The Hungarian Gold Train was the German-operated train during World War II that carried stolen valuables, mostly Hungarian Jews' property, from Hungary towards Berlin in 1945. After American forces seized and looted the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members. [1] [2]
With the Soviet Army about 160 kilometres (100 mi) away from Hungary, on March 7, 1944, Adolf Hitler launched Operation Margarethe—the invasion of Hungary. The Arrow Cross Party – Hungary's fascist government, led by Ferenc Szálasi – collaborated with their German occupiers in forcing the estimated 800,000 Jewish citizens of Hungary to hand over all of their valuables to government officials. This included gems, gold jewelry, wedding rings, and anything else considered to be of high monetary value. The confiscated property was placed into individual bags and boxes which identified the owners, and receipts were issued. The majority of the Jews were shipped to concentration camps, particularly Auschwitz-Birkenau; most were murdered. The Hungarian authorities re-sorted all the confiscated valuables into content categories. By that time it was all but impossible to identify proper ownership of any of the valuables. [1]
In late 1944, the Soviet Army was advancing on the Hungarian capital of Budapest. A government official appointed by the Schutzstaffel (SS), Árpád Toldi, concocted a plan to evacuate much of the Jewish loot out of Hungary. Toldi ordered large amounts of the valuables onto a 46-car freight train with 213 people on board that was to head for Nazi Germany via Austria:
According to various reports about the train, the contents included gold, gold jewelry, gems, diamonds, pearls, watches, about 200 paintings, Persian and Oriental rugs, silverware, chinaware, furniture, fine clothing, linens, porcelains, cameras, stamp-collections and currency (mostly US dollars and Swiss francs). As the train meandered through Hungary, it stopped at a few locations to collect other looted and confiscated items that had been stored elsewhere, including a stop close to Abaúj Castle. On reaching a considered safe location close to the Hungarian/Austrian border, Toldi halted the train for 92 days to carefully document what he catalogued as Hungarian Government property. Jewish organizations and the Hungarian government estimated the total value of the train's contents at $350 million in 1945 [2] or almost $4 billion in 2007 adjusted for inflation. [3] Other estimates of the contents' 1945 worth are from $50 million to $120 million [4] or $570 million to $1.7 billion in 2007 adjusted for inflation. [3]
In Spring 1945, the train started its journey west again. Toldi and his family left the train with a large amount of gold on 30 March 1945, as the train crossed into Austria - the Russian Army was only 16 km (10 mi) behind. Toldi's convoy tried to enter neutral Switzerland 10 days later, but were refused entry. Toldi then turned to SS officer Wilhelm Höttl, to whom he handed over 10% of his convoy's goods (4 cases of gold) in return for both German passports and Swiss visas for all of his family. Toldi and his family then successfully entered Switzerland, but he was detained in Austria later that year. After interrogation by Allied authorities, he was released and no trace of him has been found in official records thereafter.
After passing from Hungary directly into Austria, the train stopped occasionally to transfer amounts of the gold to trucks. The fate of the gold on those trucks remains unknown. The train eventually came to a halt in the town of Werfen, best known for the medieval Hohenwerfen Castle, on 16 May 1945, nine days after the surrender of Nazi Germany. It was seized by Allied troops, first by the French Army and then by the United States Army.
The official United States asset restitution policy agreed upon at the 1946 Final Act of Paris Reparation Conference and by the Five-Power Agreement for Non-Repatriable Victims of Germany was to sell ownerless property for the benefit of non-repatriable refugees. These agreements were the basis for the creation of the Preparatory Committee for the International Refugee Organization (IRO). [1] The US had a different policy towards works of art. In accordance with long-standing international agreements, the US had a policy of restitution that "looted works of art and cultural material will be restituted to the governments of the countries from which they were taken." [1] The US Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) sent their officer Morton Himmler, who was stationed in Salzburg, to take charge of what they referred to as the Werfen Train. Himmler ordered the people on board to be immediately detained and separated from the train, although the US Army which was short of personnel allowed selected Hungarian troops to assist in unloading the train. Meanwhile, the Central Board of Jews in Hungary - an organization representing Jewish interests in Hungary, and under pressure from the occupying Soviet Army who were seeking war repatriations - and the new government of Hungary, were aware of the American seizure of the train and lobbied extensively, and sometimes passionately, for the return of all the contents of the train to Hungary where they could be sorted out in an effort to return them to their rightful owners or their family members. The US Government continually ignored the Hungarian pleas. [1]
The US Army transferred the majority of the assets to a Military Government Warehouse in Salzburg. The paintings, however, were stored in the Salzburg Residenz. As ownership of the valuables was impossible to ascertain, the official US position, as stipulated by United States Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, was that the belongings were to be given to refugee aid organizations in accordance with international restitution agreements. [1] The majority of the remaining assets from the train was either sold through Army exchange stores in Europe in 1946 or auctioned off in New York City in 1948, with the proceeds going to the IRO. According to The New York Times the auction receipts totaled $152,850.61, or approximately $1.3 million in 2007 adjusted for inflation. [3] Items of clothing allocated for Army exchange store sales that were considered of lesser value were turned over to a Division chaplain for distribution "to needy DPs" (displaced persons). [1] Some of the property from the train ended up in the possession of high-ranking US Army officers who were stationed in Central Europe to oversee post-war and Marshall Plan reconstruction efforts. By requisition order of Major General Harry J. Collins, Commander of the 42nd Infantry Division (the famed "Rainbow" Division), many of the items were used to furnish his home. Other items furnished the homes and offices of other US military officers including Brigadier General Henning Linden and General Edgar E. Hume. The property included chinaware, silverware, glassware, rugs, and table and bed linen. [1] The ultimate fate of approximately 200 paintings seized from the train is unknown. As they were deemed "cultural assets" under official US restitution policy, they should have been returned to their country of origin. That country should have been Hungary, but as of 1953 the paintings were in the possession of the Austrian government; [5] their current whereabouts is unknown. [1]
