Closing the books

"A growing number of recent studies have attempted to set the record straight about the Holocaust, the most horrendous atrocity in modern history. First the Swiss banks were accused of silently hoarding countless millions of dollars that belonged to Jews who had perished in Nazi extermination camps. Under pressure the banks agreed to pay up, handing more than one billion dollars to heirs of depositors and to humanitarian causes related to the Holocaust." "German corporations and banks that had profited from hundreds of thousands of slave and forced laborers then came under scrutiny. Germany established a Foundation with up to five billion dollars, for "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future," to settle all claims." "Life insurance policies that were never redeemed because the policyholders and the beneficiaries had simply vanished also came under scrutiny. The response was the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, or ICHEIC as it is known, with the mission of soliciting claims from the public worldwide and paying them off. It ended its work in March 2007, and this is its story."--BOOK JACKET.