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Friday April 9, 1999

World Report U.S. envoy hosts seder in Moscow

MOSCOW (JTA) -- The U.S. ambassador to Russia hosted a first-night Passover seder at his Moscow residence.
Leaders of Russian Jewry and Jewish Americans working in the Russian capital attended.

Swiss task force on Nazis winds up

BERN (JTA) -- The Swiss government announced last week it is shutting down the task force that oversaw efforts to examine the nation's wartime past.

The controversy regarding the nation's Nazi-era financial dealings "has been settled," the government said.

The settlement last August "between the major Swiss banks and the World Jewish Congress together with the class-action plaintiffs has finalized all financial claims on Switzerland."

Lufthansa offers to join slave fund

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Germany's national airline said last week it is prepared to pay into a fund to settle claims against German firms that profited from slave labor under the Nazi regime.

Lufthansa officials acknowledged the firm had used prisoners of war and others living in occupied countries at its wartime plants.

Alleged war criminal to return to Europe

BERLIN (JTA) -- An alleged war criminal will return to his native Lithuania.

Last year, the U.S. Justice Department accused Vincas Valkavickas of guarding 3,700 Jews who were shot in Lithuania in 1941.

Under the terms of an agreement completed last Friday, Valkavickas acknowledged that he failed to disclose his wartime activities when he applied to enter the United States.

Volkswagen pays out more than $1.2 million

FRANKFURT (JTA) -- Volkswagen has paid out more than $1.2 million from a humanitarian fund it established last September for those survivors who worked as slave laborers for the German firm during World War II.

According to a company spokesman, more than half of the 219 recipients of the fund live in Israel, the Netherlands and France.

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