cover image THE VICTIM'S FORTUNE: Inside the Epic Battle over the Debts of the Holocaust

THE VICTIM'S FORTUNE: Inside the Epic Battle over the Debts of the Holocaust

John Authers, Richard Wolffe, . . HarperCollins, $29.95 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-06-621264-7

Authers and Wolffe, journalists for the Financial Times, trace the efforts made from 1995 to date to win compensation for those who lost assets and endured forced labor at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators in WWII. They talk to the heads of Jewish organizations and senior American government officials, all of whom were fighting on behalf of the victims, as well as to the victims' lawyers. Using strategies such as threatened boycotts, calculated emotional outbursts, public pressure campaigns and class action suits, this group of Americans targeted European banks that had pocketed balances belonging to Holocaust victims, insurers who never paid out life insurance proceeds, and industrial concerns that benefited from forced (and even slave) labor during the war. Though impressive settlements have been negotiated, the story is a dispiriting one, regardless of how one feels about reparations: each new episode in the battle generated recriminations and bitterness among the plaintiffs, and distribution is the most contentious phase of all. Some of the lawyers are drawing multimillion-dollar fees while their clients receive amounts in the low thousands. Certain Jewish organizations that had led the compensation campaign are now fighting Holocaust survivors for control of the money. Authers and Wolffe's well-researched and nuanced book demonstrates how the struggle for reparations has simultaneously been a fight for justice and a vindictive squabble over money. (June 7)

Forecast:Aside from this book's natural audience in the Jewish community, it should also be instructive to anyone interested in the hot question of reparations to African-American descendants of slaves.