May 27, 2003
Pro Bono Honors Students Assist in Holocaust Litigation Assets Project
Tiffani Audliett didn’t want to wait until her J.D. was in her hands before she started making a difference. She wanted to use her skills right away. So, when Audilett, a TJSL 3L, and president of the International Law Society discovered the Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation project while visiting the University of Arizona, she knew she had to become involved.
The immediate task was daunting. A 1998 U.S. District Court ruling resulted in a $1.25 billion dollar settlement against the Swiss banks. According to the Public Law Network, these banks “knowingly retained and concealed assets of Holocaust victims and collaborated with and aided the Nazi Regime by accepting and laundering illegally obtained Nazi loot and profits of slave labor.” Nazi victims and their families were invited to fill out documents called Initial Questionnaires. These questionnaires were sent to various organizations that could access those harmed by the Nazi actions in WWII. The result was the filing of 600,000 claims, all of which would need to be processed. This is where Audliett decided she and some other TJSL students could be of assistance.
In January of 2002, she recruited 20 students to volunteer a minimum of thirty to fifty hours in return for pro bono credit by going over the questionnaires. The questionnaires asked victims questions such as whether they were forced into slave labor, or had valuables that the German troops took and to list what they could remember being stolen from them. The passage of time created some memory gaps in Holocaust survivors, and assisting in filling out the questionnaires was frequently an emotionally experience for the students.
“You can spend a lot of time getting into the story and soon you have to depersonalize yourself,” said Audilett. “I can’t do this for a substantial amount of time. It’s depressing,” said Sarah Powell, VP of the International Law Society.
One woman was a teenager during WWII, who outlived her parents and relatives. She has no form of documentation, only the memory of her parents’ ordeal. “My parents often discussed their business, its successes, its profits and their assets at the dinner table. . .It is possible that . . . savings accounts [were] held in Swiss banks.” Her narrative is the only physical evidence available to prove that she might claim reparations.
“The project is a real eye opener and very educational in a lot of ways. You understand a personal aspect of the war,” said Powell.
The questionnaire portion of the litigation project will take years to complete, but for the participants in the TJSL Honors Pro Bono project, it is work which has deepened their appreciation and respect for the survivors of the Holocaust and their heirs.