ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BERLIN
SOURCE: The Washington Post
Switzerland's three largest banks announced Wednesday that they will contribute $71 million to a humanitarian fund for Holocaust survivors and the families of victims in the hope that the gesture will defuse an escalating controversy over the fate of Jewish assets that were deposited in Swiss banks during World War II and are now missing.
The decision by Union Bank of Switzerland, Credit Suisse and the Swiss Bank Corporation to immediately create the special fund reflected a deepening fear that damage to their reputation and prestige created by the dispute is becoming a serious liability in conducting global business.
The three banks issued a joint declaration saying that ``the time has come for action, not words'' in finding a just and equitable solution to claims by Jewish groups and the heirs of Holocaust victims. Critics contend that Swiss banks have been sitting on up to $7 billion in wartime assets that came from Jewish depositors who may have perished in Nazi death camps.
The banks called on the Swiss government and the nation's central bank to join in contributing funds to a special escrow account.
``We have launched this as a beginning,'' said Gertrud Erismann, a Union Bank spokeswoman. ``The intention is that others will also take part.''
Jewish groups called last year for a fund worth at least $180 million to be set up as a goodwill gesture to Holocaust survivors and the families of those who died who have been trying to track down family assets that have lain dormant in Swiss banks since the war.
But in late December, Swiss President Jean-Pascal Delamuraz lambasted the idea of a special Holocaust fund as tantamount to ``blackmail and extortion.'' He apologized a few weeks later, after a torrent of international outrage.
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