In December 2004, the U.S.
government agreed to settle with Holocaust survivors
who claim that American Army officers during World
War II plundered a trainload of family treasures that had been seized
by the Nazis.
On September 26, 2005, a federal judge approved
a $25.5 million payment to needy Hungarian
survivors around the world. Instead of directly
compensating people who said their possessions
were stolen, the money will be distributed
through Jewish social service agencies over
five years, with more than 40 percent of
the money going to Israel, 22 percent to
Hungary, 21 percent to the United States,
7 percent to Canada, and the remainder to
Jews in other countries.
The case began in May 2001 when a group of Holocaust
survivors and their heirs sued the U.S. government in the Federal District
Court in Miami, Florida seeking an accounting of the U.S. property,
a return of any property still in the possession of the United States
and damages up to $10,000 (the jurisdictional limit in that court) for
as many as 30,000 Hungarian Jews and their survivors.
The government vigorously defended the lawsuit and
sought to have it dismissed. In August 2002, the U.S. District Court
in Miami upheld some aspects of the complaint, permitting the case to
go forward. On December 20, 2004, the parties informed U.S. District
Judge Patricia Seitz they had reached an agreement and she instructed
them to deliver a package detailing a worldwide settlement by Feb. 18,
2005.
The settlement addresses a mysterious incident that
occurred 70 years earlier. In 1945, in the waning days of the war, the
Nazis sent 24 train cars toward Germany carrying gold, silver, paintings,
Oriental rugs, furs and other household goods seized from Hungarian
Jews. Nazis, Hungarians and Austrians stole from the train along
the way. The train was then intercepted by U.S. forces, and American
officers helped themselves to china, silverware and artwork for their
homes and offices, according to an advisory commission appointed by
then-President Clinton.
The government has never offered an accounting, and
no one knows for sure what happened to the property, which was worth
an estimated $50 million to $120 million. Some of the property apparently
went to the quarters of senior U.S. military officers; some was sold
at PXs; some property was auctioned for the benefit of refugee organizations;
and most or all the paintings went to the Government of Austria. The
history of the train and cargo were shrouded in official secrecy until
a presidential commission
on Holocaust assets detailed it in 1999.
In November 2003, a database of 1948 auction catalogs
of more than 6,000 Jewish heirlooms and personal items went online to
support Holocaust survivors’ claims that the U.S. government sold
their families’ items when they could have been returned. The
database allows Hungarian Holocaust survivors to search for the items
the Nazis confiscated at the end of World War II. While there is very
little chance that the items will be returned, it is possible survivors
may be eligible for monetary compensation in the settlement of the class
action suit.
The Justice Department had urged the court to dismiss
the case, saying the U.S. government bears no responsibility. But the
Bush administration came under bipartisan pressure from members of Congress
to settle.
New York University professor Ronald Zweig, who wrote The
Gold Train: The Destruction of the Jews and the Looting of Hungary,
said the Army made “a very serious effort” to protect the
contents, and that the government’s willingness to settle the
case was “being done out of generosity and not because the U.S.
government did anything wrong.”
Money from the “Hungarian
Gold Train” settlement was distributed
to social service agencies to benefit Holocaust
survivors. The Conference on Jewish Material
Claims Against Germany has distributed $4.2
million to 27 social service agencies, and
will give the same amount for the next five
years. Survivors interested in learning about
the assistance can access www.hungariangoldtrain.org or www.claimscon.org.