Synopses & Reviews
The Holocaust was not only the greatest murder in history; it was also the greatest theft. Historians estimate that the Nazis stole roughly $230 billion to $320 billion in assets (figured in today's dollars), from the Jews of Europe. Since the revelations concerning the wartime activities of the Swiss banks first broke in the late 1990s, an ever-widening circle of complicity and wrongdoing against Jews and other victims has emerged in the course of lawsuits waged by American lawyers. These suits involved German corporations, French and Austrian banks, European insurance companies, and double thefts of art—first by the Nazis, and then by museums and private collectors refusing to give them up. All of these injustices have come to light thanks to the American legal system.
Holocaust Justice is the first book to tell the complete story of the legal campaign, conducted mainly on American soil, to address these injustices. Michael Bazyler, a legal scholar specializing in human rights and international law, takes an in-depth look at the series of lawsuits that gave rise to a coherent campaign to right historical wrongs. Diplomacy, individual pleas for justice by Holocaust survivors and various Jewish organizations for the last fifty years, and even suits in foreign courts, had not worked. It was only with the intervention of the American courts that elderly Holocaust survivors and millions of other wartime victims throughout the world were awarded compensation, and equally important, acknowledgment of the crimes committed against them.
The unique features of the American system of justice—which allowed it to handle claims that originated over fifty years ago and in another part of the world—made it the only forum in the world where Holocaust claims could be heard. Without the lawsuits brought by American lawyers, Bazyler asserts, the claims of the elderly survivors and their heirs would continue to be ignored.
For the first time in history, European and even American corporations are now being forced to pay restitution for war crimes totaling billions of dollars to Holocaust survivors and other victims. Bazyler deftly tells the unfolding stories: the Swiss banks' attempt to hide dormant bank accounts belonging to Holocaust survivors or heirs of those who perished in the war; German private companies that used slave laborers during World War II—including American subsidiaries in Germany; Italian, Swiss and German insurance companies that refused to pay on prewar policies; and the legal wrangle going on today in American courts over art looted by the Nazis in wartime Europe. He describes both the human and legal dramas involved in the struggle for restitution, bringing the often-forgotten voices of Holocaust survivors to the forefront. He also addresses the controversial legal and moral issues over Holocaust restitution and the ethical debates over the distribution of funds.
With an eye to the future, Bazyler discusses the enduring legacy of Holocaust restitution litigation, which is already being used as a model for obtaining justice for historical wrongs on both the domestic and international stage.
Review
" . . . a fruitfull approach to the study of how women in history were able to shape their private stories for public consumption to promote their own legacy."
“Shockley has written a fine historian's biography that is also a good read. The Captain’s Widow of Sandwich shows how Burgess created her own heroic persona and how that particular version of one woman’s story embodied and ennobled the ideals of an embattled Cape Cod community.”
“Shockley’s fascinating analysis of the life and writing of Rebecca Burgess complicates our understanding of the construction of white, middle-class womanhood in Victorian America. Burgess neither rejected nor embraced the traditional meanings of womanhood in her day. She was independent and obedient, domestic and a wanderer. She valued ‘separate spheres’ and loved her ocean travels with her sea captain husband. Burgess’s story is a cautionary tale, a reminder that real human beings are generally more complex than we may realize.”
Review
“Megan Taylor Shockley has written a fine historian's biography that is also a good read.
The Captains Widow of Sandwich shows how Burgess created her own heroic persona and how that particular version of one womans story embodied and ennobled the ideals of an embattled Cape Cod community.”
- Cynthia Kierner, author of The Contrast: Manners, Morals, and Authority in the Early American Republic
Review
“A masterly study of the search for justice against long odds. Its analysis is compelling, its importance immense. It is also a fascinating read.”
-Daniel Jonah Goldhagen,author of Hitlers Willing Executioners and A Moral Reckoning
Review
“An indispensable guide to the complex and controversial struggle for justice in the aftermath of the Holocaust.”
-Michael Berenbaum,The University of Judaism
Review
“This book should be read by everyone interested in how some measure of justice was obtained for victims of the Holocaust and about how issues of historical injustice should be addressed by the international community.”
-Paul Hoffman,Chair, Amnesty International
Review
“Michael Bazyler brings the passion of a child of Holocaust survivors and the tenacious investigative skills of a lawyer in addressing the complexities of Holocaust restitution. The result is courageous, provocative, and sobering.”
-Rabbi Abraham Cooper,Simon Wiesenthal Center
Review
“An incisive work of legal history and an invaluable guide to the litigation involving Holocaust-era assets. Bazyler offers an elegant and up-to-date study that will prove indispensable for those interested in restitution law, the Holocaust, and the issue of historical injustice.“
-Jonathan Petropoulos,former Research Director, Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States.
Synopsis
In 1852 Hannah Rebecca Crowell married sea captain William Burgess and set sail. Within three years, Rebecca Burgess had crossed the equator eleven times and learned to navigate a vessel. In 1856, 22-year-old Rebecca saved the ship
Challenger as her husband lay dying from dysentery. The widow returned to her family's home in Sandwich, Massachusetts, where she refused all marriage proposals and died wealthy in 1917.
This is the way Burgess recorded her story in her prodigious journals and registers, which she donated to the local historical society upon her death, but there is no other evidence that this dramatic event occurred exactly this way. In The Captains Widow of Sandwich, Megan Taylor Shockley examines how Burgess constructed her own legend and how the town of Sandwich embraced that history as its own. Through careful analysis of myriad primary sources, Shockley also addresses how Burgess dealt with the conflicting gender roles of her life, reconciling her traditionally masculine adventures at sea and her independent lifestyle with the accepted ideals of the periods “Victorian woman.”
About the Author
Michael Bazyler is an international law litigator who is professor of law at Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, California, and Research Fellow, Holocaust Education Trust, London, England. He is the author of Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts (NYU Press, 2003).