61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

in question. Often, therefore, investigations get nowhere, so that summary
sources or sample cases are the sole sources of information on what happened.
The conduct of the banks regarding the release of assets of victims of persecution
during the Nazi regime was anything but uniform; it is equally difficult to
generalise about «the Swiss banks» in terms of «dormant accounts». Despite
unifying factors including the powerful tradition of private law, national legislation
(banking secrecy), the international convertibility of the Swiss franc, and
joint representation by the Swiss Bankers Association, there were also differences
in the way the banks dealt with the assets of victims of the Nazi regime.
Basically speaking, two characteristics of dormant (and also «used up») accounts
become apparent: firstly, the attribute «dormant» refers to a situation in which,
although the account existed at the bank, the depositor failed to come forward
or was unable to come forward. This means that the relationship between the
bank and the customer was interrupted or discontinued. It was no longer
possible to ascertain the customer’s wishes.
To take account of the exceptional situation of mass extermination by the Nazis,
the banks would have had to depart from the requirements they usually made
before paying out an account. Only a specific response to the Holocaust, i.e.
interpreting the existing legal situation in favour of the victims, would have
allowed the assets to be surrendered to legitimate heirs or authorised Jewish
successor organisations. However, the banks merely noted that many customers
no longer turned up. But assuming as they did that these customers were still
virtually in existence, there was no need to take any action. It was the fiction
that the missing customers would perhaps turn up again some day and lay claim
to the bank’s promise to pay that created the problem of dormancy within the
historical context of the Holocaust. It is possible to speak of a deliberate classification
of assets as «unclaimed» and accounts as «dormant» insofar as banks
failed to co-operate actively after the Holocaust in surrendering the accounts,
deposits or safe-deposit boxes they held and to assist relatives of murdered
customers or restitution organisations.
Invoking private law also enabled the banks to counter any practicable solutions
suggested by citing «legal considerations». Legal principles were exploited for
corporate objectives in the name of a blind adherence to the letter of the law.
The banks’ rhetorical efforts to uphold the existing «legal system», guarantee
the liability of the law and protect «property rights» on the basis of banking
secrecy resulted in depriving owners (as well as heirs and successor organisations)
of their rights. This gave rise to the paradoxical situation that both banks
and claimants were using the same argument: those who represented the victims
of the Nazi regime or, as survivors, were trying to file claims, based their case
on property rights – the banks used the same legal basis to support their claim
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