This is an essential timeline of the events related to the international dispute on the handling and recovering of the Holocaust assets, with a special focus on Switzerland. It is constantly updated.
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15.10.99 -- The Temple Sharon of the Arts of Los Angeles, a jewish community, has attributed the Carl Lutz Award to the former head of the Swiss Holocaust Taskforce, Thomas Borer (currently ambassador to Germany) as a sign to reinforce the relationships between Switzerland and the Jews.
16.9.99 -- The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance announced the launch of Living Heirs, a cooperative effort by three independent organizations -- Avotaynu, a Jewish genealogy publishing service, Risk International Services, an insurance archaeology and claim recovery firm, and Ancestry.com, a family history Internet and publishing company -- to help heirs of Holocaust victims recover family assets unjustly confiscated by the Third Reich.
9.9.99 -- According to the Israelitische Wochenblatt and Reuters, auditors working for the Volcker Commission have discovered in Swiss banks 47 792 accounts that "highly likely" could belong to Holocaust victims. Both the Commission and the banks didn't comment on the revelation, which is based on a draft version of Volcker's much awaited report.
9.9.99 -- Swiss banks UBS and CS have asked the largest Swiss industrial groups to contribute financially to the agreement of August 1998. In a letter adressed to the corporations, revealed by Facts Magazine today, the presidents of the two banks, Alex Krauer and Rainer Gut, argue that the agreement has protected the industrial and services sectors from additional lawsuits, preserving their image.
4.9.99 -- Anxiety appears to be rising in Swiss banking circles that a long-awaited report from the Volcker Commission may recommend that banks pay out more than the $1.25 billion agreed to one year ago. Swiss media reported that accordingly to a letter signed by two high-level bankers, the Volcker Commission would call for a new program to restore unclaimed funds from Swiss bank accounts, on top of the 1998 deal.
20.8.99 -- The Swiss Democratic Centrist Union, a right-wing party (despite
the name) has launched a popular initiative to write in the Constitution that the National Bank's excedentary reserves should be used to finance the national retirement system. Indirectly the initiative aims at aborting the project for a Solidarity Foundation, which would have been financed with the selling of about 500 tons of gold from the SNB reserves.
18.8.99 -- Avotaynu Inc., the publisher of works of Jewish genealogy, has released on its Web site a database of more than 29 000 Holocaust-era Jews who presumably had accounts in Swiss banks or were forced to declare their assets to the Austrian government. The sources of the list are the Swiss Government and the Austrian State Achives. The site also describes the procedure to place a claim.
9.8.99 -- Former US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who heads the commission studying the issue of Holocaust-era insurance policies, has refused the proposal advanced by five big insurance companies (Axa, Allianz, Generali, Zurich and Winterthur) and hasn't included it in his final reccomandations, which have been distributed to the members of the commission. The next meeting is scheduled mid-September, but the companies have already criticized the projet of having their books audited by international auditors (and having the work centralized in London) which -- as a similar auditing process in Swiss banks has demonstrated -- would be very expensive.
7.8.99 -- On August 11th President Clinton will attribute the "Presidential Medal of Freedom", one of the highest US decorations, to WJC president Edgar Bronfman for his role in recovering assets for Holocaust victims."Clinton offends Switzerland", titled Blick, the largest-circulation Swiss daily paper.
4.8.99 -- According to the Wall Street Journal, the five big insurance companies Allianz, Axa, Generali, Zurich and Winterthur could have agreed, within the scope of the Eagleburger Commission, on a "multi-billion-dollars" settlement sum for WW2-era insurances policies, which would be paid back to the survivors or heirs of Holocaust victims at ten times the actual policies' value. The insurance companies however have criticized the leaking of the information and have declared to the Swiss press that the mentioned sum is "totally unrealistic".
29.7.99 -- The Swiss banks are still waiting for Swiss industrial and commercial corporations to contribute to the $1.25 billion settlement sum. Almost one year after the signature of the agreement, however, no company has agreed to contribute to the settlement sum, despite the fact that the agreement covers all sectors with the only exception of insurances.
28.7.99 -- The Swiss special fund for Holocaust victims is starting this week to distribute $400 payments to 2635 beneficiaires in Russia, two-thirds of whom Jewish.
