More questions, more squirming

THE heat on Switzerland's government and bankers intensified on May 7th when the United States government issued a damning report on the failure of Swiss banks to return assets to relatives of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. What is becoming ever plainer is that a lot of Swiss bankers and politicians knew that money sitting in Switzerland after the war had been stolen. Indeed, a number of them actively strove to avoid repaying it to their rightful owners or their heirs. The American report suggests—with fresh evidence—that there were Nazi sympathisers inside Swiss banks who continued, after the war, to thwart the course of justice. The report also fingers a number of then-neutral countries—Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Turkey—who still have a lot of explaining to do. What is as unclear as ever, however, is exactly how—and how handsomely, in terms of cash—the Swiss, and others, can be made to make amends.