In 1947 Estelle Sapir went to the Credit Suisse Bank in Geneva, showed officials a deposit slip dated 1938, but the bankers, unmoved, would not give her access to the account -- her father's, presumably -- without his death certificate. "I broke into tears," she says, "and I cried to him, 'You want me to get it from Hitler, from Himmler?' But it was no use."

"That was the experience of thousands of Jews," Time magazine, adds to its report, making this the lead story in its November 4, 1996 issue.

It was not the first time Switzerland acted as though, to be sure, there was a Hitler, a Himmler, but not, in particular, for Jews. That first time was in 1938 when, to quote Holocaust scholar Michael Marrus, there was "an unusual collusion between German authorities in Berlin and the head of the Swiss police, Heinrich Rothmund."

German Jews needed passports to flee, German ones of course, and not Berlin but Rothmund suggested a "J" in the Jewish. "Why didn't we think of it?", they must have thought in Berlin, and accepted the idea gratefully. Henceforth, this would discriminate between Germans to admit, if holiday makers and "Aryans," and Germans to keep out, "non-Aryans" in flight for their lives. To quote Marrus again, "Rothmund continued to wield authority over refugee matters during the war, claiming afterwards that such caution was absolutely necessary in view of the dangers that the Confederation faced." One would like to think, not very confidently, that at the time the chief of the Swiss police never quite realized.

And now, sixty years after Rothmund, and fifty after the Sapir-bank incident? Swiss U.S. Ambassador Carlo Jagmetti is on record as declaring that "from a human point of view, some real mistakes have been made [by the banks] ... that it was unacceptable [for the banks] to ask for death certificates;" that these requests were "psychological errors." (Jerusalem Post, October 31, 1996).

From the human point of view? Psychological errors? "Real mistakes"? They should have been nice to survivors and their heirs, traumatized as these poor creatures were? Not hurt their feelings, break regulations, give them charity? Even now, it seems, a major Swiss representative, speaking officially for his country, fails to recognize a moral, misdemeanor of fifty years ago, an offense against justice than which, for a banker, hardly any can be worse. Winston Churchill called for ridding the world of Hitler's shadow, at a time when he was busy with the Fuhrer alive. With Hitler dead a half a century, his shadow still lives.

And not in Switzerland or Europe alone. This month Canada made news with two facts, one inspiring -- her leadership against starvation and death in Africa -- and one depressing -- the news of hundreds of Nazis, even thousands, safe and sound, alive and unmolested, in Canada. Did I say depressing? It is an outrage.

For Jews to demand justice -- in Switzerland, Europe, Canada -- is more than the exercise of a right, more than merely about money. It is a duty, a mitzvah, as if given on Sinai itself: it helps rid the world of Hitler's shadow.

There is no mitzvah without hope. The polls show that the Israeli youth want to know what really happened with Hitler, Himmler and Jews. For the first generation, even the second and third, it was too traumatizing. "No more 'horror stories'", some tell us, "they disturb our sleep and our theology." The young will have none of that: the truth, if you please, the unvarnished truth! That's what the young want from the middle-aged and the old.

And not only in Israel. The polls show the same about Holland. The story of Anne Frank and her Dutch friends: how come so many Jews were deported from Holland? (Few returned) Why have we heard about Anne but not the Dutch Nazi party? There is hope also for the rest of Europe, perhaps even for France and Switzerland. And the Germans have published Ein Volk von Moerdern? The book asks only the question, but the answers wanted by the young are not evasions or apologetics.

In Canada they won't be left behind. Their grandfathers fought and died in the war. With the bloodshed over, how did the worst among the just-defeated enemy -- not merely Nazis but Nazi criminals -- get into Canada?

The young need hope but haven't had much in this century of hopelessness. Perhaps, with its main product, cause and symbol last gotten rid of -- Hitler, of course, who else? -- the young will learn how to hope again, in another, better century.
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