Holocaust survivors seek payment from Israeli bank

TEL AVIV - Dressed in striped uniforms like those worn by Jews in Nazi death camps, dozens of Holocaust survivors protested outside an Israeli bank on Tuesday demanding compensation for accounts frozen by Britain in World War II.

A spokesman for Bank Leumi, responding to the protest held in Tel Aviv a day ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, said it had long ago turned over the money to Israel.

An Israeli parliamentary committee report found in January that about 9,000 people were eligible for $23 million compensation from the Israeli government and $8.5 million from Israeli banks for frozen accounts.

Results of the parliamentary probe into the missing accounts, launched in the late 1990s, had embarrassed the Jewish state. Israel had earlier spearheaded a campaign to press Swiss banks who held Jewish assets before the war to make restitution.

The Israeli protesters complained the compensation process was going too slowly. The parliament report said Bank Leumi owed $8.1 million, more than any other Israeli bank. Israel's other large banks owed amounts ranging from $6,500 to $300,000.

"The banks are waiting for all of us to die," one sign read.

At the outbreak of World War II, most of the accounts European Jews opened in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s were designated as enemy assets by the British government and transferred to a British custodian.

They were later handed over to an Israeli custodian when Israel was established in 1948.

A Bank Leumi spokesman said his bank had handed over the money decades ago, and compensation was up to the Israeli government.

"The funds are no longer in the hands of Leumi Bank or any other Israeli bank," spokesman Gideon Shul said. "There is nothing we can do to make this process faster."

- REUTERS