Home
In this issue
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 13, 2004 /28 Tishrei, 5765

Progress reported in lawsuit over alleged looting of ‘Gold Train’

By Ann W. O'Neill

Printer Friendly Version

Email this article



A bi-partisan clamor in Congress is growing in an effort to rectify one of the last reversible injustices against Holocaust survivors. Will they beat the clock?


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) Attorneys for the federal government and Hungarian Holocaust survivors agreed Tuesday that they have made "substantial progress" toward settling a lawsuit over the Army's alleged plunder of Jewish valuables at the end of World War II.


In 1945, the suit contends, U.S. troops looted the Hungarian Gold Train of valuables the Nazis seized from 800,000 Hungarian Jews. The suit further charges that the U.S. government covered up the scandal for decades.


Hearings in the case were scheduled Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz, but the eleventh-hour settlement hopes postponed the court date. Among the legal issues before the judge is the U.S. Justice Department's third request to dismiss the lawsuit on technical grounds.


Both sides asked for the delay. Court papers filed in Miami stated: "The parties have been engaged in ongoing mediation and over the past several days have made substantial progress towards a possible resolution of this matter. The parties submit that postponing the hearing will allow these discussions to continue going forward."


Washington lawyer Fred Fielding, who was a member of the September 11 commission, is in Miami mediating the talks. Attorneys declined to discuss the negotiations, citing a gag order.

Donate to JWR


The lawsuit, filed three years ago, seeks up to $10,000 each for thousands of Hungarian Holocaust survivors. It has not yet achieved class action status.


The 29 boxcars laden with Jewish treasures were headed from Hungary to Austria ahead of advancing Soviet troops in the days after Germany surrendered. U.S. troops took control of the train, promising to protect the cargo. Instead, some of the treasures wound up decorating officers' clubs and villas, some sold at auction and some simply disappeared.


In 1999, the Presidential Advisory Commission of Holocaust Assets exposed the scandal in a published report that provided the backbone of the federal lawsuit.


The government has been under mounting political pressure to settle the suit.


Last week, plaintiffs David Mermelstein, Baruch Epstein and Alex Moskovic wrote President Bush, asking him to personally intervene.


"The Hungarian Holocaust survivors are no longer young," says the letter, dated Sunday. "Many of us are ill. Many have little money. Our lives would have been far easier had we been given our property when the United States had it — and hid it."


Epstein said Tuesday that appealing directly to Bush was "another little nudge, another little letter that keeps this whole thing alive. We would be more than glad to settle the whole situation." White House spokesman Taylor Gross responded that the letter had been received, adding that the government is participating in the court-ordered mediation "to see if the matter can be resolved amicably."


Earlier this month, Sen. John Kerry weighed in during a presidential campaign stop, accusing the Bush administration of "dragging its feet." Also in the chorus of political voices urging settlement are a bipartisan group of 17 senators and the Florida congressional delegation.

Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

To comment, please click here.

© 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.