MIAMI – After years of bitter negotiations and a multi-million dollar settlement, Tuesday finally brought Holocaust survivor David Mermelstein the sweetest reward in the protracted legal battle against the U.S. government for its role in seizing Jewish valuables after World War II:
An apology.
“It’s a burden off our backs,” said Mermelstein, the president of the Coalition of Holocaust Survivors in South Florida.
The apology issued by the U.S. Justice Department Tuesday was part of a $25.5 million settlement approved last month between the government and Hungarian Jews like Mermelstein who lost valuables that had been seized in Austria in 1945 aboard the so-called Nazi Gold Train.
Instead of returning the property to its owners – Jews and non-Jews spread over several countries – U.S. officials auctioned much of it to pay for refugee relief efforts. A presidential commission later found some luxurious items were kept by American generals.
The government “regrets the improper conduct of certain of its military personnel,” who kept items such as artwork, gold, Oriental rugs and china looted by the Nazis and later stored on the train, the statement read.
“The United States has concluded that, although the conduct of its personnel was appropriate in most respects, it was contrary to U.S. policy and the standards expected of its soldiers.”
Mermelstein was one of about 475 Hungarian Jews in Miami-Dade County who joined the 2001 lawsuit, which named as plaintiffs some 60,000 Holocaust survivors.
The settlement money does not go to individual victims, but rather to social services organizations that aid Jews who lived in Hungary at the end of the war.
One of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Sam Dubbin, stressed in a statement that it was important the government accept its role in thefts and the failure to return property requisitioned from the train.
“We hope it will stand as a durable lesson for the future,” Dubbin said of the settlement.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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