 | This section needs to be updated.(March 2018) |
The United States government kept most of the details of the Hungarian Gold Train secret from the public until 1998 when US President Bill Clinton created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. A report prepared by the committee, published in October 1999, detailed the handling of the train's assets by the United States and cited a multitude of "shortcomings" of the US restitution efforts in Austria that eventually led to the property from the Hungarian Gold Train being so readily dispersed by United States officials. It concluded that the application of several policies regarding many assets on the train ensured that they were never returned to their rightful owners. [6]
In 2001, Hungarian Holocaust survivors filed a lawsuit in a Florida district court against the United States government for the government's mishandling of the assets on the Hungarian Gold Train. The survivors amended their complaint and asserted that the U.S. government failed to maintain its promise regarding the assets and reclassified the property as "stolen enemy property" thus allowing the sale of items at auctions in 1948. The proceeds were allegedly used to pay for international refugee settlement programs and served as a cover-up for officials who looted the assets. [7] The case was settled as President George W. Bush intended to appease Jewish voters in Florida to secure their votes for the upcoming elections in 2004. David Mermelstein was the only survivor present at the mediation. In 2005, the government reached a settlement worth $25.5 million. The money was allocated for distribution to various Jewish social service agencies for the benefit of Holocaust survivors. [8] [9] Among the items of evidence submitted by attorneys who represented the survivors was a January 1949 letter written by Evelyn Tucker, a fine arts officer serving with the United States' Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program who had been assigned to the Reparation, Deliveries and Restitution (RD&R) Branch of the U.S. Allied Command, Austria (USACA). Sent to U.S. State Department cultural affairs officer Ardelia Ripley Hall, Tucker's letter documented the post-World War II looting by U.S. Army officers of multiple items from former Nazi strongholds, including items from the gold train. [10] [11] [12]
Funds from the settlement are still being distributed. On June 3, 2014, a report was filed with the federal court detailing that between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, $464,553.56 had been distributed to 12 Jewish social service organizations in Australia, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Sweden and the United States. [13]
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people." Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Stuart Elliott Eizenstat is an American diplomat and attorney. He served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 1993 to 1996 and as the United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001. For many years, and currently he has served as a partner and Senior Counsel at the Washington, D.C.–based law firm Covington & Burling and as a senior strategist at APCO Worldwide.
The Reparations Agreement between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany was signed on September 10, 1952, and entered in force on March 27, 1953. According to the Agreement, West Germany was to pay Israel for the costs of "resettling so great a number of uprooted and destitute Jewish refugees" after the war, and to compensate individual Jews, via the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, for losses in Jewish livelihood and property resulting from Nazi persecution.
The German word Wiedergutmachung after World War II refers to the reparations that the German government agreed to pay in 1953 to the direct survivors of the Holocaust, and to those who were made to work at forced labour camps or who otherwise became victims of the Nazis. The sum would amount, through the years, to over 100 billion Deutsche Mark. Historian Tony Judt writes about Wiedergutmachung:
In making this agreement Konrad Adenauer ran some domestic political risk: in December 1951, just 5 percent of West Germans surveyed admitted feeling ‘guilty’ towards Jews. A further 29 percent acknowledged that Germany owed some restitution to the Jewish people. The rest were divided between those who thought that only people ‘who really committed something’ were responsible and should pay, and those who thought ‘that the Jews themselves were partly responsible for what happened to them during the Third Reich.’ When the restitution agreement was debated in the Bundestag on March 18th 1953, the Communists voted against, the Free Democrats abstained and both the Christian Social Union and Adenauer’s own CDU were divided, with many voting against any Wiedergutmachung (reparations).
The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. There have been Jews in Austria since the 3rd century CE. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality, and during other periods it suffered pogroms, deportations to concentration camps and mass murder, and antisemitism. The Holocaust drastically reduced the Jewish community in Austria and only 8,140 Jews remained in Austria according to the 2001 census, though other estimates place the current figure at 9,000, 15,000, or 20,000 people, if accounting for those of mixed descent.
