Gregg Rickman, a leading expert on the role of Swiss banks during World War II, spoke about the role of Switzerland and Swiss banks in the Holocaust at Hillel Feb. 29.

Rickman was previously the legislative director for former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.), the former chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Rickman also served as the Holocaust Projects Director for the United States Senate Banking Committee’s Swiss Bank Inquiry from 1995-1998.

Rickman said the image that most frequently comes to mind when people think of the Holocaust are evil Nazis and concentration camps, not banks stealing money from Jews. Rickman said because Switzerland declared itself a neutral country during World War II, nobody suspected it of any wrongdoing. But through his work on the Banking Committee, he, along with others, discovered Switzerland was not completely innocent of persecution of Jews.

Swiss banks were part of the greatest robbery in the history of the world, Rickman said.

Rickman said many people, especially Jews who were being persecuted in Nazi Germany, opened Swiss bank accounts in hopes of saving their money. The Nazis were forcing many Jewish families out of their homes and confiscating their money and other valued possessions.

Because Switzerland was a neutral country, many Jews believed their money would remain safe until the war was over. But they were mistaken, Rickman said. He said after Nazi Germany was defeated and after the deaths of millions of Holocaust victims, the Swiss banks refused to turn the money over to victims’ relatives.

He said many Swiss banks asked to see death certificates before handing the money over to relatives. This was impossible for many families because those killed in death camps or concentration camps often were not issued a death certificate, Rickman said.

Rickman said the discovery that Swiss banks were hiding Jewish accounts came after a thorough investigation of documents that had been stored for more than 50 years at the U.S. National Archives.

They discovered there were more than 54,000 dormant accounts of Holocaust victims. Of these, the banks closed 39,000, absorbing the money.

I will go out on a limb and say that Swiss bankers are anti-Semitic, Rickman said. They tried to make a dime on the suffering of so many millions of people.

Rickman also spoke about other examples of Swiss involvement in stealing from Holocaust victims. Rickman said during the Holocaust the Nazis extracted gold from the fillings of many dead victims. This gold was melted and sent to Switzerland, where many top bank officials kept it, Rickman said.

Rickman also said it was the Swiss who came up with the original idea of using symbols to brand Jews. He showed the audience a German passport with a large red J stamped on the inside cover. He said it was the Swiss who came up with this idea because they did not want to have work with Jews with private investments.

After the war was over Switzerland helped many Nazi war criminals by making them fake passports and sending them to countries such as Argentina, he said.