Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II - Hardcover

Eizenstat, Stuart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158648110X ISBN 13: 9781586481100

Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S., 2003

Synopsis

The U. S. official who spearheaded the fight to reclaim the stolen and confiscated assets of Holocaust survivors and other victims of World War II tells the inside story of that fight and how it was won. . In the second half of the 1990s, Stuart Eizenstat was perhaps the most controversial U. S. foreign policy official in Europe. His mission had nothing to do with Russia, the Middle East, Yugoslavia, or any of the other hotspots of the day. Rather, Eizenstat's mission was to provide justice-albeit belated and imperfect justice-for the victims of World War II. Imperfect Justice is Eizenstat's account of how the Holocaust became a political and diplomatic battleground fifty years after the war's end, as the issues of dormant bank accounts, slave labor, confiscated property, looted art, and unpaid insurance policies convulsed Europe and America. He recounts the often heated negotiations with the Swiss, the Germans, the French, the Austrians, and various Jewish organizations, showing how these moral issues, shunted aside for so long, exposed wounds that had never healed and conflicts that had never been properly resolved. Though we will all continue to reckon with the crimes of World War II for a long time to come, Eizenstat's account shows that it is still possible to take positive steps in the service of justice.

About this title

Review:

Eizenstat held various positions in the Clinton administration but none of them was more important than his role as seeker of justice for Holocaust victims. For 50 years a number of European governments and big business had expressed outrage at Nazi atrocities while ignoring their own involvement. Many politicians, bankers and industrialists had profited from Hitler's murderous regime, both during the war and in its aftermath. Not until Eizenstat came along were they called to account and forced (screaming, in most cases) to pay restitution. In his quest for justice, Eizenstat tracked down looted treasures, he discovered how assets had first been seized then concealed and brazenly 'recycled' to appear as something other than they were - often by those who in public were among the most outspoken critics of Hitler's 'final solution'. Eizenstat's involvement in the quest for justice began in 1995 when he received a phone call from President Clinton's office. He was to put his considerable detective skills to use in unearthing the extent of commercial involvement in the Holocaust. His goal was to find looted goods and return them to their rightful owners, or alternatively to see that adequate compensation was paid. The operation was to take him six years and he succeeded beyond all expectations. In telling his story, Eizenstat is modest about his part in the mission. He had an army of helpers and advisers but many of them were working to their own agendas, not always altruistic. Some legal types were out only for publicity, others sought to make political capital, while various Jewish groups squabbled about which of them best represented Holocaust victims. Eizenstat therefore had to contend with problems in his own camp as well as the enemies outside who sought to undermine him. In particular he met obstacles at every turn in the supposedly neutral land of Switzerland. The tale is a salutary one of shameful collaboration, greed and prejudice beyond imagination. But Eizenstat writes without rancour. He emerges as a decent man who sought only justice for those without an adequate voice of their own. His book shows that the Holocaust and its effects had much farther-reaching effects than many in Europe would like to acknowledge. (Kirkus UK)

A former official in the Clinton administration chronicles the struggle to identify and retrieve Holocaust victims' financial assets and to determine how to compensate those the Nazis displaced, robbed, and used as slave labor. Eizenstat was a principal player in these complicated efforts. After a brief survey of the situation-and a couple of shots at both the moral blindness of the US during the war and at the publication of Anne Frank's expurgated diary, which he says encouraged 1950s readers to feel hope rather than sufficient moral outrage-the author launches into a lengthy account of all the negotiations, betrayals, surprises, personalities, venues, complications, and compromises that the settlements required. Eizenstat worked on several recovery efforts. The first was to extract from the Swiss banking industry a full accounting of their unconscionable and even nefarious reluctance to locate and return assets of Jewish depositors. This story dominates here, and the author does not have much good to say about either the dilatory Swiss or American class-action lawyers. Eizenstat worked as well to locate stolen personal property; the Nazis took as many as 600,000 paintings, 100,000 of which are still missing. Then he became involved in the negotiations to compensate those forced into slave labor during the war, which resulted in the establishment of a fund of ten billion Deutschmarks. Finally, he went after the Austrians and the French, both nations understandably eager to deemphasize the extent of their involvement in Nazi atrocities. Nonetheless, both ended up cooperating and contributing impressive sums of money to settle. Given what he achieved, it's perhaps unsurprising that Eizenstat's tone is a tad arrogant; "I" is a favored word. He's also given to cliches that clog the prose and excessive detail that sometimes obscures his vital message. Despite its stylistic flaws, though, a compelling narrative of an enormously important story. (8 pp. b&w photos, not seen) (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author:

Stuart E. Eizenstat served in severa l high-level positions in the State, Treasury, and Commerce Departments from 1993 to 2001. He is cur rently the head of international trade and finance at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washing ton, D.C.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs,U.S.
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 158648110X
• ISBN 13: 9781586481100
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 424