Nazi plunder was the stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany. The looting of Jewish property beginning in 1933 in Germany was a key part of the Holocaust. Nazis also plundered occupied countries, sometimes with direct seizures, and sometimes under the guise of protecting art through Kunstschutz units. In addition to gold, silver, and currency, cultural items of great significance were stolen, including paintings, ceramics, books, and religious treasures.
Aryanization was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into "Aryan" or non-Jewish, hands.
The Bergier commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government on 12 December 1996. It is also known as the ICE.
Kurt Andreas Ernst Becher was a mid-ranking SS commander who was Commissar of all German concentration camps, and Chief of the Economic Department of the SS Command in Hungary during the German occupation in 1944. He is best known for having traded Jewish lives for money during the Holocaust.
The Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce or Project HEART (2011-2014) was a Holocaust restitution project that was created by a decision of the Israeli Government to locate Holocaust victims and their heirs and the property that was taken from them during the Holocaust and to assist in obtaining restitution for that property. Restitution would have been sought using databases containing the data submitted by Holocaust victims and their heirs and information about the property that was taken from them. Those who were interested in participating were directed to fill out a questionnaire to determine their eligibility and may also have accessed a website and call center for assistance. Questionnaires had been collected and processed by an administrator and then forwarded to the Israeli Government, which had planned to negotiate with the relevant Governments, companies and others who hold Holocaust assets. This project used innovations, such as the Internet, not used in previous restitution attempts and marked the most serious attempt at obtaining restitution for aged Holocaust victims and their heirs. By April 2014 the project lost 95% of its funding, is accepting no requests, and it has eventually been absorbed into the Israeli Ministry of Senior Citizens, from which the funding into the project were coming.
Gold laundering is the process whereby illegally obtained gold is melted and recast into another form. The recasting is performed to obscure or conceal the true origin of the gold. The recast gold is then sold, thus laundering it into cash.
The London Conference on Nazi Gold was an international conference held in London in December 1997. Representatives of 41 nations participated in the Conference, including France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the three countries from the World War II Allies that fought Nazi Germany and the Axis powers that oversaw the post-War disposition of Nazi gold.
Evelyn Tucker was one of a handful of women who were employed as "Monuments Men" after World War II. According to Bryce McWhinnie, a researcher with the Monuments Men Foundation, several "unsung female American MFA&A officers – Rose Valland, Capt. Edith A. Standen, Evelyn Tucker, and Capt. Mary J. Regan, "put their personal interests in jeopardy in order to protect priceless art." All under the age of 40 when they entered their respective service positions, "each of these women left her own mark on postwar cultural heritage restitution policy."
The General Government was the German zone of occupation in Poland after the invasion by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, at the start of World War II. The General Government represented the middle portion of occupied Poland, with originally the West being under German control and the East under Soviet control. The basis for this split was to eliminate the Polish state and to turn all Polish nationals as stateless subjects, disregarding international law.
The Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017 is US legislation that requires the State Department to report to Congress on steps that 47 countries in Europe have taken to compensate Holocaust survivors and their heirs for assets seized by Nazi Germany and post-war communist governments.
The Terezin Declaration is a non-binding declaration that issued by 47 countries in June 2009, agreeing on measures to right economic wrongs that accompanied the Holocaust against the Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution in Europe. It is neither a treaty nor legally binding international agreement The Holocaust Era Assets Conference took place in Terezín, Czech Republic, the site of the Theresienstadt Ghetto. A year later 43 of the signatories endorsed a companion document, the 2010 Guidelines and Best Practices for the Restitution and Compensation of Immovable (Real) Property, which set best practices for immovable property. According to the guidelines restitution of the property itself is preferred, however when that is not possible payment or substitute property that is "genuinely fair and adequate" is possible. The declaration has no legal power and doesn't define how countries involved should act to fulfill it.
Private sector participation in Nazi crimes was extensive and included widespread use of forced labor in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe, confiscation of property from Jews and other victims by banks and insurance companies, and the transportation of people to Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps by rail. After the war, companies sought to downplay their participation in crimes and claimed that they were also victims of Nazi totalitarianism. However, the role of the private sector in Nazi Germany has been described as an example of state-corporate crime.
The Vugesta for “Vermögens-Umzugsgut von der Gestapo" was a Nazi looting organization in Vienna that from 1940 to 1945 seized the possessions of 5,000-6,000 Viennese Jews. It was a key player in the aryanization of Jewish property, redistributing private property stolen from Jewish Austrians to non-Jewish or Aryan Austrians during the Nazi reign in Austria.
The Holocaust in Austria was the systematic persecution, plunder and extermination of Jews by German and Austrian Nazis from 1938 to 1945. An estimated 65,000 Jews were murdered and 125,000 forced to flee Austria as refugees.
After World War II and coming to power of the communist government in Poland, large scale nationalization occurred. Following the fall of communism in Poland in 1989, some of the formerly nationalized property have been subject to reprivatisation and restored to previous owners, their heirs or other claimants.