Switzerland rejected a U.S. senator's accusations that it is stalling an inquiry into the unclaimed bank deposits of Holocaust victims, calling the claims "insulting and totally unacceptable."
But Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti's statements only led to harsher criticism by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, who said the Swiss handling of the current investigation was as irresponsible as their dealings with the Nazis in World War II."What they are doing is adding to this gruesome chapter by today failing to act responsibly," D'Amato told The Associated Press in New York on Sunday. "I think theirs is at least as great a sin and misdeed as those who initially brought it about."
Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine added to the increasing accusations about Switzerland's wartime financial dealings with a report saying the Nazi regime sold the Swiss National Bank some $400 million in gold stolen from other countries and from the millions of people it murdered.
The Swiss sold nearly half of the gold to other nations' central banks, mainly Portugal's, Newsweek reported this week, citing documents from 1945 and 1946.
Under international pressure, Switzerland agreed this year to independent and government investigations into the unclaimed bank deposits of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, who had stashed their money in the banks for safekeeping as the Nazis gained power.
While Jewish groups claim the banks still hold billions of dollars in Jewish assets, Swiss banks say their own search last year found only $32 million.
D'Amato, a New York Republican, has accused Switzerland of dragging its feet in tracing the funds. He has ordered hearings in the Senate Banking Committee.
"I completely reject his charges," Cotti told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper.
"His charges that we want to delay the investigations or that we are not credible because we are Swiss are insulting and totally unacceptable," Cotti said.
Told of Cotti's statements, D'Amato said Swiss officials were using "new denials, half-truths and distortions" to avoid dealing with the question of what happened to the money.
Cotti and other diplomats have said their investigations may take years given the sheer volume of archive material.
Documents recently released indicate that Switzerland used money from Nazi victims' bank accounts to negotiate unrelated postwar compensation agreements with other countries.
D'Amato released letters this month describing how Switzerland formed a "secret agreement" with Poland on June 26, 1949, to confiscate the assets of Polish Jews.
The Swiss government confirmed it had found secret archive letters detailing an agreement to hand over to Poland's communist regime the assets of Polish Holocaust victims deposited in Swiss banks.