson Heights. "But they're never going to face any
further prosecution. They're never going to pay for their crimes."

Rabbi Kent also expressed anger over the fact that Palij could now be
going through an extensive appeal process.

"It's a disgrace that they get appeal after appeal when their victims
were killed immediately," he said. "It's indicative of the absurd situation
where the murderers get so many chances and the victims get death."

Rabbi Kent added that, "if after a fair investigation and review process
it is determined that a person had been a member of the S.S., they should
be executed immediately."

Lee David, 72, vice president of the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights,
and a Holocaust survivor, is also a proponent of harsh punishment against
former S.S. members.

"They should hang them from the highest pole," she said. "I went through
hell. It took long enough to send him back. I thought he had it much too
good for too long. Nobody can understand what people went through."

David lost 83 relatives in the Holocaust. Soldiers from the S.S. came
to her house and killed her father, but her mother paid to hide David.

"My family had money and my mother bought our life," she said.

David, who lectures about her experiences during World War II, believes
the continued investigation into former S.S. members serves to remind
people that the Holocaust actually happened.

"I will speak at synagogues and someone will say, 'I don't believe a word
about it,' and that makes you very bitter when your own people don't
believe you," she said.

However, one Jewish Queens resident, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity, expressed mixed feelings about the deportation of Palij. A
second-generation American, he had once been employed by a German-Jew who
worked in the Nazi training camps.

"You have to put yourself in that time and place," he said. "They had to
work (in the prison camps) or they would be killed. A lot of them did not
want to do what they did."

But others weren't buying this sentiment.

"I think it should come to light," said Cantor Michael Schwartz, from the
Jewish Center of Jackson Heights. "They are symbols. You can't forgive
them. It's very, very difficult to forgive. Even if they say they were
forced to do it, its hard to forget and its hard to forgive."

Gerda Albert, a Holocaust survivor from Jackson Heights, who lost 14
family members, added, "Anybody who participated in any way should not
live here. They should not enjoy the fruits of this country."

Sources have said that the investigation into Palij led to a case
against Jaroslaw Bilaniuk, 80, a Douglaston resident, who also faces
deportation for lying about his Nazi past on his visa papers. Both men
allegedly knew each other while they allegedly trained at Trawniki.

(source: Queens Chronicle)