Panelists Discuss Holocaust Redress

About 90 law students crowded into Hauser Hall at Harvard Law School (HLS) yesterday to hear a panel discussion entitled "Litigating the Holocaust? The Role of Private Law and Litigation in Redressing International Calamities.".

Panelists gave presentations on recent class action lawsuits in three areas pertaining to the Holocaust: against Swiss banks for hindering Holocaust survivors from reclaiming property and for receiving gold looted by the Nazis; against insurance companies that sold life insurance policies in territories occupied by the Nazis; and against companies who used concentration camp labor.

"This is not about money. This is not about art. This is about memory," said Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, a panelist.

After Bemif Professor of International Law Detlev F. Vagts '48-'49 provided background information on the cases, Story Professor of Law Arthur T. von Mehren '42-'43 praised the idea of class action suits.

"The whole range of problems that emerge are such that people...cannot bring legal action that they finance themselves," he said, explaining that the possible winnings would be less than the court expenses.

He said that these three class action cases will most likely be settled by an international agreement.

Compensation was touched on by M. David Rosenberg, professor of law at HLS.

"I'm a technician and I design class action suits to make litigation painful and costly for wrongdoers," Rosenberg said.

Jens Drolshammer, a professor of law at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and a visiting scholar, spoke about the necessity of an international under-standing on court proceedings.

"We have to learn from examples. What do other countries do?" he said.

Bromley Professor of Law Arthur R. Miller, a lawyer in the Swiss banks cases, then discussed the larger implications of the cases.

He told of a woman whose parents-who had kept perfect bank records-died at Auschwitz. After World War II, when she tried to retrieve their accounts, she was repeatedly turned away by the bank, which told her that she needed father's death certificate, which did not exist.

"It is only these chances that give her a chance to be heard," Miller said of the class action suits.

Minister and Deputy Head of the Task Force on Switzerland and the Second World War Lukas Beglinger, a participant in cases involving claims against Swiss banks; visiting professor of law Robert Braucher and Johnston Lecturer on Law Peter L. Murray '64-'65 also participated in the panel.

After the presentations, the panel fielded questions from the audience.