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Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II
In the second half of the 1990s, Stuart Eizenstat was perhaps the most controversial U.S. foreign policy official in Europe. His mission had nothing to do with Russia, the Middle East, Yugoslavia, or any of the other hotspots of the day. Rather, Eizenstat's mission was to provide justice -- albeit belated and imperfect justice -- for the victims of World War II.
Imperfect Justice is Eizenstat's account of how the Holocaust became a political and diplomatic battleground fifty years after the war's end, as the issues of dormant bank accounts, slave labor, confiscated property, looted art, and unpaid insurance policies convulsed Europe and America. He recounts the often heated negotiations with the Swiss, the Germans, the French, the Austrians, and various Jewish organizations, showing how these moral issues, shunted aside for so long, exposed wounds that had never healed and conflicts that had never been properly resolved. Though we will all continue to reckon with the crimes of World War II for a long time to come, Eizenstat's account shows that it is still possible to take positive steps in the service of justice.
Imperfect Justice is Eizenstat's account of how the Holocaust became a political and diplomatic battleground fifty years after the war's end, as the issues of dormant bank accounts, slave labor, confiscated property, looted art, and unpaid insurance policies convulsed Europe and America. He recounts the often heated negotiations with the Swiss, the Germans, the French, the Austrians, and various Jewish organizations, showing how these moral issues, shunted aside for so long, exposed wounds that had never healed and conflicts that had never been properly resolved. Though we will all continue to reckon with the crimes of World War II for a long time to come, Eizenstat's account shows that it is still possible to take positive steps in the service of justice.
417 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2002
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About the author
Stuart E. Eizenstat
18 books30 followersStuart E. "Stu" 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.
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April 25, 2014Imperfect Justice by Stuart Eizenstat recounts the story of his efforts during the Clinton administration to force the Swiss, Germans, Austrians, French and others to acknowledge and make reparations for their complicity with the Nazis in looting Jewish property, forcing Jews and others into slave labor, and hiding the facts about dormant bank accounts owned by Jews that brought profits for decades to some of the most well-known banks and financial institutions in Europe.
The impetus in many of these cases was some form of class action law suit filed in the United States––class action suits that European governments and businesses wanted to avoid. But at the same time the impetus also was historical revelation, access to sealed archives, verifiable allegations, and the undying need of survivors and their heirs to ensure that the Holocaust not be concealed in some way or other by economic and political interests.
In some ways, this is a technical, diplomatic book. Eizenstat does all he can not to portray himself as a hero in it, but he clearly is a hero for what he endured and accomplished by way of achieving what he rightly calls “imperfect justice.” Many Holocaust survivors disliked the notion of monetizing what happened. Curiously, though, what happened did have a great deal to do with money, not just hatred.
The Swiss were Hitler’s bankers. They accepted stolen gold, laundered it into Swiss francs, and moved it along to third countries as payment for materiel the Nazi war machine desperately needed.
In Germany, Austria, and Vichy France, Jews lost their apartments, their jobs, and their savings as well as, of course, their lives. They were not all sent into gas chambers; many were sent into factories so ghastly that they were doomed to die there anyway, not seeing the light of day again, not breathing fresh air again, not receiving more than starvation-level nutrition again.
In this straightforward, detailed book, Eizenstat lets us see how stand-offish and greedy the Swiss were for decades after their complicity with Hitler. He dramatizes the process of prying off the lid of the Austrian myth that Austria was Hitler’s first victim, not his first accomplice (and of course, his birth place––he was an Austrian, not a German). Eizenstat also probes Germany’s industrial landscape and reveals the brutality of dozens of household name corporations . . . and their tough bargaining not to be forced to pay too much by way of reparation to survivors and the Jewish community at large. He recounts the core story of what we now see in theaters (I’m referring to the film, Monuments Men). For reasons that defy reason, Hitler and his gang of killers and thugs saw themselves as connoisseurs of fine art, especially stolen and pillaged art, much belonging to Jews. And finally Eizenstat tells the tale of French president Jacques Chirac being the first French politician willing to admit Vichy France’s culpability in kowtowing to Hitler.
Again, most of this book focuses on thievery, economic rape, if you will, so it’s not as graphically disturbing as Schindler’s List. Imperfect Justice excavates what the Nazis did in suborning their neighbors and enlisting them in pillaging the Jewish community economically before attempting to totally annihilate it.
