POLAND GOT MONEY FROM POST-WAR SWISS ACCOUNTS .
Marcin Grajewski
WARSAW 1996-12-06
Poland said on Friday that Swiss bank accounts , which in many cases belonged to Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust , were used in debt settlements between the two countries after the World War Two .
Foreign Minister Dariusz Rosati , unveiling first findings of a special government commission , said that in 1970s the then communist Poland received 460,000 Swiss francs from the accounts .
" In 1970s , Poland received from unclaimed accounts in Switzerland a sum of 460,000 francs .
What was its right ( to the money ) ...I do not know , " Rosati told a news conference .
Switzerland stands accused by Senator Alfonse D'Amato , chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate Banking Committee , of agreeing to give money to Poland from unclaimed bank accounts of Polish citizens , as part of an accord on compensating Swiss nationals whose assets had been seized in communist Poland .
Many of these citizens were Jews murdered during the war , when Nazi German invaders killed most of Poland 's 3.5 million Jews .
Rosati did not say whether the payment in 1970s was part of the 1949 agreement between Warsaw and Switzerland on compensation to Swiss citizens whose assets were seized by the Soviet-imposed communists authorities after World War Two .
" I expect that the commission will finish gathering information within two to three weeks and then more details will be provided , " Rosati said .
Rosati confirmed that the 1949 agreement had provided for granting Switzerland about 53 million francs and most of this sum was repaid with coal exports .
He said , however , that Switzerland did get about 16,000 francs from the so-called " dead accounts " as part of the compensation .
" About 16,000 francs were seized from accounts of four or five Polish citizens , whose data we do not precisely know .
The issue is of moral and legal nature , because its financial significance is small , " Rosati said .
Under pressure from international Jewish organisations , Swiss government has devised a plan to pay out millions of dollars in unclaimed bank accounts as a conciliatory gesture toward Holocaust victims .
The conservative Radical Democrats ( FDP ) have said they would ask parliament next week to order Swiss banks to put some 40 million Swiss francs ( $ 31 million ) in dormant wealth into a fund earmarked for Jewish groups and charitable organisations .
But Swiss banks and the country 's Jewish community voiced doubts whether the plan would work .