Julius Berman Insists He’s Not to Blame for Claims Conference Botched Probe
It Wasn?t Me: Board chairman Julius Berman says he owes no one an apology for his handling of a botched probe into a 2001 letter pinpointing fraud at the Claims Conference. Image by getty images
Julius Berman, the chairman of the Claims Conference board, insisted he is not to blame for botching an investigation into a 2001 letter exposing massive fraud at the Holocaust restitution organization.
“Somebody dropped the ball. That’s this issue,” Berman, 77, said in a new interview. “My conscience is totally clean on the role I played.”
As counsel to the Claims Conference in 2001, Berman oversaw a probe into the letter, which detailed a fraud scheme masterminded by employees at the group. He is now the restitution group’s chairman, a position he has held for more than a decade.
That probe into the anonymous letter was conducted by a paralegal in Berman’s law office of Kaye Scholer and resulted in an eight-page report filed on Sept. 4, 2001. In the report, which was obtained by JTA, paralegal Ryan Tan recommends further questioning of Domnitser and calls for more investigation. There is no evidence that its recommendations were implemented.
Berman said his role in 2001 as counsel, a pro bono position that required fielding the occasional phone call and showing up to one-day-a-year meetings, did not make him privy to the internal processes of the Claims Conference. After the report he oversaw was produced, Berman passed it along to the head of the Claims Conference, Gideon Taylor, who told JTA that he gave it to Karl Brozik, the group’s director in Germany.
In Wednesday’s interview, Berman stood by comments he made to JTA in late 2011 saying he felt “no fault at all” for the fraud, that the controls in place at the Claims Conference to prevent fraud were “reasonably adequate” and that the deception discovered in 2009 was as impossible to anticipate as the attacks of 9/11.
Asked this week if the 2001 episode qualified as the “one-time” warning that should have put the organization – and Berman – on notice, he said it did not.
“Once you set up a procedure you believe covers the situation, you usually don’t go back and review it again and again,” Berman said. “You may have to trust the people you trust.
“Only as a matter of hindsight it becomes clear,” he added. “If Y and Z are in cahoots, then you really haven’t done anything.”
As chairman of the Claims Conference, Berman said it wasn’t his place to investigate allegations of mishandled claims, nor was he privy to such complaints. Berman said the 2001 episode was the only time he was ever aware of allegations of fraud at the conference.
“Do I know with any kind of authority one way or the other? I say no, I proudly say no,” he said. “I can’t get involved in that kind of minutiae.”
The person at the center of the 2001 allegations, Semen Domnitser, turned out to be the ringleader of the $57 million fraud; he was found guilty at trial on May 8.
Berman did acknowledge that the 15-year fraud scheme represented a failure for the organization.
“There was a failure, yes,” Berman said.
Berman had claimed the fraud was first brought to his attention in November 2009 by the Claims Conference’s executive vice president, Greg Schneider, who told Berman he had discovered a large number of suspicious cases.
Asked if the Claims Conference had apologized or should apologize for the fraud, Berman said an apology would have been misinterpreted by Holocaust survivors who would have thought they had been injured by the fraud. In fact, the cost of the fraud was borne entirely by Germany, which paid out $57 million more in claims than it needed because of the Claims Conference’s failure to weed out some 5,000 false petitions.
The Germans were informed of the fraud scheme soon after it was discovered, when the fraud figure was approximately $300,000, Berman said. In the early part of the investigation, U.S. authorities had been concerned that if word leaked out, suspect employees, whose actions were being monitored by the FBI, might obstruct the probe. Once the FBI began making arrests, it gave a green light for the Claims Conference to inform its board.
“We immediately notified the Germans, and the Germans said thank you for informing us and keeping us informed,” Berman recalled. “The Germans were informed in the appropriate contrite fashion.”
Asked if the Claims Conference owes an apology to anybody else for the affair that has sullied the reputation of the Jewish organization representing survivor interests – whether survivors, the Claims Conference board or the Jewish community – Berman said the thought never occurred to him.
“I never sat down and considered whether there was a need to make some public contrition,” he said. “I think the best contrition is to make sure [survivors] receive more than ever and we do whatever’s necessary to ensure the pipeline continues.”
As for his own role, Berman said now that he’s coming under increased fire from critics, there’s no question about staying the course.
“I have no choice whatsoever but to continue on because of this. It would look to the world and to posterity and to myself that I was driven out because of this stupidity, and I am not going to do it,” he said. “Every once in a while I say, ‘What do I need this for?’ And what picks me up? Another column by Isi Leibler. I refuse to buckle in to that kind of nonsense.”
On Wednesday, Leibler, a former Jewish organizational leader from Australia who now lives in Israel and writes a column for the Jerusalem Post, published a piece headlined “Claims Conference leaders must resign now.” Leibler noted it was his 21st column calling for reform of the Claims Conference.
Berman, who is also a member of JTA’s board, said he’d be happy to spend time on other things, but now is not the time to step down.
“It’s not really on my agenda today because I would only focus on whether I’ve had enough when this is over, this is behind us and we’re moving forward,” he said. “I’m a fighter. And I’m proud to be a fighter. I make mistakes, too, but if people blame me for making mistakes, I’m certainly not going to cave.”
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