It's a complicated case that's been going on for a decade. Briefly summarized, the class action lawsuit was filed on behalf Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank and the Franciscan Order for the money and gold stolen by the NDH (the WWII puppet regime of Croatia). The assets allegedly were eventually deposited in the Vatican Bank and/or Franciscan Order coffers.
A Wikipedia article about the case is located at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_acti ... and_others
The case is also documented on the UN High Commission for Refugees website at
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher ... 023,0.html
The United States State Department has a report titled U.S. and Allied Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations With Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on Looted Gold and German External Assets and U.S. Concerns About the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury located at
http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/rp ... links.html
The Plaintiffs in the case maintain their own website at
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com
Their most recent press release from April 2009 is the following:
(see http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/april%202009.htm)
The Sixth Amended Complaint is located at http://vaticanbankclaims.com/six.pdf but the website freerepublic.com has an HTML version at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2231152/posts for those who might want to take a long at a very long (but doubtless very interesting) document.New Allegations by Holocaust Survivors against Franciscan Order - OFM
Details Slowly Emerge about Nazi Gold in Vatican
April 16, 2009
San Francisco
United States District Court for Northern California
Alperin v. Vatican Bank and Franciscan order
Case No. C-99-4491 MMC
A federal court judge has overruled objections of the defendant Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (OFM) and has permitted the filing of an Amended Complaint in the decade long lawsuit Alperin v. Vatican Bank & Franciscan Order. The plaintiffs, Holocaust survivors and their heirs from former Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, are seeking an accounting and return of gold and other valuables deposited at the Vatican Bank in 1946 by members of the Nazi puppet government of Croatia known as the Ustasha who were sponsored and assisted by the Franciscan Order - OFM.
New details link the Nazi loot to the ongoing “Zagorec diamond affair” trial in Croatia involving millions of dollars of diamonds that were furnished by the Croatian Catholic Church to purchase arms for the fledging state of Croatia during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Additionally, the involvement of the Franciscan Order in the United States and Rome with post war money laundering is chronicled along with a description of the Ustasha treasure convoy and the initial deposit of the funds at the Vatican in 1946.
For a copy of the Court order and Sixth Amended complaint go to:
http://vaticanbankclaims.com/news.html
For more information:
Vatican Bank Claims
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com
[email protected]
Dr. Jonathan Levy
Attorney for Holocaust Survivors