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Words
in the News |
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INTRO
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In
this week's story, a fund of one and a quarter billion dollars has
been established to compensate Holocaust victims and their relatives
for money frozen in Swiss bank accounts after the Second World War
and for gold seized by the Nazis and sold to Swiss banks. |
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IN
FULL
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Listen
to the report in full |
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1st July 1999
Swiss banks - compensation
for Holocaust victims
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1 |
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"Launching
the information campaign, one lawyer described it as an historic moment
which represents the late beginning of a process of justice
for Holocaust survivors. There are an estimated eight
hundred and sixty thousand survivors around the world and almost half
of them could be eligible for payments from the compensation
fund. So the task of telling them all how to apply is enormous. Five
hundred newspapers in forty different countries will be carrying full
page advertisements this week advising people on how they can
claim. A web site has also been set up to enable people to file claims
electronically." from Jane Hughes, a BBC Correspondent in New
York |
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WORDS
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launching:
starting
represents: a
formal way of saying 'is'
Holocaust survivors:
those people who survived persecution under the German Nazi regime
which ended in 1945
estimated: approximately
eligible: suitable
for / qualified
advising: this
refers to the advertisements, which will tell people how to ask
for the money
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| NEWS
2 |
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"Because Holocaust
survivors are all now elderly, the lawyers are anxious to speed
up the claims process. They’ve said all applications must be
submitted by the end of October. The one and a quarter billion
dollar settlement was agreed by Credit Suisse and UBS - two of Switzerland’s
leading banks last August under the threat of sanctions by
many American states. One of the lawyers representing Holocaust
victims said the settlement addresses the financial but not the
moral issues of restitution. He said no sum could compensate
someone for the suffering of having lost family, for being deported
or for having worked as a slave labourer."
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submitted:
sent in
sanctions : economic
or financial restrictions placed on a country or company
restitution: the
act of giving back to a person something that was lost or stolen
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Read
about the background in BBC News Online |
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