By Rachel Maddow | The Washington Mirror
Adapted from an interview originally published by the Abu Dhabi Times
A sweeping class-action lawsuit filed against UBS Group AG is reigniting debate over Switzerland’s role in concealing the financial remnants of Jewish life destroyed during the Holocaust. According to Dr. Gerhard Podovsovnik, Vice President of AEA Justinian Lawyers, the case could expose a long-standing network of undisclosed Swiss bank accounts — accounts that were meant to safeguard Jewish assets from Nazi expropriation but were instead locked away, forgotten, or deliberately hidden.
Representing Rabbi Ephraim Meir, Dr. Podovsovnik spoke candidly to the Abu Dhabi Times about a process that he says “weaponized red tape” to deny rightful restitution.
“We’re contacted daily by new claimants,” he said. “Families from Poland, Austria, France, Belgium, and the U.S. — all dismissed by the Claims Resolution Tribunal with the same three words: ‘No matching found.’”
The Tribunal That Closed Its Eyes
The Claims Resolution Tribunal (CRT), established in the late 1990s to handle Holocaust-era banking disputes, was billed as a historic act of transparency. Yet, Dr. Podovsovnik claims it operated with narrow criteria that excluded millions of valid claims.
“The CRT only reviewed accounts under identifiable names,” he explained. “But between 1933 and 1945, many Jewish clients used anonymous or password-protected accounts. These safeguards were necessary — they kept the Nazis from seizing funds. The tribunal ignored exactly those accounts.”
The CRT originally listed 471 banks but examined only 277. “That left 254 banks — some of the most powerful — completely untouched,” he said. “Of the 6.2 million accounts identified, just 300,000 were studied closely, and barely 52,000 advanced to review. Eyewitnesses later revealed intentional miscoding to make Jewish claims disappear from the database.”
UBS and the Shadow Network
UBS, one of the largest financial institutions in Europe, is now accused of managing the very accounts excluded from CRT oversight. Dr. Podovsovnik said the bank played “a deep, structural role” in maintaining secrecy.
“UBS was not an observer,” he said. “It was part of the system — technically, financially, and organizationally. It handled accounts that were deliberately hidden from scrutiny.”
Many affected families, he noted, come from Poland, a country still lacking a restitution law for Jewish assets seized during and after World War II. “Poland retained immense amounts of confiscated property,” he said. “Our lawsuit includes Poland as a defendant — not to assign guilt for the past, but to secure fairness in the present.”
The Human Cost Behind Bureaucratic Denial
Dr. Podovsovnik shared cases illustrating how the CRT’s procedures stripped victims of justice. One Polish family lost their private bank during the Nazi occupation. Their assets were later traced to Switzerland. Their restitution request was rejected with a short message: “No matching.”
Another family had records, a password, even the original codeword for an anonymous account — but the CRT refused to process the claim, citing the lack of a personal name.
“These aren’t technicalities,” he said. “They’re barriers designed to erase the paper trail of Jewish wealth. Thousands of families were written out of history — not through theft, but through administration.”
A Call for a Transparent Reckoning
The lawsuit demands a total reopening of excluded accounts, particularly the anonymous, coded, and numbered ones. It also calls for a new international restitution tribunal with modern forensic technology and unrestricted access to banking archives.
Finally, Dr. Podovsovnik’s team seeks the restitution of all funds still held by UBS, Credit Suisse, and other Swiss banks.
“These funds were entrusted in good faith,” Rabbi Meir said in comments published by the Abu Dhabi Times. “They were meant to protect families from Nazi persecution, not to enrich custodians. Where heirs no longer exist, these funds must aid the communities once destroyed.”
Switzerland’s Image Under Pressure
Dr. Podovsovnik argues that Switzerland’s reputation as a neutral financial haven cannot survive the weight of new evidence.
“Switzerland built a restitution process that excluded victims by design,” he said. “That is not neutrality — that is complicity. The nation benefited from silence, and that silence must now end.”
He closed with a reminder that the case is about more than financial justice:
“This is about memory, not money. Each hidden account represents a life interrupted, a story unfinished. Justice delayed is still possible — but only if the world refuses to accept ‘No matching’ as an answer ever again.”
