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Inside a Class Action The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks Jane Schapiro Terrace Books, a trade imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press Reviews: "Touching letters by victims, legal memos and first-person perspectives help this book create a complete panorama of the case, and a glimpse into the personal lives of the case's personalities make it a fascinating read." —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, October 15, 2003, New York, NY "Schapiro as journalistic midwife supplies the deep thought and ethical precepts. At the completion of her book, I felt I had earned a grade of A in a lew-school seminar. Better still, I felt I had improved my understanding of international relations in a shrinking but still nation-state-dominated world." —Steve Weinberg, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, October 12, 2003 St. Louis, MO Here is the complete review by Steve Weinberg: Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks By Steve Weinberg Special to the Post-Dispatch 10/12/2003 "Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks" By Jane Schapiro Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press, 292 pages, $35.00 It is no longer news that during World War II Jews and other Holocaust victims lost their life savings, if not their lives, to the Nazis. It is also no longer news that non-Germans served as accomplices to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party. Among those accomplices were lots of Swiss bankers. Jane Schapiro, a poet and nonfiction magazine writer living in the Washington area, wanted to know more about the role of the supposedly neutral Swiss bankers. The more she learned, the more certain she became that she needed to share her findings with a general audience. But how to tell the complicated, emotional story of Holocaust survivors — or the descendants of Holocaust dead — seeking to recover assets stolen from them decades earlier? Just a few months ago, Stuart E. Eizenstat told one version of the saga in his book "Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor and the Unfinished Business of World War II". As a former high-ranking U.S. government official turned high-profile Washington lawyer, Eizenstat used his role in the dispute to compose a compelling first-person narrative. Schapiro lacks such insider status. Instead, she tells the saga through the minds of the private-practice lawyers representing Holocaust families in the courts. More specifically, Schapiro decided to feature one lawyer, Michael Hausfeld, as he leads a class-action lawsuit against wealthy, powerful Swiss banks denying their complicity during World War II and thus their alleged liability circa 2003.  At times, Schapiro seems to encounter difficulty deciding what type of book she wants to write. The dueling title and subtitle are evidence of that indecision. "Inside a Class Action" suggests a primer for law students. "The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks" suggests a journalistic expose of international proportions. Fortunately for Schapiro and her readers, the book's split personality never sabotages it. That is because Schapiro's research is so prodigious, her writing so clear, that both the class-action primer and the subject matter of the lawsuit become compelling. In general, Eizenstat savages the class-action lawyers in his book. Schapiro, although rarely letting those lawyers go unscathed, describes the value of their work on behalf of disorganized plaintiffs who have felt victimized for at least five decades. After seemingly endless litigation, Schapiro explains, nobody is going to feel completely content. Holocaust victims find it difficult to accept that their family suffering is worth such a small sum per capita. Swiss bankers find it difficult to believe that they should pay any damages after the opening of a new century. Officials from national governments and international organizations such as the United Nations find it difficult to believe their advice is so unwelcome. As for the lawyers, especially Schapiro's protagonist Hausfeld, they are so preoccupied trying to curb the divisiveness of fellow attorneys representing the myriad interests that deep thought and ethical precepts are in short supply. Schapiro as journalistic midwife supplies the deep thought and ethical precepts. At the completion of her book, I felt I had earned a grade of A in a law-school seminar. Better still, I felt I had improved my understanding of international relations in a shrinking but still nation-state-dominated world. Steve Weinberg is a freelance investigative reporter in Columbia, Mo. He writes regularly about the functioning and malfunctioning of the justice system. Author's bio Jane Schapiro is a freelance writer who lives near Washington, D.C. She is the author of a volume of poetry, Tapping This Stone, and her work has appeared in such publications as the Christian Science Monitor, Women's Review of Books, Gettysburg Review, and American Scholar. Contact For more information contact our publicity manager, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu Back to the regular web page for Inside a Class Action.

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