Building brotherhood

Regarding "There can be no compensation for history," June 21

As lead counsel on the lawsuit Alperin vs. Vatican Bank, a class action against the Vatican Bank and the Franciscan Order for restitution of loot seized by the Croatian Fascists from Serb and Jewish victims during the Second World War, I can understand Mr. Saltpeter's bewilderment with the plethora of Holocaust era lawsuits now being processed. However, Mr. Salpeter has missed the point of the current lawsuits. He contends that we are opening a Pandora's box, presumably allowing evils to escape. The lawsuits cannot adequately compensate for past history or suffering, but they can impose a rough justice on the banks, insurance companies, and corporations that have wrongfully profited from the misery of others.

Unlike human beings, these artificial creations have no natural lifespan, but as legal entities may continue to indefinitely enjoy their ill-gotten gains. The Vatican Bank laundered hundreds of millions of dollars looted from Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies to enable mass murderers like Artukovic, Pavelic, Barbie, and Eichmann to elude justice. Should the Vatican Bank and its accomplices be permitted to continue business as usual? Now that the documents of this crime have been finally declassified, should an entity to which a few dozen years is inconsequential be permitted to escape punishment?

Mr. Salpeter confuses the topic by tossing in the issue of reparations for African-Americans. Each case should be examined on its own merits. If U.S. courts will permit such lawsuits, sufficient corporate defendants are identified, and statutes permit, then black Americans may get their reparations. Otherwise, it is a political, not a legal, process, beyond the scope of comparison.

Finally, while some Jewish victims have obtained a modicum of relief, other groups of victims, like the Orthodox Christian Serbs who were slaughtered at Jasenovac concentration camp and in their homes by the Croatian Nazis, have received nothing. Likewise, victims of the Japanese wartime conglomerates should get their day in court. Mr. Salpeter closes his piece by stating that the extension of the list of restitution claimants could blur the unique nature of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe. Giving other victims their due hardly detracts from the Holocaust, but instead builds brotherhood and solidarity.

Jonathan Levy

www.vaticanbankclaims.com

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