Jewish leader says Chicago trial against Hungarian banks may be justified

A lawsuit filed by Holocaust survivors and heirs against Hungarian banks for confiscating deposited assets during WWII may be justified, head of the Hungarian Jewish federation Mazsihisz Peter Feldmajer told MTI on Sunday.

Claims for property do not become forfeited and the banks must take responsibility for the deposited assets, Feldmajer said. It is another matter whether the banks that are subject to the lawsuit today can be considered legal successors, he added.

However, the National Bank of Hungary has a clear responsibility for the deposits, Feldmajer said. Under a 1944 government decree, all Jewish people had to put their assets in a bank deposit, the gold and other objects then were transferred to the National Bank of Hungary, he added.

A lawsuit filed for such deposited assets "may be successful and rightful," Feldmajer said. The heirs must prove their claim with documents and a claim can only be submitted for concrete objects, not for general compensation, he added.

A group of Holocaust survivors and heirs filed a lawsuit in Chicago on Thursday against several banks, including banks based in Hungary, demanding compensation of more than 2 billion dollars.

According to the plaintiffs, the National Bank of Hungary, the Erste Group Bank, the MKB Bayerische Landesbank, the Creditanstalt Bank and OTP Bank, or their predecessors participated in the Holocaust, they were accomplices and instigators by appropriating the assets of Jewish victims.

Unicredit Bank told MTI on Sunday that it is not a legal successor to Creditanstalt Bank.

The other four affected banks in Hungary told MTI on Saturday that they had not yet received a statement of claim and were therefore unable to react.

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