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News A s efforts were pressed in fed- eral court in New York to compel European insurance companies to honor previ- ously denied claims of Holocaust vic- tims, New York State prepared to open a Holocaust Claims Processing Office in Lower Manhattan. The office, which will handle insur- ance and banking claims stemming from the Holocaust, is expected to open at 2 Rector St. It is designed to help those who did not see the names of relatives on the list of 1,800 names released last month by Swiss Bankers Association. "We're going to provide assistance to people who believe they have a legitimate claim of assets held in a [Swiss bank] account during World War II," said state Banking Commissioner Elizabeth McCaul. "We are also working on a plan to take in insurance claims." She said the office's eight-member staff would help claimants fill out forms and aid in making their search for supporting material more success- ful. "They should come and bring whatever information they have [about the accounts], including copies of any letters they have received or anything that was told to them," said McCaul. In particular, she said the state wants to help those who paid the Swiss banks to search for a relative's account and received a letter saying the search failed to locate an account. "The governor has stepped forward and said it is a travesty that people sent money to an ombudsman to do a search and then got back nothing," said McCaul. "There will IDe no charge for any of the help we provide." She said Gov. George Pataki made available $550,000 to establish the office for one year. It will be handicap accessible and the investigative team staffing the office will have computer skills, a knowledge of European histo- ry and speak a variety of languages, including Yiddish, Polish, Russian, Hebrew and Spanish. "I expect to have a very talented group that will bring a lot of expertise to this effort," said McCaul. She said claimants are invited to either walk in or to make an appoint- ment once the office opens by calling (800) 695-3318. The office will be , open daily from 8:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Once a claim is filed, McCaul said her staff would follow through by talking with representatives of the Volcker Commission, an independent group now auditing the books of Swiss banks. "We are also doing searches of our own with the banks," she said, refer- ring to the work of her department with the Swiss banks based in New York during the war and at least five domestic banks in New York that acted as liaison for Swiss banks with- out offices in the state. "The search is like putting a plug in a socket," said McCaul. "An impor- tant part of the trail [of the accounts] is here in New York. We follow the path the money took when it was transferred to New York and we intend to follow it back to Switzerland. We have to take that information and plug it into the data that was gathered by the Volcker Commission." Meanwhile, a Manhattan federal court this week held a hearing on a class-action suit filed by Holocaust survivors against 16 European insur- ance companies that they claim cheat- ed them of billions of dollars. Two survivors, Margaret Zentner and Marta Cornell, went with their lawyer, Edward Fagan of New York, to the corporate headquarters of the German insurance group Allianz on Monday to press them to pay their World War II claims. Fagan said the families of both women had bought insurance policies from Allianz or its subsidiaries before the war. Zentner's policy was supposed to be paid when she turned 21 or married. It was paid to the Nazis instead in 1942, he said, in compli- ance with German law regarding all Jewish life insurance policies. The executive director of the World' Jewish Congress, Elan Steinberg, applauded city comptroller Alan Hevesi for "defending the financial interests of New York as well as the victims of history's greatest tragedy." ❑ — New York Jewish Week