I lived and worked as a U. S. diplomat in Germany for three years and had contact with some of the figures Eizenstat mentions here––Jewish leaders in Germany, Jewish leaders from the U.S., and many of the Germans who, a generation after the war, began the painful process of acknowledging their familial link to horror. The Holocaust was for me not a major foreign policy theme––not in the mid-90s––but it was inescapable and had to be dealt with in one way or another every week. The more I learned about the Holocaust and the more I thought I knew, the more I realized I still had to learn. I worked with survivors, and I facilitated German-Jewish encounters that still needed to happen, because they’d never happened, not in all the years since WWII came to an end.
After I left Germany, Eizenstat, a really remarkable servant of the American people appointed by Bill Clinton, dug into things that I did not know until just finishing his book a few minutes ago. The predations of the Nazis were overwhelming; their voracity insatiable; and other nations helped them in feeding their greed and stoking their ambitions.
One dimension of this book has to do with the American legal process and the lawyers who became involved in trying to extract reparations for their injured clients. I think we all know the adversarial legal system employed in the U.S. often isn’t pretty, but it was worse than usual when associated with the Holocaust. Again, I know some of the lawyers who were on the victims’ side and I know some of them who were on the accused side––representing major banks, insurance companies, and corporations.
Eizenstat asks himself if these lawyers and this legal process was too sordid to really matter, a puny thing when compared to the millions of dead who wouldn’t collect a penny stolen from them. He’s a realist, and I think correct, in assessing what occurred in wild rounds of legal diplomacy as necessary to getting at the truth as well as returning stolen goods to the injured who still lived. Certainly it wouldn’t be right for Swiss banks to keep playing a game best outlined in Dickens’ Bleak House; they couldn’t be permitted to squeeze estates dry with fees for doing nothing and hiding everything.
Then Eizenstat deals somewhat obliquely with what might be called the singularity or uniqueness of the Holocaust that some argue sets it apart from other acts of genocide. He’s not one to insist on that. What he seems to see is the necessity of facing the Holocaust as a means of learning how to face other horrors--Rwanda, Armenia, the list is long.
I tend to think that the immorality of the Holocaust really is transcendent and a thing apart, something beyond the beyond of the worst nightmare, but at the same time, Eizenstat is right: we who follow need to take on the task of remembrance in practical as well as moral and spiritual terms; we need to force questions of human rights and liberty deep into the political and economic structures of our fast-moving world. Otherwise, obscenities can and will occur again.
The impetus in many of these cases was some form of class action law suit filed in the United States––class action suits that European governments and businesses wanted to avoid. But at the same time the impetus also was historical revelation, access to sealed archives, verifiable allegations, and the undying need of survivors and their heirs to ensure that the Holocaust not be concealed in some way or other by economic and political interests.
In some ways, this is a technical, diplomatic book. Eizenstat does all he can not to portray himself as a hero in it, but he clearly is a hero for what he endured and accomplished by way of achieving what he rightly calls “imperfect justice.” Many Holocaust survivors disliked the notion of monetizing what happened. Curiously, though, what happened did have a great deal to do with money, not just hatred.
The Swiss were Hitler’s bankers. They accepted stolen gold, laundered it into Swiss francs, and moved it along to third countries as payment for materiel the Nazi war machine desperately needed.
In Germany, Austria, and Vichy France, Jews lost their apartments, their jobs, and their savings as well as, of course, their lives. They were not all sent into gas chambers; many were sent into factories so ghastly that they were doomed to die there anyway, not seeing the light of day again, not breathing fresh air again, not receiving more than starvation-level nutrition again.
In this straightforward, detailed book, Eizenstat lets us see how stand-offish and greedy the Swiss were for decades after their complicity with Hitler. He dramatizes the process of prying off the lid of the Austrian myth that Austria was Hitler’s first victim, not his first accomplice (and of course, his birth place––he was an Austrian, not a German). Eizenstat also probes Germany’s industrial landscape and reveals the brutality of dozens of household name corporations . . . and their tough bargaining not to be forced to pay too much by way of reparation to survivors and the Jewish community at large. He recounts the core story of what we now see in theaters (I’m referring to the film, Monuments Men). For reasons that defy reason, Hitler and his gang of killers and thugs saw themselves as connoisseurs of fine art, especially stolen and pillaged art, much belonging to Jews. And finally Eizenstat tells the tale of French president Jacques Chirac being the first French politician willing to admit Vichy France’s culpability in kowtowing to Hitler.
Again, most of this book focuses on thievery, economic rape, if you will, so it’s not as graphically disturbing as Schindler’s List. Imperfect Justice excavates what the Nazis did in suborning their neighbors and enlisting them in pillaging the Jewish community economically before attempting to totally annihilate it.
