Hitler's Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, And The Pursuit Of Justice

In this fascinating, well-researched and highly accessible book, journalist Isabel Vincent more than adequately covers the mind-boggling spectacle of the selfishness, inhumanity, and well-organized corruption of the European fellow travelers of the Nazis, who aided and abetted the progress of Germany's preparations for and later prosecution of the Second World War. Far from being the nonaligned neutral countries they claimed to be, Swiss, Portuguese, and other bankers and financers from supposedly neutral countries unscrupulously served the insidious purposes of the Third Reich by dealing with the ill-gotten goods extorted from displaced Jews, the gold bullion of the conquered countries, and the stolen art work looted from all of Europe. One finds it hard to comprehend the degree to which the Swiss in particular deliberately decided to collude with the Nazis in accepting gold in exchange for the hard currency the Germans needed to finance the war effort it began to prepare for in the 1930s. Although the author's writing style is somewhat limited, and her approach to relating critical historical events seems a bit trivial and oversimplified, the story she tells distracts one from such minor drawbacks to the book. I also found myself wondering how much of an earnest research effort the author made, as she has a tendency to quote a few authors extensively, and attributes all the quotes from each of them to a single book, such as "Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich". She also tends to repeat herself unnecessarily, and uses one particular quote from one of the protagonists on the book cover, again in the narrative a few times, and then yet again in a newspaper clipping used as part of the photo section describing Holocaust survivor Renee Lang. Yet all this seems more the result of limited experience and poor editing than anything else. Again, given the riveting story she has to tell, using first person recollection, one finds a great deal of well organized information here regarding the cupidity and deviousness of the Swiss in giving dissembling and dishonest answers for decades about the stolen treasures and life savings of so many displaced and murdered Jews still stored in Swiss bank vaults. The sad story of how and why the Swiss were allowed to get away with one of the most profitable crimes of the century makes for sad but still fascinating reading. This book is much like another more recent book, "Pack Of Thieves", by Richard Chesnoff (see my review) in its painstaking description of the varieties of humiliations, dispossessions, and barbarisms perpetrated against European Jews, gypsies and other non-Aryans by the Nazis during their twelve-year reign of terror. To Ms. Vincent's considerable credit, her story is personalized by the use of a single family to tell the tale; and this device helps to bring the unbelievably horrific nature of the persecution of the Jews into bold relief. This is a book that tells a cautionary and still topical true s

Isabel Vincent masterfully relates, in an objective and balanced manner, the gripping story of the Hammersfeld family and their quest to recover property stolen by the nazis and their inheritance deposited in Swiss banks by their grandfather, a wealthy Austrian merchant. The story revolves around their fight for justice, aided by a young crusading lawyer, amidst a flurry of world events that brought attention to the revision of Switzerland's conduct during WWII , and a thorogh examination of the myths of Swiss neutrality and banking secrecy. Vincent's account is balanced and fair, and she is careful not to blame Switzerland for all the evils of the war, while at the same time, scrutinizes the scandalous conduct of the banks towards Holocaust surivors and account heirs over a period of 50 years following the end of the war. Vincent also gives an insightful account of the political mileage sought by politicians and organizations dealing with this issue. Vincent's book is the winner of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem prize, and has been widely acclaimed by the press in France, Germany, adn Switzerland itself, as a result of its carefully researched and balanced account of the events.