Each weekday, Laszlo Zobel, 98, a retired textile maker fond of colourful jokes, leaves his fin-de-siècle apartment in the company of a nurse, and visits a specialist to treat the chronic osteosclerosis he suffers from.
Merely being allowed into the headquarters of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (JCC) in New York is a fairly rare event. Being granted an audience on the 20th floor with a senior official like Gregory Schneider is even more seldom.
NEW YORK – When the board of directors of the Claims Conference gathers here next week for its annual meeting, controversy again may lead the agenda for the group that handles German compensation for Nazi atrocities against Jews.
The federal courtroom in Manhattan was notably empty considering the eye-catching size and target of the fraud: a 15-year campaign to falsely claim $57 million meant for some of the world’s neediest Holocaust survivors.
Two years ago, at the annual Claims Conference board meeting, directors representing the World Jewish Congress, the Jewish Agency and others, failed in their efforts to introduce meaningful reforms to the organization.