Swiss Open Their Pocketbooks

BERN: The Swiss government agreed to manage a fund started by the country's three largest banks to compensate Holocaust victims. The banks had announced last week that they would put $71 million of seed money into an account at the Swiss National Bank, but said that they expected the government to manage the reparations fund and contribute to it. Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti said the account would be established within a week, and would be followed by discussions with business and Jewish organizations on how to disburse the money. The government won't decide on whether to contribute to the fund until early summer, though, when a study on Switzerland's role during the Nazi era will be published. Meanwhile, other groups are expected to contribute to the reparations fund. The industrial group Alusuisse-Lonza, which used Ukrainians as forced laborers during the war, announced Monday that it will contribute "generously" to the fund. The firm's chairman called it an important gesture to remove tensions between Switzerland and the US. "It's more than likely that other companies will follow suit soon," Mark van Huisseling, business editor with a Zurich weekly, told TIME Daily. "Several other Swiss businesses producing war materiel operated in the region along the German border."