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. "There is no basis in reality to the report," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin NavarroValls said Tuesday. He said it is based on an anonymous source "whose reliability is more than dubious."
Asked about the disclosure, President Clinton said the United States has taken the lead in the search for Nazi gold taken from Holocaust victims.
"We'll keep working on this until we do everything we can to make it right," he said.
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.
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.