BRAZIL-RIGHTS: Tracking Down Nazi Wealth

By Fabiana Frayssinet Reprint | | Print |

Fabiana Frayssinet

SAO PAULO, Aug 12 1997 (IPS) - More than 50 years after the end of World War II, the Brazilian government has established a commission to probe the fortunes brought here by former Nazis who fled Germany with the destruction of Hitler’s Reich.

The commission, the first of its kind to be set up in Latin America, will attempt to trace part of what Jewish organisations call “the biggest robbery in history” – committed against the victims of the Holocaust.

“The presidential decree that created this commission gives it all the necessary instruments to investigate the wealth obtained by the Nazis through crimes against humanity,” said lawyer, Decio Milnitzky, a member of the “Commission of Investigation of the Nazi Patrimony.”

The Commission, comprising representatives of civil society and religious groups, has been formed under the umbrella of the Ministry of Justice. Brazil has one of the largest Jewish populations in Latin America, with 150,000 members, second only to Argentina’s 220,000.

“Our main concern is the wealth brought to Brazil by the Nazis,” Milnitzky explained. “They are active accounts, which could have been used by the war criminals to live comfortably, and to foment Nazi movements.”

he admitted the commission will have its work cut out in delving into the the archives of immigration offices, bank acounts and documents that date back 55 years. At that time, according to the leader of the Jewish community in Sao Paulo, Rabbi Henry Sobel, the government of Getulio Vargas allowed 1,500 Nazis to enter Brazil.

“They deposited their money in the banks, bought land, organised themselves and even brought in others, while the government of Vargas turned a blind eye,” said Sobel, another commission member.

Historian Maria Luiza Tucci, who will be in charge of the commission’s historical research, said the Vargas administration acted in collusion with the fleeing Nazis. “The government of Vargas opposed the entrance of Jews through an anti-Semitic immigration policy and quite clearly identified itself ideologically with both nazism and fascism,” she said

During the Vargas era, the Nazi Party remained active in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre and “we have the names, addresses and nationalities of the members of those groups,” she added.

To clear up this dark page of history, the commission will also have to probe the records of the Bank of Brazil to attempt to track the fortunes of alleged Nazi immigrants as all financial operations were centralised in the one bank at the time. Then it will compare the names on the accounts with lists of people who collaborated with the Gestapo – the Nazi secret police – and if legally authorised to do so, it could recommend the confiscation of the wealth to be distributed among Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

“We want to raise public awareness on the atrocities committed 55 years ago, eventually return the possessions to the Jews, and restore the dignity of the survivors, to the extent that it is possible after the loss of six million lives,” said Sobel.

One of the first tasks will be to investigate the origin of a fortune deposited in the Bank of Brazil in Sao Paulo by Albert Blume, a German citizen accused of being a Gestapo agent. The fortune, worth more than four million dollars, included 240 valuable objects such as wedding rings, gold ingots, and gold dentures, presumably stolen freom Holocaust victims.

After a dispute between several of Blume’s heirs, a judge ruled that the fortune legally belonged to 94-year-old Margarida Blume who lives in southern Brazil.

But historian Ben-Abraham, vice-president of the Association of Holocaust Survivors, insists the treasure belongs to the Jewish community: “I have documents proving that Blume, before coming to Brazil, was a Gestapo officer. It is absurd that possessions belonging to Jews, like teeth extracted in concentration camps, have been turned over to a Nazi heir.”

The commission will also track down remittances sent by Jews in Brazil which never made it to their families in Europe.