21.7.99 -- The Eagleburger Commission, meeting in Washington, has announced that an agreement to reimburse WW2-era insurance policies belonging to Holocaust victims has been reached with four (Zurich, Winterthur, Generali and Axa) of the five companies involved in the claims. The fifth one, German company Allianz, has so far refused the compromise concerning victims in Eastern Europe and in Germany. Reimbursements will be based on a 2% annual rate.
8.7.99 -- In a press conference the members of the Bergier Commission have discussed the work done so far since the group was set up two years ago. Thirty historians are currently working on 15 subjects dealing with relations between Switzerland and the Third Reich in terms of economy (companies, forced labor) finance (banks, insurance companies) art (looted objects) and politics (refugees). The second intermediary report of the commission will be published end of November 1999, the final report in 2001. 120 companies were contacted and the archives of 50 of them have already been scrutinized.
6.7.99 -- After careful research by 200 Winterthur employees, the Swiss insurance company has only come up with two insurance policies in the name of Jewish claimants with have remained unpaid since WW2. Winterthur Insurance opened up their archives following the Eagleburger commission inquiry.
28.6.99 -- The official Web site for the Holocaust Victims Asset Litigation against the Swiss Banks and other Swiss entities has been launched, allowing Holocaust victims, survivors or their heirs to express their opinion on the allocation of the proposed $1.25 billion settlement, to Judah Gribetz, 
the Special Master appointed by the US District Court in Brooklyn. No claim process or allocation plan has yet been established. A Mailed Notice downloadable on the site (in seven languages) explains how to espress one's opinion and how to register to receive information on how to file a claim. Not all Holocaust victims are affected by the settlement -- only those who fit into one of five "Settlement Classes" described on the site. The site is part of an international advertisement campaign to inform survivors of the Holocaust.
21.6.99 -- The US District Court in Brooklyn will this week start to publish advertisements in 500 newspapers in 40 countries in an attempt to reach survivors of the Holocaust who may be entitled to money under the $1.25 billion settlement from Swiss banks. No process for evaluating claims has yet been established. A formal court hearing is scheduled for November 29.
18.6.99 -- Under pressure from the Socialist and the SVP right-wing parties, the Swiss National Council has refused the new constitutional article on currency recently approved by the State Council. Everything has to be started over again from scratch. This article was fundamental with regard to the financing of the Swiss Solidarity Foundation through the SNB's gold reserves.
16.6.99 -- Robert Huber, the president of a gypsy organization, has quit the advisory board of the Special Swiss Fund for Holocause Victims. He criticizes the management's information policy and the slowness in paying out amounts owed to the victims.
16.6.99 -- Rudolf Keller, a right-wing member of the Swiss parliament who called last Summe for the boycott of "American and Jewish" interests and businesses in Switzerland, will not be prosecuted. The higher chamber of the Parliament has refused for the second time to lift his parlementary immunity.
27.5.99 -- The project for the establishment of the Foundation "Suisse Solidaire" will have to wait at least one more year to become concrete -- until a popular vote on the necessary constitutional changes takes place, scheduled for early 2000. The office that has been working on the project for the last two years will be closing end of June, according to the Swiss press, and its responsible, Maud Krafft, will be leaving the administration and plans on working for a Swiss NGO in Africa.
20.5.99 -- Shareholders of Bank Austria have agreed to pay $40 million to Holocaust victims and their families seeking restitution of funds they lost when Austria and its banking istitutions came under German control during the Nazi era. The action would be in settlment of a class-action lawsuit pending in a federal court in New York.
18.4.99 -- Swiss voters approved a new constitution that eliminates the traditional gold backing of the Swiss franc. This will make possible the introduction of legislation to allow the Swiss national bank's gold reserves to be revalued and then sold, and the creation of the legal groundwork to endow the projected Suisse Solidaire Foundation with part of the gold's value.
