Suit Alleges Insurance Firms Stole Billions From Holocaust Survivors

The pursuit of justice for Jews betrayed during World War II widened Monday as lawyers accused seven of Europe’s largest insurers of stealing billions of dollars from Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

A $7-billion class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of a dozen American plaintiffs, some in their 80s and 90s, accused the insurers of failing to honor policies bought before the war and, in some cases, giving money to the Nazis instead.

“We were victims twice,” said plaintiff Amalia Kranz Burstin, 67, of Brooklyn, whose father survived the Buchenwald concentration camp but his heirs couldn’t collect on his insurance policy after he died in 1967.

Many Jews bought life, disability or property insurance from companies in Austria, Germany, France and Italy during the tense years before World War II, said attorney Edward Fagan, who hopes to expand the suit to a class-action case involving more than 10,000 plaintiffs.

But once the war started, insurance companies turned over the proceeds of policies to Nazis who had stolen policy numbers from the victims, the lawsuit claims.

After the war, Jews were turned away by the companies, which said they could not locate policies or the policies had been canceled because policyholders had stopped paying the premiums, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses the insurance companies of concealing vital information.