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Merrill Lynch Trust Bank of Michigan offers a unique
array of trust and estate planning services and more ways to
make your financial plan work for you. Our Trust Officers will
work with you and your professional advisors to develop trust,
estate planning and tax minimization strategies.
The depth and range of our trust planning capabilities
continues to grow. To help service your needs, we have
recently hired several professionals with extensive trust
backgrounds. These include:
Mark Mitchell
Chief Executive Officer/President
Bruce E. Fralick
Senior Vice President/Chief Trust Officer
Mari Anne Guidobono
Vice President/Trust New Business Development
Lori A. Goschinski
Assistant Vice President/Trust Officer
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provide opportunities for meeting charitable giving and other
financial objectives. To take advantage of our services, call the
•Trust. Bank directly at the following number, or contact a
Financial Consultant at one of the following local Merrill
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1-800-727-MLTB (6582)
Merrill Lynch Trust Bank of Michigan
1577 North Woodward Avenue, Suite 130
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
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313-996-1111
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Bank market is the second most
important after the U.S., espe-
cially for Israel's marginalized
producers. Also, they have had a
very good relationship with
Palestinian businesspeople. Re-
member, they supported Peres
in the election.
Q: Wasn't that in part be-
cause they had to be seen to
be supporting the man they
thought would win?
A: From an economic indica-
tors perspective, I think Peres
was the first leader in the world
to lose an election with a rosy eco-
nomic situation: growth was up,
GDP was up, unemployment
was very low and direct foreign
investment had increased — be-
cause of the peace process. Look
at the figures today. Everything
is down.
Netanyahu's privatization
may increase the number of lo-
cal investors, but if the current
political situation continues, I
don't think Israel will have in-
ternational investors. ❑
Swiss Duplicity?
Switzerland may have done more than harbor Nazi
plunder during the war, documents suggest.
DANIEL KURTZMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
I
t may well be the last chapter
of the Holocaust.
Half a century after Nazi
Germany plundered billions
of dollars worth of gold from Jews
and from occupied countries in
its march across Europe,
Switzerland has been forced into
a financial and moral accounting
of its own actions during the war.
A storm of international criti-
cism has engulfed Swiss society
in recent weeks as newly declas-
sified documents show that the
neutral Swiss turned a substan-
tial profit — and helped finance
the German war effort — by act-
ing as the Nazis' bankers during
World War II.
AllegatiOns have mounted that
the Swiss National Bank know-
ingly purchased and laundered
millions of dollars in looted Nazi
assets during the war years, in-
cluding jewels stolen from Jews
on their way to death camps.
Switzerland is known to have
made its banks available for the
safekeeping of tons of so-called
Nazi gold — some of it believed
to have been melted down from
wedding bands and from the fill-
ings of Holocaust victims.
The Swiss agreed after the
war to turn over $60 million
worth of gold to the United
States, Britain and France for
eventual return to the countries
from which it was pilfered. But
according to a recent British gov-
ernment report based on newly
revealed documents, that figure
accounted for only one-tenth of
the Nazi gold stash.
The remaining gold — esti-
mated now to be worth some $6
billion — may still be sitting in
Swiss vaults, the report said.
The recent revelations — and
the flurry of media reports fo-
cusing on them — have placed
Switzerland at th, center of an
international inquiry into the
fate of Nazi gold.
The questions Switzerland
faces, however, run far deeper
than the whereabouts of the pre-
cious metal.
For 50 years, Switzerland has
sidestepped inquiries about its
relationship with Nazi Germany,
citing bank secrecy laws and its
neutral posture.
But now, under increasing
pressure from Jewish organiza-
tions as well as from U.S. and
British officials, Switzerland has
been forced into an uncomfort-
able and belated reckoning with
its past.
The unearthing of historical
documents have fed mounting
speculation that Switzerland
may have, in effect, bought its
neutrality during the war by de-
veloping an expedient relation-
ship with the Nazis. That
relationship, in turn, caused con-
siderable "damage" to the Allied
war effort, as stated in a U.S. in-
telligence report from 1945 on
the "objectionable activities of
Swiss banks."
Elan Steinberg, executive di-
rector of the World Jewish Con-
gress, said, "It is safe to say that
without the financial and eco-
nomic assistance rendered to
Nazi Germany by use of Switzer-
land as a clearinghouse, the war
could not have continued as long
as it had."
Some have leveled more sting-
ing indictments against Switzer-
land.
"Because of actions the Swiss
government took, Jews died,"
said one U.S. official who asked
not to be identified.
The revelations are based on
documents uncovered from the
U.S. National Archives and for-
eign archives in recent months
by the WJC and the Senate
Banking Committee. Re-
searchers uncovered the 50-year-
old documents as part of a
parallel investigation into assets
deposited in Swiss banks by Jew-
ish Holocaust victims.
The exhaustive search of the
intelligence documents, some of