Hitler's Silent Partners
Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, And The Pursuit Of Justice
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning journalist Isabel Vincent unravels the labyrinthine story behind the headlines by taking us through the life of survivor Renée Appel, who found refuge in Canada. With her, we come to understand what it means to wait for justice: how, on the eve of war, desperate men and women entrusted their life savings to Swiss banks; how Nazis laundered gold looted from Jewish families; how the demands of international business, Swiss bank secrecy, and greed kept the truth hidden for over half a century and still prevent restitution from being made. Hitler's Silent Partners is a rigorous and often heartbreaking look at statistics seldom given a human face.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Secret Swiss bank accounts have long been used to hide funds that depositors wish to protect from detection. European Jews threatened by Nazi Germany used such accounts to avoid confiscation of their assets. Vincent (See No Evil), an investigative journalist for Toronto's Globe and Mail, tells the story of one Viennese Jewish family, the Hammersfelds, who are now seeking to recapture such an account that they believe was opened by their grandfather after the Germans annexed Austria in 1938. One of the weaknesses of using the Hammersfeld family as an example of Swiss bankers' recalcitrance is that they admittedly possess no concrete evidence other than a recollection that their grandfather had set up a Swiss account before he eventually perished. From the book's title, one might expect exclusive insights into the role of supposedly neutral Swiss bankers during WWII in helping the Germans launder confiscated gold and finance the country's war machine, yet Vincent adds little to what is already known. Still, this compendium of information reads like a stirring saga of one family's struggle to survive. Author tour.
