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 The
“1939” Club Humanitarian Award to be Presented to Christoph
and Giussepina Meili at Salute to Israel Celebration on Sunday,
June 7, 1998
Bank guard saved
Holocaust era records
Christoph Meili, a 27 year old bank guard
was making his rounds at the Union Bank of Switzerland when he
discovered boxes of Holocaust era bank documents about to be
shredded. After discussing the matter with his wife and
receiving her agreement and support, he secretly took over some
of them to a Jewish organization in Zurich and to the police.
His action caused a storm of controversy in Switzerland.
Although at first denying that the records were from the
Holocaust era, Switzerland’s largest bank finally confirmed
that the documents discovered by Meili near its shredder now are
related to property sold by Jews to the Nazis.
Union Bank of Switzerland admitted its chief archivist
previously shredded documents but it is not known which
documents were destroyed. Swiss law prohibits the destruction of
documents that might relate to investigations into the WWII era.
Some of the documents were relevant to the research
of an international panel of historians
investigating Switzerland’s dealings with the Nazis.
Saul Freidlander, the holder of The “1939” Club Chair
on Holocaust Studies is a member of that panel.
As a reward for his heroic actions, the
bank fired Meili while the Swiss government said Meili may have
violated the country’s secrecy laws and could be jailed. The
investigation is still pending.
Meanwhile, Meili, his wife and two children fled to the
United States after receiving hate mail and death threats.
Testifying before the Senate banking
Committee, Meili stated that he received threats that his
children age 2 and 4 would be kidnapped “and held for ransom
for the money he’d be getting from Jews.”
Meili also testified that he saved the
bank records just weeks after he had seen Steven Spielberg’s
film “Schindler’s List.”
Senator Barbara Boxer praised Meili’s
action: “Rest assured that you did the right and moral thing
in turning in the documents to the Hebrew Congregation of Zurich
and subsequently to the Swiss police” she said.
Senators hailed Meili as worthy of the
title “righteous gentile” conferred on non-Jews who saved
Jewish lives during the Holocaust.
“You have joined this very august group
of people” said Senator Christopher Dodd who recalled his own
father’s work prosecuting Nazi bank officials as the lead U.S.
prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.
Christoph Meili and his family can now
call the U.S. their home. President Clinton has signed into law
a bill, unanimously adopted by both houses of Congress, granting
permanent U.S. resident status to the Meili family. The Meili
family has the distinction of becoming the only Swiss nationals
to ever be granted political asylum in the U.S.
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