Paris and Buenos Aires
“We believe that these long-dormant accounts hold monies looted from Jewish victims.”
Argentineinvestigator, Pedro Filipuzzi, has shared with Dr. Shimon Samuels and Dr. Ariel Gelblung - respectively the Centre’s Director for International Relations and Director for Latin America - alist of some 12,000 names of Nazis in Argentina, many of whom had contributed to one or more bank accounts at the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, which became the Credit Suisse bank,based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Duringthe 1930s, the pro-Nazi military regime of President José Félix Uriburu, who was nicknamed “Von Pepe” as a Germanophile, and of his successor Agustín Pedro Justo, welcomed a growing Nazipresence in Argentina.
In1938, the latter was replaced by anti-Nazi President Roberto Ortiz, who established the “Special Commission to Research Anti-Argentine Activities,” principally to de-NazifyArgentina.
Up until 1938, however, there was an official figure of 1,400 members of the NSDAP/AO (the German National Socialist Party /Foreign Organization), based in Argentina, with 12,000 supporting members of the cover-up “Unión Alemana de Gremios” (the German Union of Syndicates) formerly named "Frente Aleman delTrabajo" (German Labour Front) and an additional 8,000 affiliated to other Nazi organizations.
“These included such German companies as IG Farben (the supplier of Zyklon-B gas, used to exterminate Jews and other victims ofNazism) and financial bodies such as the 'Banco Alemán Transatlántico' and the 'Banco Germánico de América del Sur.' These two banks apparently served for Nazi transfers on the way toSwitzerland,” explained Samuels.
Gelblung added, “Many of the names listed were related to pro-Nazi companies blacklisted by the US and UK during World WarTwo.”
The aforementioned Special Commission to Research Anti-Argentine Activities captured the complete cache of documents in araid on the Unión Alemana de Gremios. In the period 1941-1943, the Cámara de Diputados de la Nación (the lower chamber of the Congress) studied and printed a report that included Nazi banktransfers from Argentina to Switzerland. We hold a copy of the list of Nazis based in Argentina, among whom several account holders of funds that were sent to the then SchweizerischeKreditanstalt, now Credit Suisse.
In 1943, the pro-Nazi United Officers' Group (in Spanish, GOU - Grupo de Oficiales Unidos) took power - headed by fascist militialeader Pedro Pablo Ramirez Menchaca as President - and disbanded the Special Commission, burning their findings and reports, including the Nazi-related lists printed by the Cámara deDiputados de la Nación.
Mr. Filipuzzi, working in the former Buenos Aires Nazi headquarters, discovered, in an oldstorage room, an original copy of the 12,000 lists, now shared with the Wiesenthal Centre. See below-selected pages of the file:
Examples of the Cåmara de Diputados de la Nación's materials found by our researcher
In a letter to Credit Suisse Vice-President, Christian Küng, the Centre stated: “We believe very probable that these dormantaccounts hold monies looted from Jewish victims, under the Nuremberg Aryanization laws of the 1930s,” adding, “We are aware that you already have claimants as alleged heirs of Nazis in thelist.”
The Centre requested access to the Credit Suisse archives to settle this matter on behalf of the diminishing number of Holocaust survivors.
“Mr. Küng, in 1997, we organized a major conference in Geneva, together with Winterthur Insurance, on ‘Restitution: A Moral Debtto History’. A few weeks before our conference, I received a telephone call from Credit Suisse, requesting to co-sponsor our gathering.”... “In the spirit of the conference’s title,I asked for access to spoliated accounts for our expert researcher. There was no response,” noted Samuels.
“The current story and the remaining assets, arguably looted, of 12,000 Nazis will, we hope, be viewed differently, for the good name of Credit Suisse,” concluded Samuels andGelblung.
For further information, Shimon Samuels may be contacted at the AIPAC Conference in Washington DC at +33 609 770 158 or contact Ariel Gelblung at +54 911 49 695 365, â¨and join the Center onFacebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent directly to your Twitterfeed.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in The United States. It is anNGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).