15.4.99 -- Estelle Sapir, the most well known of the jewish plaintiffs who filed in a lawsuit against the Swiss banks with regard to the Holocaust assets has died in Brooklyn at the age of 72. Her father, a Polish Jew, said to her before being deported he had put money aside for the family in Switzerland. But Credit Suisse after the war refused to acknowledge her father's bank account because Estelle Sapir didn't have his death certificate. It took the recent events and controversy for the bank to sign an agreement with her in May 1998 and pay her 500'000 dollars.
13.4.99 -- The Swiss Special Fund has cleared distribution of 3.6 million Francs to Holocaust survivors living in Australia. To date, the Fund has already
allocated nearly 80 percent of its 273 millions Swiss Francs.
2.4.99 -- Judge Edward Korman has approved the 15-pages final draft of the global agreement signed August 12, 1998 by the Swiss banks and the Jewish plaintiffs. He will appoint a special representative to be responsible for elaborating a distribution plan for the $1.25 billion and will publish the terms of the agreement, so as to allow the Holocaust victims the option to withdraw in case they find the agreement unsatisfactory and would prefer to engage in a separate lawsuit towards the banks. A final audition will then take place.
1.4.99 -- The distribution to Israeli Holocaust victims of 85 million Francs from the Special Swiss Fund is taking time. According to the secretary general of an organisation which helps survivors in Israel, Noah Flug, the first checks will not be distributed until January 2000. Main raison: the Israeli Ministery of Finance, which supervises the distribution, is only at the preliminary stage and must still select a company which will handle the operation.
31.3.99 -- The Swiss Holocaust taskforce has been dissolved. The taskforce's head, Thomas Borer, has been appointed new Swiss ambassador to Germany, based in Berlin.
30.3.99 -- In an unusual move, the French foreign affairs ministry asked a US federal court to dismiss lawsuits against French banks by representatives of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The ministry submitted a so-called "amicus" (or "friend of the court") brief asking the court to dismiss two class-action lawsuits by representatives and heirs of Jews whose assets where confiscated in Nazi-occupied France. It claims tha the litigation "directly affects France's sovereign interests", what the lawyers representing the Holocaust victims dismiss: "we are not suing the government of France, but individual banks".
25.3.99 -- The National Bank has published its own study on the monetary policy background of gold purchased from the nazis during WW2. According to the report, starting in 1943 "the monetary leeway enjoied by the SNB would have permitted it to cut back gold transactions with the Reichsbank more quickly". From today's standpoint, "it is regrettable" that the SNB did not pay closer attention to the issue of stolen and looted gold, says the press release accompanying the document.
24.3.99 -- Concerned over potential litigation, the French Bank Association has stated that "in the name of the 106 French banks that were active under the occupation" they intend to restitute "all goods and heirless funds held by the banks" and that belonged to nazi victims. The amounts will be "duly re-evaluated" stated a press release.
24.3.99 -- The Federal Tribunal (Swiss' Supreme Court) has suspended Charles Sonabend's court case against Switzerland until November 30th, waiting for specifics about Sonabend's rights with regard to the global settlement agreed upon between the Swiss banks and the Jewish plaintiffs.
17.3.99 -- The Swiss Solidarity Foundation will not see the light until the second part of the year 2000. It cannot be officialized until a popular vote takes place to determine a new scheme concerning the reserves in the SNB. Because of elections to be held at the end of this year, the vote on the necessary modification of the Constitution cannot be held until March 2000.
10.3.99 -- The Special Swiss Fund in favour of Holocaust victims will pay out 130 million francs. 80 million will go to 100'000 persons in Israel. 7.2 million are for people in Australia and Canada, and 2.2. million are for members of the Jewish community living in Germany. Finally, 630'000 is for people in Latin America. Following these decisions and those made in the past few months, approximately 80% of the Funds assets have been paid out or are about to be paid out.
2.3.99 -- In Israel, Holocaust suvivors are still waiting for payments from the Special Swiss fund, because of the slowness of the local bureaucracy. The necessary funds to cover operations to proceed with the distribution of $59 million are still waiting
for approval by the Finance Committee of the Israeli Parliament.
1.3.99 -- The Council of States (one of the two chambers of the Swiss parliament) has refused to suspend parliamentary immunity of the nationalist Rudolf Keller, who called for a boycott of "American and Jewish" stores in July 1998. Keller can therefore not be prosecuted.
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