A group of seventeen Holocaust survivors yesterday filed an application in the Brooklyn court to bring a class action against Chase Manhattan Bank, JP Morgan Bank, and five large French banks. The suit alleges that the banks took deposits of Jews in France for themselves, after France was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940.
This is the first time a lawsuit has been filed against US financial institutions in relation to the property of Holocaust victims. The Israeli government has maintained its US accounts at Chase Manhattan for decades. The bank’s alleged involvement in the theft of Holocaust victims’ deposits was reported in "Globes" last month, and, following this report, the bank entered into negotiations with the World Jewish Congress, and with the Prime Minister’s Diaspora affairs adviser Bobby Brown.
The French banks being sued are Credit Lyonnais, Societe Generale de Paris, Credit Commercial de France, Credit Agricole, and Banque Nationale de Paris. The suit was filed in the name of survivors living outside the US.
The suit alleges that the respondent banks blocked access by French Jews to their bank accounts in obedience to Nazi orders, and thus cut off from them the possibility escaping from the country.
The claim does not stipulate an amount, but seeks compensation for the accounts and punitive compensation for the banks’ behavior.
The claim is largely based on a US intelligence report from April 1945, which severely criticizes the behavior of Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan in occupied France. Among other things, it mentions that Chase Manhattan replaced its American manager in Paris with a Swiss national, in order to continue operating France even after war was declared between Germany and the US.
Chase Manhattan said in response that it had been negotiating with the World Jewish Congress for several weeks on the question of compensation for the account holders or their heirs, and was therefore disappointed at this "gratuitous lawsuit". The bank estimates that only 100 accounts were blocked, but said that, despite this, it was dealing with the matter with the utmost seriousness. The bank said that if the acts attributed to it were in fact committed, this was in complete contradiction to its principles.
JP Morgan said in response that its top management understood the seriousness of the matter, and would painstakingly investigate the charges against the bank.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on December 24, 1998