I lived and worked as a U. S. diplomat in Germany for three years and had contact with some of the figures Eizenstat mentions here––Jewish leaders in Germany, Jewish leaders from the U.S., and many of the Germans who, a generation after the war, began the painful process of acknowledging their familial link to horror. The Holocaust was for me not a major foreign policy theme––not in the mid-90s––but it was inescapable and had to be dealt with in one way or another every week. The more I learned about the Holocaust and the more I thought I knew, the more I realized I still had to learn. I worked with survivors, and I facilitated German-Jewish encounters that still needed to happen, because they’d never happened, not in all the years since WWII came to an end.
After I left Germany, Eizenstat, a really remarkable servant of the American people appointed by Bill Clinton, dug into things that I did not know until just finishing his book a few minutes ago. The predations of the Nazis were overwhelming; their voracity insatiable; and other nations helped them in feeding their greed and stoking their ambitions.
One dimension of this book has to do with the American legal process and the lawyers who became involved in trying to extract reparations for their injured clients. I think we all know the adversarial legal system employed in the U.S. often isn’t pretty, but it was worse than usual when associated with the Holocaust. Again, I know some of the lawyers who were on the victims’ side and I know some of them who were on the accused side––representing major banks, insurance companies, and corporations.
Eizenstat asks himself if these lawyers and this legal process was too sordid to really matter, a puny thing when compared to the millions of dead who wouldn’t collect a penny stolen from them. He’s a realist, and I think correct, in assessing what occurred in wild rounds of legal diplomacy as necessary to getting at the truth as well as returning stolen goods to the injured who still lived. Certainly it wouldn’t be right for Swiss banks to keep playing a game best outlined in Dickens’ Bleak House; they couldn’t be permitted to squeeze estates dry with fees for doing nothing and hiding everything.
Then Eizenstat deals somewhat obliquely with what might be called the singularity or uniqueness of the Holocaust that some argue sets it apart from other acts of genocide. He’s not one to insist on that. What he seems to see is the necessity of facing the Holocaust as a means of learning how to face other horrors--Rwanda, Armenia, the list is long.
I tend to think that the immorality of the Holocaust really is transcendent and a thing apart, something beyond the beyond of the worst nightmare, but at the same time, Eizenstat is right: we who follow need to take on the task of remembrance in practical as well as moral and spiritual terms; we need to force questions of human rights and liberty deep into the political and economic structures of our fast-moving world. Otherwise, obscenities can and will occur again.
November 4, 2015
The author is writing about these events as he participated in them. He was a member of the State Department and helped resolve (on behalf of the US gov) court cases and diplomatic issues with multiple European nations (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and France mainly) dealing with slave labor and looted assets by corporations during WWII. It's astonishing the power that some corporations in the USA wield over other nations because of the value of the US market and investments. Investment groups and pension funds essentially have the ability to sanction corporations they do not like and those sanctions could result in huge losses for those corporations. The author had the unenviable task of working with corporate leaders in Europe and their governments to resolve class action suits filed in the USA. This meant satisfying high powered class action attorneys along with making sure that people who were wronged by these corporations in WWII received some sort of compensation and the European corporations could afford to pay.
As important as a subject as this is, the book did drag in places. Though, the reality is that some events were resolved much messier while taking a lot more time than the author wanted leading to you, the reader, feeling the same way.
As important as a subject as this is, the book did drag in places. Though, the reality is that some events were resolved much messier while taking a lot more time than the author wanted leading to you, the reader, feeling the same way.
April 8, 2011
Stuart Eizenstat spent six years in various roles in the Clinton administration as the representative of the US Government as the international mediator in a series of Holocaust-related disputes. Eizenstadt focuses the first half of the book on a series of negotiations, lawsuits, and finally, settlement with the three largest commercial Swiss banks. The suit and settlement centered around the bank accounts of victims and Swiss bank audits by the independent Voelker commission, Additionally the other part of the settlement reparations centered on the concept of “rough justice,” defined by Eizenstadt as a “soft claims” account for survivors without documented proof to apply for funding related to looted assets, slave labor profits, and other claims against Swiss banks.
In the second half of Imperfect Justice, Eizenstadt describes his organization of the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets as his largest contribution towards dealing with art looted during the Nazi era. The conference brought together representative of western countries to discuss art, insurance, communal property, and other nagging issues, but Eizenstadt considers its handling of art claims to be its centerpiece.
