Swiss refuse to examine gold's origins

The Swiss government yesterday bowed to international pressure and announced plans to lift the secrecy surrounding its banking business to help the search for Nazi gold.

Admitting that allegations that Switzerland has hoarded property stolen by the Nazis had seriously damaged his country's reputation, Flavio Cotti, Foreign Minister, said the draft degree intended to feed the investigation had been approved in all respects. But to the disappointment of Holocaust survivors, he appeared to back down from a thorough examination of what happened during and after the war by stressing that an agreement in 1946 had settled the issue of stolen gold and German assets "definitively".

"Switzerland is prepared to investigate this chapter of its more recent history once again, although the Swiss authorities previously looked closely into both of the question of the assets of Nazi victims as well as property from the former Nazi Germany," Mr Cotti said.

Claiming that the British media was conducting a campaign against Swiss banks and Switzerland itself, Mr Cotti went on: "The Federal Councils take these extremely grave accusations very seriously.

"Switzerland is accused by the public of having received the stolen property of the Nazi reich. We are asked to prove our innocence or to admit our moral guilt, which to some is already established in any event. There is no doubt that these accusations have seriously damaged Switzerland's reputation. It is therefore all the more important to undertake the investigation of Switzerland's relationship as a financial centre with the former Nazi Germany speedily."

The decree suspending Swiss bankings' traditional secrecy will have to be confirmed by the Swiss parliament .Banking inspectors will then be given power to examine all the relevant records.

A delegation of Holocaust survivors accompanied Greville Janner MP, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress and chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, when he met the Swiss charge de affaires, Robert Reich, yesterday.

After a lengthy meeting, Mr Janner described the Swiss announcement as "most important", though some of those with him had reservations.

Araeh Handler, 81, who helped bring 10,000 Jewish children out of Germany in the Kindertransport programme, said he hoped the Swiss would now find a way to apply these funds to the "right purposes".

But Martin and Ester Freidman, 72, who lost their families in the concentration camps, said they feared all the survivors would be dead before the money stored away could be of benefit to them. "They are dragging it out now until we're old and dead," Mr Freidman said.