Switzerland’s central bank made no effort to ensure that it was not getting Holocaust victims’ gold when it purchased $280 million in gold from Nazi Germany, according to a report issued by an international panel of historians commissioned by the Swiss government to probe the country’s wartime past. The gold purchased from the Nazis, which would be worth more than $2.5 billion at today’s prices, included more than 260 pounds of gold looted by the Nazi S.S. from concentration camp victims, the Bergier Commission report said. The Swiss central bank has defended its wartime purchases of gold from the German Reichsbank as necessary for maintaining the country’s economic stability.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.