Banking the Holocaust

  Victims turned into villains on November 9 when the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it had arrested 17 people accused of issuing false claims and documents to obtain pensions and hardship allowances from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, better known as the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC). There are strong suspicions the $42.5 million fraud case is only the tip of the iceberg. Especially in the last two decades, the JCC has come under fierce criticism for greed, mismanagement and a lack of transparency, even within Israel and the Jewish establishment. Founded in 1951, the JCC represents Jewish victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs in negotiating for compensation and restitution from the German government “to secure… a small measure of justice.” To date, Germany has paid some $60 billion, which the JCC administered and distributed not only among victims and heirs, as was