(Check against Delivery)

As the new kid on the block, I am probably the least qualified to introduce the set of studies, which are the reason that we are together today.
But perhaps it is useful that - just three weeks less one day before the Commission's work is done and it presents its Report to Parliament - to give you a sense of how a newcomer - and a non-Swiss one at that - sees this work. And perhaps more important, how one sees the questions that the Commission was charged to research. For while answers may change over time as we learn more, it is the underlying questions that remain the same. And for exactly that reason, it may well be that the main contribution your Government made in setting up the Commission - and the Commission in responding - is that questions that had remained unasked for half a century, finally were asked.
You may recall last time we met, I said that the remarkable thing is that in seeking to know the facts of the Holocaust era, Switzerland did not remain alone - as of today 25 national Commissions are looking - or have looked - into their country's handling of Holocaust era assets. The difference is that Switzerland was the first country to set up a Commission and that it mandated a wider search and, therefore, gave its Commission a longer life than any of the other countries.
This of course raised questions in itself: in the beginning many here asked "why Switzerland?" and even more "why Switzerland in such critical terms?" Some of the aspects of the "Why Switzerland" question are for an outsider perhaps a little less hard to consider. After all, Switzerland was already a center for asset management in the 1930's. As such it actively sought to attract funds that were looking for safe haven - a term that later acquired a special meaning, but that describes motivations quite precisely. In doing so, it offered strong legal protection of property rights and, uniquely, of anonymity. - In fact, at least three of the studies being presented today address these points. - But a safe haven, of its nature, serves a non-resident population. For Switzerland this meant that post-war problems involving Holocaust era assets and victims did not have much home grown interest they could engage. Resolution of these problems, however, depended upon domestic support as they required departures from business as usual. This, of course, was very different from the circumstances in which the formerly occupied countries found themselves. There post-war governments were faced directly and immediately with the problems of the recovery of assets and their restitution. How adequately they dealt with these questions, is - or was - the work of their national Commissions. And it is clear from the results so far, that they also fell short of a full resolution. Nevertheless, all of them had walked this road at least part of the way. The point made about Switzerland was that, for whatever reasons, it was seen as never having begun that journey in earnest, even though it had been a focal point for the placement of the assets in question. In that latter respect, it was comparable to the United States, which also had been a major refuge for the assets of persecutees. But there were also major differences: first, much of the assets that had come into the United States before and during the war, flowed back to their countries of origin and, with them so did any associated restitution problems; second, the US harbored reasonably large resident interest groups, Nevertheless, even there other priorities reigned and many questions remained open. It was not until 1999, two years after the birth of the UEK, that the US established a Commission to look at its own handling of Holocaust era assets.
Of course, though many other factors played a role as well, the fact that Switzerland had never addressed these problems in a comprehensive manner and that there was little, if any doubt, that there was unfinished business was one important reason why the finger was pointed at your country. But why the virulence?
To my mind, this also is linked to the fact that the basic questions regarding Switzerland's attitude to and handling of Holocaust victims and their assets had been laid aside - to all intents and purposes - for half a century. Over that time two perspectives of the Swiss role during the Nazi period had been allowed to become ingrained: what you would call the Frosch und die Vogel Perspektive of Switzerland. From one point of view Switzerland is seen as a country full of profiteers looking only to their own bottom line, and from the other it is seen as a valiant little land, that against all odds had resisted the Axis in thought and deed. I will leave it to you to figure out which is the Frosch and which the Vogel's perspective. Of course, neither provides a true insight into facts of the period. It was thus the task of the UEK to surface the facts that lay buried in the past and to help build what I would like to call a "Mensch" Perspektive.
Did we succeed? Of course, one should never expect an unqualified answer to a question like this from an economist. More properly phrased, the question should perhaps be: would we have done things differently if we were starting now? To this question, though being well aware that I came late to these endeavors, and of course, speak only for myself, I can give an unequivocal answer. It is a resounding "Yes". For only if we can answer "yes" can we hope to have begun to fulfill our task successfully. Indeed, the learning process, even for those among us who started as experts in the field, was enormous. I hope that in conveying what we have learned, we will - at least - have shown that we asked the right questions, filled in some gaps in knowledge and, perhaps most important pointed the way for others to carry this work forward.
In thinking about what motivates our quest, I may, to some extent be parting company with some of my colleagues here and elsewhere. While it is true that uncovering the facts of the period is the least we owe the memory of the victims, I would argue that putting these questions, as uncomfortable as they may be, and seeking the answers is something we owe ourselves.
And now, I owe it to my colleagues to cede the limelight and the time as they actually have new facts and insights to convey.