Pack of Thieves: How Hitler and Europe Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 0385720645
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
It was the largest organized robbery in history: the systematic looting of Europe's Jews by the Nazis, in cooperation with most of the nations in Europe?Axis, Allied, and neutral. Award--winning journalist Richard Z. Chesnoff, one of the first reporters to break the story that Swiss banks had hoarded the assets of Holocaust victims, traveled to fourteen countries to research this heartbreaking, compelling story of human greed. Through exclusive interviews and information from hitherto classified files, Chesnoff tells a tragic tale, the vast scope of which is only beginning to be known. Revealing new details that many would prefer remained secret, Pack of Thieves describes the detective work used to trace Holocaust assets that continue to be hidden inside the financial systems of such Allied nations as France and the Netherlands. Daring, insightful, and necessary, Pack of Thieves is at once a fascinating piece of investigative journalism and an enraging account of one of history's greatest crimes.
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the document prompted a new and as yet unfinished investigation by U.S. authorities. It also evoked adamant denials by Vatican spokesmen—and a fresh refusal by the Holy See to release any documents of the relevant period. What is known is that after the defeat of the Nazis and the Communist conquest of Yugoslavia, the Vatican maintained close ties with the Ustasha whose anti-communism was of far greater importance to the Holy See than their Nazi past. The primary connector was Father Krunoslaw
Company, Generali announced plans for a $12-million discretionary fund for relatives of the defunct policyholders murdered by the Nazis and also provided a computerized list of over 300,000 names of insured clients between 1920 and 1945—many of them Holocaust victims—and promised to pay out on any claims against policies that were written by company branches still in existence. “I’m the last person not to want justice for Holocaust victims, says Generali’s Israeli lawyer Amihud Ben-Porat. “But
education. Other usually crystal-clear writers have weighed in with far murkier criticisms. Jonathan Tobin, one of the brighter voices in American-Jewish letters, has worried in print that the rash of “grandstanding” on Swiss loot, Nazi gold, and stolen art by Jewish organizations is “distorting our view of the Holocaust.” And syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, in one of the more extreme pieces, emotionally attacked what he called “the grotesque scramble for money” that would, he
swept down to grab it and place it under the control of state-appointed administrateurs provisoires—temporary trustees. “Vallat,” says Paxton, “wanted to prove to the Germans that he could organize as effective an economic purge as they could.” He also wanted to block any German attempt to extend the influence of occupied-zone administrators and military personnel into the Vichy zone. The French trustees were charged not only with taking over Jewish offices and businesses but with submitting
thing my father gave away were the gold wedding rings. He gave them to the farmer to help pay for our keep.” Those Polish Jews who’d not yet been murdered or gone into hiding found themselves subject to increasing restriction and financial deprivation. The Frank administration, which had quickly confiscated major factories and businesses belonging to Jews, also blocked individual bank accounts and stringently limited the amount of money Jews could keep in their homes. The punishment for
