Guide to On-Line Resources on Holocaust Era Assets

During the last decade Holocaust era assets have become a major international issue. Several commissions of inquiry in various countries, numberless articles, books and documentaries, sites on Internet, journalistic investigations - the sheer volume of information is so enormous that it is most difficult to keep updated. The idea behind this page is to provide, as a free service to the public, a guide to on-line lists of names of potential owners of Holocaust era assets. By no means is this guide complete or will ever be so but if you know of a resource (either on-line or other) that lists names of owners of Holocaust era assets or enables one to locate such lists, please let me know. To do so, you may use the e-mail form which is availabe on the home page of this site.

In 1938 the Nazi authorities in Austria ordered all their Jewish citizens to fill in forms titled Verzeichnis ueber das Vermoegen von Juden nach dem Stand vom 27. April 1938 ("List of Assets belonging to Jews as of April 27th, 1938"). The entire collection of the forms (some 50,000 items) is available today at the Austrian State Archives in Vienna. The list of persons who filled in the forms and their dates of birth as well as a sample image of the form is available on-line from www.livingheirs.com, a joint venture of Avotaynu, Risk International Services and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The site also contains detailed instructions on how to obtain a copy of the form. Please note that Austrian Jews were required to also report assets kept outside of Austria (like, for example, an account in a Swiss bank) which means that the forms can be of help for recovery of assets not only in Austria but elswhere. Another point worthy of notice is that the forms were also sent to Austrian citizens who resided abroad and some of them might have filled them in and returned them to the Nazi authorities out of concern for their familes or for any other reason. This means that one should have a look at the list even if the person in question left Austria before 1938. If you have found your name or that of your relatives in this list do not wait until you get copies of the form. Apply immediately to Austrian Bank Holocaust Litigation, c/o Plaintiffs Class Counsel, POBox 1650, Philadelphia, PA 19105 or visit www.austrianbankclaims.com

The Austrian Post Saving Fund (Oesterreichische Postsparkasse AG) has an on-line list of some 7,000 former clients (90% of whom were Jewish) who were forced to leave some of their savings upon emigration from the country during the Nazi era. The address of the site is: www.psk.at/pskgruppe/report/listen/index.html.

Resources in the Czech Republic

The Czech Government maintains an excellent Internet site with much information on Holocaust era assets including "a list of people whose property was confiscated by the occupation authorities in the territory of the so-called Protectorate. It is a copy of what was retrieved from both Gestapo and the Central Association for Private Insurance in the Protectorate documents, which were sent to insurance companies during the period 1940-1944". The compilers of the list warn that it is not complete and that the main missing part relates to Czech Jews whose property was confiscated by the Office for Jewish Emigration. The list contains family name, first name, year of birth and title and/or maiden name of people whose property was confiscated. To see the list go to: www.hrad.cz/kpr/holocaust/seznam_uk.html.

Resources in Poland

In 1960 and 1975 Switzerland escheated to Poland 53 dormant bank accounts and some insurance policies belonging to Polish citizens. Today the Polish Ministry of Finance offers to return the money to their owners or their heirs. The site is in Polish only but it is simple to navigate: just scroll down to reach the list of 53 names and the balances of their accounts in Swiss francs. But if you still need any help, send me an e-mail from the home page of this site and I will do my best to help. And if you happen to know Hermann and Ilse Friedlaender or their heirs tell them that they have more than 50,000 Swiss francs waiting for them in Poland. The address of the site is www.prezydent.pl/nowosci/konta.html.

Resources in Sweden

The list of dormant accounts in Swedish banks can be found at: www.ud.se/english/nazigold/banklist.htm. Most of the owners, though, are Americans, so do not expect too much in the way of Holocaust era assets.

Resources in Switzerland

In July and October 1997, the Swiss Bankers Association published lists of accounts, which were opened at Swiss banks before 9 May, 1945 and have remained dormant ever since. The lists, which contain 5,570 names of non-Swiss citizens with a total balance of 67 million Swiss francs are no longer available on-line from their original site (www.dormantaccounts.ch) but are incorporated into the database referred to in the "Resources in Austria" section of this guide (just look for names with the letter "S" attached to them). The second batch of 20,825 bank accounts "designated during the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons ("ICEP") investigation of Swiss banks as "probably" [sic!] related to victims of Nazi persecution" was published in February 2001 and is available from www.dormantaccounts.ch/lists.html. By the way, I wonder why the Swiss would put the word "probably" in quotation marks. Is it their way to signal that they themselves doubt that such a probability exists? For dormant accounts that were returned by the Swiss to Poland look under "Resources in Poland".

Resources in the United Kingdom

In the years 1939-1945 the British Government froze assets in England belonging to enemy citizens, which included not only Germany and her allies but all the countries under German occupation. The list of some 30,000 owners of assets still kept in British hands is available on-line from http://www.enemyproperty.gov.uk/. Many of the owners are, of course, of non-Jewish origin but still one finds there Miss Dina Wolert whose "last known address was Warsaw ghetto". Miss Wolert had 124 pounds in her frozen account.

Warning: The site, although very nicely designed, is plagued by serious misspeling of names and addresses. My advice would be to give only the first letter of the requested name and browse through the results.

British Bankers' Association has recently published a list of names of owners of bank accounts frozen under World War II legislation. Although the introduction to the site proudly states that "our objective is to help re-unite holocaust victims or their heirs with any money in bank accounts which has been unclaimed since the second world war period" [original spelling] the site is most unfriendly of all these which are reviewed in this Guide. But the Holocaust victims or their heirs will undoubtly find much consolation in the fact that their confidentiality is very well protected by the Association, which only publishes "surname and initial". The address of the site is http://www.restoreuk.org.uk/

Resources in the United States

Of all the countries which pledged during the 1997 London conference on Holocaust era assets to publish guides to their archival resources on this topic only the US fully kept its promise. The result is a monumental (some 1,200 pages) volume compiled by Greg Bredsher of the National Archives and Records Administration which is also available on line at www.nara.gov/publications/assets/. Although this finding aid itself does not include lists of owners of Holocaust era assets, it helps to locate them among the holdings of the National Archives. The most promising of which for the Holocaust era refugees in the US are the returns of the 1943 census on American-owned assets in foreign countries (TFR 500 forms). For details see "Records of Office of Foreign Assets Control (RG 265)", pp. 1035-1043 of the finding aid.

Simon Wiesenthal Center has a list of 1,500 Swiss bank accounts frozen in the US during WWII. The address is: http://www.wiesenthal.com/swiss/swissquery.html.

International Resources

The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims maintains an on-line database of names of Holocaust era insurance policy holders. The database has been compiled from two basic sources: archives of insurance companies which form part of the Commission (most of all Generali) and various public archives (for the time being mainly the Austrian State Archives in Vienna (see also under "Resources in Austria"). The address of the site is: http://www.icheic.org/form.html

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