Swiss banks aren't the only facilities accused of safeguarding plundered Nazi-era gold. A newly declassified document identifies the Vatican as a postwar repository used by the ousted Nazi puppet government of Croatia.
In the first evidence of Vatican complicity in the handling of Holocaust loot, a document uncovered by researchers points to 200 million Swiss francs, mostly in gold coins, held for members of the deadly Ustasha after the fall of Nazi Germany.If the 200 million Swiss francs were still held today, they would be valued at about $170 million, plus hundreds of millions more in accumulated interest.
The Vatican denied the accusation Tuesday. "There is no basis in reality to the report," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. He said it is based on an anonymous source "whose reliability is more than dubious."
Ustashas who controlled Croatia during the war exterminated hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies, and historians have denounced the Vatican for maintaining ties to the regime led by Ante Pavelic. A Croatian cardinal was convicted by the postwar communist government of abetting war crimes.
The document, disclosed by researchers for an A&E Television documentary, is an internal U.S. Treasury Department memo kept secret for 50 years. It is among 15 million U.S. documents related to the safekeeping of Nazi-plundered gold, mostly by Swiss banks. New details of the scandal continue to emerge as various researchers pore over the trove.
"Approximately 200 million Swiss francs was originally held in the Vatican for safekeeping," says the declassified Oct. 21, 1946, memo from Treasury agent Emerson Bigelow to his superior, Harold Glasser, identified as director of monetary research.
In another development, the Swiss Bankers' Association is trying to resolve claims to looted gold by buying space in newspapers around the world this week to list owners of all dormant accounts dating to World War II, The Times of London reported Tuesday.
Surviving account holders or their heirs will be encouraged to come forward to settle the accounts, the newspaper said. Any money unclaimed a year from now will be donated to charities chosen by the association and Jewish groups.