Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts (Paperback)

~ Michael Bazyler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

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Historians estimate that the Nazis stole assets worth between $230 billion and $320 billion in today's dollars from Europe's Jews during the Holocaust. This included paintings, other artwork, jewelry, artifacts, and money. In the 50 years since the end of World War II, most of these Jewish victims have yet to be compensated for their losses. In 1996, Holocaust survivors and their heirs began successfully suing the three largest Swiss banks for failing to return money deposited with them on the eve of and during the war. As Bazyler shows, museums worldwide, including in the U.S, are holding art looted by the Nazis. The author, the son of Holocaust survivors, posits that the "real hero" is the American justice system, the only forum in the world where Holocaust claims can be heard today. In this lucid and compelling book, Bazyler documents the fight for restitution, its successes, and its failures. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

...an indispensable chronicle of the Holocaust litigation [and] a probing inquiry into the wisdom and morality of the effort. -- Burt Neuborne, John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law, NYU Law School, Special Settlement Counsel, Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 410 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814799043
• ISBN-13: 978-0814799048
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,262,192 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An original and core addition to Holocaust Studies reference, September 18, 2003

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts (Hardcover)

Holocaust Justice: The Battle For Restitution In America's Courts by Michael J. Bazyler (Professor of Law, Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, California, and Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC) is a definitive analytical study of how the American courts and system of justice were used to address the mass-scale theft initiated by the Holocaust, which not only exterminated six billion Jews but also stole hundreds of billions in wealth and possessions from its Jewish victims. Since the end of World War II, this mass theft was further perpetrated and exacerbated by Swiss banks that refused to give the families of Holocaust survivors their due; Italian, Swiss, and German insurance policies that refused to pay on prewar policies; wrangling in the courts concerning art looted by the Nazis in wartime Europe, and more. An original and core addition to Holocaust Studies reference collections, Holocaust Justice is a thoughtful, informative, detailed, authoritative study of the ongoing battle for justice stretching decades after Nazi genocide was ended by the Allies along with the rest of the Third Reich.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of the effort to win compensation for the Theft of the Property of the Jews of Europe, November 29, 2006

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This is a clear, comprehensive well- written account of a search for justice and compensation for those whose property and possesions were stolen during the Holocaust. The author Michael Bazyler, who is Professor of Law at Whittier Law School in California and international law litigator, rightly notes the outset that the property crimes of the Holocaust, secondary to the murder of eleven million human beings, including six million Jews, are nonetheless of great significace. Bazyler makes a strong case for the historical importance and rightness of the search for compensation for the property loss.
For over five decades major international business firms in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany had ignored and covered up their role in property- crimes. The major banks of Switzerland, United Bank of Switzerland, Credit Suisse , and the Swiss Bank Corporation had been heartlessly cruel to individuals by refusing to acknowledge their bank accounts.In the course of the investigations the banks were proven to have collaborated with the Nazis in purchase of gold some of which was taken from the bodies of victims. The Swiss Government had traded with and so supported the Nazi regime.
Bazyler tells the story of the search for compensation in the United States Courts. It turns out that Justice could be attained not in any European courts but only in American ones. The willingness of the U.S. court system to hear these claims, the ability of U.S. government officials ( U.S, Senator Alfonse D'Amato and New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi played key roles ) enabled pressure to be applied to the Swiss government and firms. The tale of their shameful stonewalling, denial and attempt to escape from any honest dealing with the heirs of the bank account holders is a fascinating part of the story. The compensation deal which was finally made for 1.25 billion dollars actually meant that very small amounts of compensation went to individual holders of accounts. But the whole process did have the positive effect of exposing the degree of venality and criminality, beside sheer human heartlessness of the Swiss Banking Community and political establishment.
Bazyler then goes on to tell the even more heartbreaking story of the slave-laborers search for compensation from Germany. The German firms at first tried to deny and escape any responsibility. The slave-labor issue also extended to firms outside of Germany including even Ford and I.B.M. Again to make a long story short an agreement was reached which led to compensation being given to slave- laborers. Eighty percent of those who received compensation for having worked as slave- laborers were Slavs from Eastern Europe. The relatively small sums of compensation by Western terms, a few thousand dollars only, could in the case of many of those living in Eastern Europe be of significant help. And this when all of this was of course a mere pittance in comparison to the 'real price' in suffering, in life, in time , in dignity which was paid by the slave- laborers.
Bazyler also considers the whole question of stolen art and its return.
In his last chapters he replies to those critics of the whole historical effort to gain monetary compensation. Important well- meaning Jewish voices criticized the whole effort as demeaning the Shoah, as somehow enabling the criminals to think that they had paid off and so made up for their crimes. Bazyler takes strong exception to these critics. He shows, rightly in my opinion, how the class- suits and public attention they generated , exposed Holocaust criminals who had been masquerading as ordinary citizens. He points out that 'monetary compensation' is the only form of compensation possible when speaking of crimes of theft. There was no intention to in any way equate these crimes in weight and significance with the horrible acts of murder and torture which the Nazis and their accomplices committed. Bazyler also refutes the charge that the suits may have stirred new Anti- Semitism in a Europe which has never truly freed itself of Anti-Semitism. Bazyler points out how for a number of those who received the compensation there was a certain sense of justice done.
In his last chapter Bazyler talks about the way such class- action suits may be used by other victims of historical property theft.
This is a well- documented and extremely well- written study.
The persistence, devotion of many of the litigants and also of the lawyers is one side of the story. Another side , is the evil of the evildoers, those who profited from theft and hid that profiting for decades.
Justice of course cannot really be done to the victims, even to those victims who lost only property. For no one lost only property, in a crime whose essence was in destroying the very humanity of its victims, in depriving them of every last bit of human dignity.