Jewish Groups Angry as Nazi Names Found on Swiss Accounts

Adolf Hitler’s photographer. Adolf Eichmann’s aide. Names corresponding to those of ranking Nazis appear prominently on a list of World War II-era Swiss bank accounts--angering Jewish groups that banks had hoped to mollify by opening their sealed records.

The anger underscores the difficulties Swiss banks face in dealing with Holocaust sensitivities more than half a century after the end of the Nazi era.

A spokeswoman for the Swiss Bankers Assn., which published the list of 1,872 names Wednesday, said the inclusion of any Nazis merely reflects the banks’ attempt to be as open as possible, in compliance with the Jewish groups’ wishes.

“If some of those names are names of Nazi people--and we are checking that--that shows . . . that the banks announced everything,” Silvia Matile said.

A Holocaust research center said that six names on the list appear to match those of Nazis, with some spelling discrepancies. They included Hitler’s photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, and Willy Bauer, an alias used by Eichmann’s aide Anton Burger.

However, it was not clear whether the accounts actually belonged to known Nazis or if they were the property of other people with the same names. The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center made the Nazi connections by comparing the Swiss list with its own records of Nazis and has asked Swiss authorities for clarification.