The Volcker report
The Volcker Commission or Independent Committee of Eminent Persons, which was dissolved on 23 February 2000, presented its final report on 6 December 1999.
After having reviewed the 4.1 million bank accounts that were opened in Switzerland before and during World War Two for which records still exist, the auditors retained 53,388 accounts that are « probably or possibly related to victims of Nazi persecution ».
These accounts were classified in four categories according to the probability of their having a relation to a victim of Nazi persecution. Paul Volker recommended publication of the names of 25,187 account holders belonging to categories 1 and 2 and part of category 3.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), which must authorize publication of these names, has not yet given its approval. It has noted that at the present time only 1,200 accounts have been identified with certainty as belonging to Jewish victims of Nazism. It states that the total number of potential claimants will be higher than 1,200 but less than 53,388.
To arrive at this result, around 600 auditors examined the records of the 59 banks that now represent the 254 establishments present in Switzerland in 1945. A total of 6,858,116 accounts were opened between 1933 and1945, and of these, the Volcker Commission identified 4,100,166. Only 2,249 were tested for matching, i.e. to see if holder names matched the names of Nazi victims provided by various Jewish organizations, including the Holocaust Memorial (Yad Vashem) in Jerusalem. If the name of a victim matches that of an account holder on an exact or nearly exact basis, it is deemed a “matching account”. 276,905 accounts were identified as matching, and 53,886 of these were considered to probably or possibly have a relation to a Shoah victim. The investigation cost at least 800 million Swiss francs.
The maximum amount that could be claimed is estimated to be between 271 and 411 million Swiss francs. This sum does not put into question the Global Settlement signed with the Jewish claimant groups. The rest of the settlement, meaning the unclaimed part of the total 1.25 billion dollars, was attributed by Judge Korman by March 2000.
Included in the appendix of the report is a complete study by the historian Helen Junz, who estimated the collective wealth of European Jews before World War Two at 11.7 billion dollars. Nothing is said about what proportion of this amount could have arrived in or transited through Swiss banking accounts.
The report’s conclusions
The Volcker Commission made five recommendations :
- Publish the 25,000 account holder names. However, this list would contain a majority of «closed accounts», or accounts already closed by the banks with no formal proof of relation to Shoah victims. From this situation arose the idea of a “black box” of computerized data with all of these names. Judge Korman would be allowed to ask for information contained therein, but could not have direct access.
- Create a central database containing all of the disseminated archives.
- Make a simplified procedure for dormant account requests available to all persons with a valid claim.
- For fair indemnification of victims, the 1945 account value should be multiplied by 10 in order to adjust the value to the rate of return given by long-term Swiss bonds over the post-war period.
- All claims, whether previously made or new, should then be compared to the account holder names recorded in the central databank. The Zurich Arbitral Tribunal should decide the final outcome.
The auditors discerned no proof of systematic destruction of archives concerning the accounts of victims of Nazi persecution, nor of organized discrimination against the accounts of the victims, nor of concerted efforts to embezzle the victims’ assets.
However, proof has been established of isolated deceitful acts perpetrated by several banks concerning victims’ accounts, including holding back account information from Holocaust victims or their heirs, inappropriate account closings, poor archive maintenance, numerous cases of insensitivity regarding the efforts of victims or their heirs to recover dormant or closed account assets, and a general lack of rapidity that at times verged on active resistance concerning previous private and official investigations on dormant accounts.
Since the dissolution of the Volcker Commission, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) is in charge of applying its recommendations.
Who are the members of the Volcker Commission ?
The Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (CIPE-ICEP) was established on 2 May 1996 by a Memorandum of Understanding between the Swiss Bankers Association, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, and the World Jewish Congress. The Committee was mandated to identify any accounts belonging to victims of Nazi persecution that have remained dormant since the Second World War or that were not made available to the victims or their heirs, and to judge the actions of Swiss banks regarding victims’ accounts.
The Committee’s Chairman is Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. The rest of the Committee is made up of five members appointed by Jewish organizations and five members appointed by the Swiss Bankers Association.
Appointed by the SBA :
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Curt Gasteyger
Professor of international relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies -
Klaus Jacobi
Former Swiss Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs -
Pierre Mengiardi
Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of ATAG Ernst & Young -
René Rhinow
Professor of Law at the University of Basel -
Hans J. Baer
Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank Julius Baer
Appointed by the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the World Jewish Congress :
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Abraham Burg
president of the Jewish Agency in Israel -
Reuben Beraja
president of the Latin American Jewish Congress -
Ronald S. Lauder
vice-president of the World Jewish Congress -
Zvi Barak
president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization -
Israël Singer
secretary general of the World Jewish Congress