The Victim's Fortune: Inside the Epic Battle Over the Debts of the Holocaust - Softcover

Authers, John; Wolffe, Richard C. Jr.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060936878 ISBN 13: 9780060936877

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2003

Synopsis

Fifty years after World War II, a small group of Americans launched a campaign to confront the world with the fact that many assets looted by the Nazis had never been returned to their owners. Backed by class-action lawsuits and threats of economic sanctions, they mounted a vigorous challenge against some of the world's largest corporations and governments to demand billions of dollars. But what began as a moral crusade soon became a bare-knuckle battle that opened up painful debates about whether money can ever compensate for the horrors of the Holocaust.

John Authers and Richard Wolffe offer a spellbinding investigative account of this momentous international struggle. The Victim's Fortune captures the personalities, ruthless tactics, and moral dilemmas surrounding the fight over compensation -- all unfolding against the backdrop of one of the darkest moments in human history.

About this title

About the Author:

John Authers has been a Financial Times journalist since 1990, and conducted most of the research for this book in New York where he was the paper's banking correspondent from 1996 to 2001. Shortly after completing the manuscript, he moved to Mexico City where he is now the paper's bureau chief.

A graduate of Oxford University, he more recently took advantage of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economic and Financial Journalism to study at Columbia University, conducting the early planning for The Victim's Fortune at the journalism school, and earning an MBA from the business school

Before going to New York he worked in London, winning awards for coverage of investment (as the Unit Trust Association's national journalist of the year in 1992) and of education (as the Business and Technical Education Council's national newspaper journalist of the year for 1994). Prior to the FT, he did freelance work for London's Daily Telegraph and Guardian, and also worked for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, DC.

A keen classical singer, he has performed in Carnegie Hall and in concert halls across Europe, in the choirs for soloists including Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti, and Bryn Terfel. He is also an enthusiastic walker, who has climbed Kilimanjaro and reached the base camps of Everest, and of K2's Concordia glacier.

Authers lives in Mexico City with his fiancee Sara Silver, also a Financial Times journalist. Richard Wolffe is U.S. diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times and deputy bureau chief in Washington, D.C.

Synopsis:

Two reporters from the Financial Times go behind the scenes to detail both nobility and corruption in the fight for compensation of Holocaust survivors. Half a century after World War II, a small group of Americans launched a campaign to confront the world with the fact that many assets looted by the Nazis had never been returned to their owners. They wanted to write the final chapter in the story of the Holocaust's survivors, most of whom were nearing death, and wanted recognition of the debt that these victims were owed. Backed by class action lawsuits and threats of economic sanctions, a disparate group of lawyers, politicians, and Jewish advocacy groups mounted an enormous challenge against some of the world's largest corporations and governments to demand what they felt was due. After several years, they won a historic settlement of 5 billion dollars in reparations. But what began as a moral crusade had degenerated into a bare-knuckled battle that opened up painful debates across the world and within the Jewish community over justice and how to achieve it.

In The Victim's Fortune, John Authers and Richard Wolffe offer a spellbinding investigative account of this international struggle - an extraordinary political drama which unfolds against the backdrop of the twentieth century's most devastating crime

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060936878
• ISBN 13: 9780060936877
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480