(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)March 22, 2011

(MAHWAH, NJ) On March 22, Jaimie Taff, an attorney who works as the Director in the Office of Special Master Michael Bradfield, Holocaust Victims Litigation, spoke under the auspices of the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies about “Holocaust Restitution in the Context of Swiss Deposited Assets Litigation.”

She discussed the landmark case arising from a series of class action lawsuits filed during 1996-1997 in several United States federal courts, alleging that Swiss financial institutions collaborated with and aided the Nazi regime by knowingly retaining and concealing assets of Holocaust victims, and by accepting and laundering illegally obtained Nazi loot and the profits of slave labor

In outlining the litigation historically, she contended that the restitution process has produced a set of outcomes that on the whole has been beneficial to survivors and their heirs. Despite intransigence and heel dragging on the part of some of the institutions involved, political pressure and due diligence combined to enable settlements to be made to many rightful claimants. From the outset, Taff pointed out, one of the problems has been missing documentation on the part of claimants. Good will and patience were just sometimes unable to surmount the lack of adequate paperwork and unfortunate circumstances

Jaimie Taff received her undergraduate degree in History from the University of Maryland (College Park), and a Juris Doctorate from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. After working as a legislative analyst with the Congressional Research Service, Ms. Taff began working for the Holocaust Claims Resolution Process Office in 2002, first as an attorney at the Claims Resolution Tribunal in Zurich, Switzerland, and later in her current position as Director in the Office of Special Master Michael Bradfield, which was charged by the relevant court with administering settlement.

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