From a records perspective, it is important to note the contributions to the lawsuit by independent (and hired) historians on both the US and Swiss side of the conflict who were able to construct their cases using documents held and declassified by the National Archives and Records Administration. According to Eizenstadt, NARA made over 15 million pages of documents available to researchers by the end of 1997. Many of those documents were already declassified, but may have been less than accessible. One journalist, John Marks, in writing about the Holocaust-Era Records project, stated that "since 1996, when the Holocaust restitution effort gained new momentum" archival institutions "have become drivers of world events. Their contents have forced apologies from governments, opened long-dormant bank accounts, unlocked the secrets of art museums, and compelled corporations to defend their reputations."
In the second half of Imperfect Justice, Eizenstadt describes his organization of the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets as his largest contribution towards dealing with art looted during the Nazi era. The conference brought together representative of western countries to discuss art, insurance, communal property, and other nagging issues, but Eizenstadt considers its handling of art claims to be its centerpiece.
From a records perspective, it is important to note the contributions to the lawsuit by independent (and hired) historians on both the US and Swiss side of the conflict who were able to construct their cases using documents held and declassified by the National Archives and Records Administration. According to Eizenstadt, NARA made over 15 million pages of documents available to researchers by the end of 1997. Many of those documents were already declassified, but may have been less than accessible. One journalist, John Marks, in writing about the Holocaust-Era Records project, stated that "since 1996, when the Holocaust restitution effort gained new momentum" archival institutions "have become drivers of world events. Their contents have forced apologies from governments, opened long-dormant bank accounts, unlocked the secrets of art museums, and compelled corporations to defend their reputations."
January 21, 2012
Factual, but very dry. A very good synopsis is on youTube, given by a National Archivist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2TMEF...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2TMEF...
August 7, 2018
Great book. Eizenstat is a wonderful author and an interesting person in US history. This book is very well written and easy to read. My only complaint is that I was rather bored by the details of the actual negotiations Eizenstat brokered with all of the different countries and groups of people. If a reader is interested in being a negotiator, this book is worth reading to see how a masterful and brilliant negotiator navigated the tricky and difficult waters of the emotionally charged issues of WWII-era restitution. However, if you're not interested in negotiations, those parts of the books can be skipped. There is enough other material that is interesting to make this book still worth reading. When he gets to the parts where he's like, "I talked to this guy then went into the room with these people then so-and-so leaked something to the press and then..." just scan it if you find those parts boring (like I did after I slogged through the first negotiations), but hang in there for the interesting parts because there are a lot of interesting parts.
December 29, 2025
appreciated the subject matter of Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II, but this book wasn’t a favorite for me.
A large portion of the book—around 40%—focuses on lost and looted money and financial restitution, which became repetitive and difficult to stay engaged with. The sections on looted art and slave labor were more interesting, especially the discussion of stolen artwork and efforts to recover it. Unfortunately, the lost art section was also the shortest, despite being the most compelling.
The book is very dense, even for someone who enjoys international history. There are a lot of names and negotiations to track, and the author often mentions a person’s full name once and then switches to last names only, which made it hard to keep everyone straight.
Overall, this is an important and informative book, but it requires patience and focus. I’d rate it around 2–3 stars—worth reading for the topic, but uneven and not especially engaging.
A large portion of the book—around 40%—focuses on lost and looted money and financial restitution, which became repetitive and difficult to stay engaged with. The sections on looted art and slave labor were more interesting, especially the discussion of stolen artwork and efforts to recover it. Unfortunately, the lost art section was also the shortest, despite being the most compelling.
The book is very dense, even for someone who enjoys international history. There are a lot of names and negotiations to track, and the author often mentions a person’s full name once and then switches to last names only, which made it hard to keep everyone straight.
Overall, this is an important and informative book, but it requires patience and focus. I’d rate it around 2–3 stars—worth reading for the topic, but uneven and not especially engaging.
January 19, 2014
The story in this book was fascinating, about how Stuart Eizenstat helped negotiate settlements regarding World War II with Switzerland, German, Austria and France. It also includes a chapter on looted art. I enjoyed the whole thing and recommend it. On the other hand, it was just particularly engagingly written. It's clear the author is and was a very good diplomat and negotiator, which leads to a thorough and interesting story, but not one with a lot of fire.
On a side note, I very much wish that the library's copy had had the same cover art as the goodreads photo shows - mine had a swastika made of gold bars on the front, which led me to worry that people on the subway might misconstrue my reading material.
On a side note, I very much wish that the library's copy had had the same cover art as the goodreads photo shows - mine had a swastika made of gold bars on the front, which led me to worry that people on the subway might misconstrue my reading material.
July 29, 2014
A very good read in a fairly complex legal battle
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews