Marta's Testimony

Hello. I am glad to be here today to tell my story. My name is Marta Cornell, born Drukerova. I was born in small town in Czechoslovakia. My father's name was Leopold Drucker and he was a physician. I grew up in a privileged family. We were two children. I had a sister who was three and a half years older than me. We lived in a house where my mother's mother had also an apartment. My father had his medical office in the house. It was in the center of town. He was well-known and very well-established doctor. We enjoyed what I believed to be an upper middle-class [lifestyle]. My father, Dr. Leopold Drucker always wanted to save and ensure for our future. He started purchasing insurance policies when my older sister was born in 1924 and he added policies after that. In March 1939 the Nazis occupied our country and soon after that I think sometime in 1940 or 1941 we were thrown out of our house and we had to move to another family, Jewish family, where we had a small room where all of us lived, cooked and lived there till we were deported to the concentration camp Terezin in 1942. There we were separated from each other immediately. My father continued to work as a doctor during the horrible conditions in Terezin. I was assigned to work in the fields. In Spring of 1942 my sister was sent for two months to plant forest in a place called Shivoplot [spelling ?] with another 1,000 teenage girls. In December 1943 my sister was sent to Auschwitz. She suffered through more camps and finally ended up in Bergen-Belsen. Despite all the difficult conditions my sister survived of the actual camps but she died of typhoid in 1945 shortly after being liberated by the Allies. In October 1944 my parents were sent on a transport from Terezin to Auschwitz. They were exterminated. The only persons of my family who survived the Nazis were my 80 year-old grandmother and me. And although my grandmother physically survived, she never really escaped the camps. She went through mental torture the rest of her life. After the War my grandmother and I lived in Prague. At the time we had no money. We could hardly afford to buy the necessities. Then I remember I found a piece of paper with my father's handwriting. It was a B at first I didn't know what it was. Then I looked and it looked like insurance - number of insurance policies - date, number and for how much the insurance was purchased. There was an agent who tried to help me in 1945 to get the money but he couldn't succeed. He told me that he was told that those were unusual circumstances and those policies were purchased from Generali and Reunione Adriatica Di Sicurth. When I tried to get the insurance monies I had to fill out many forms. At first I was told by one of the insurance agents who sold my father the policies that I could get the policy proceeds. However, those companies, Generali and Reunione Adriatica refused to pay the benefits or give me any explanation of why they refused to pay on the policies. In 1948 Czechoslovakia became a communist country which made it even harder for me to fight the insurance companies to get the money that my father left for me. I came to the United States in 1964 and have lived in New York since then. Shortly after I came to New York I again started to try to get my inheritance money from Generali and Reunione Adriatica. In 1964 both companies wrote me and gave ridiculous reasons for why they were not going to pay out on the policies my father bought for our future. At that time I did not fully understand what the companies were doing. The bottom line is the companies would not pay the insurance accumulated cash value or the policy benefits. Also I applied for the benefits immediately after the war. It took years for the companies to give me the normal excuses for why they would not pay me. These excuses included the following: The company didn't have to pay because of the extraordinary circumstances B that means War. My father had failed to make the premium payments and as such the policies were canceled. My father failed to make the required premium payments. The companies applied the accumulated cash value to the missed premiums and after they used up all the available monies there was nothing left for me. The policies were nationalized when Czechoslovakia became a communist country in 1948. By refusing to pay the insurance proceeds or benefits that were due upon my demand in 1945, these companies broke the insurance contracts and stole or profited from my father's money. For over 50 years I tried to get the payments on the policies. However, until recently it was hopeless. In the last year I learned of the action taken by Senator Alfonse D'Amato from New York who has led the political battle to get Holocaust victims the return of their monies which have been withheld from us by the Swiss banks. I knew of Senator D'Amato getting the U.S. Government to de-classify very important documents related to the financial crimes of the Swiss banks and insurance companies. Then when the lawsuit by Holocaust victims against the Swiss banks was filed by Mr. Fagan and his colleagues, I contacted Mr. Fagan's office and gave him the information about my claims against Generali and Reunione Adriatica Di Sicurth which is a majority-owned company of Allianz, the German insurance giant. After a few months of investigation, we decided to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all Holocaust victims whose insurance policies were never paid by these companies. Last month I went to Munich, Germany, with regard to my claim against Reunione Adriatica and Allianz subsidiary. In a brief meeting with a spokesperson for Allianz Reunione Adriatica, I was told that they knew of my claim but that all records and all my files related to my policies were destroyed 30 years ago. I couldn't believe what I was hearing so I asked them again. I was told that shortly after I was sent the letters by Generali and Reunione Adriatica in 1964, giving the explanation or excuses which the companies were going to hide behind rather than pay my policy claims my entire file was destroyed. I was told this not only by the Allianz representative. I was told this by the Generali representative with whom I spoke later the same day as I spoke to the Allianz person. It is my understanding that there were no exclusions in the policies that would have permitted Generali or Allianz to not pay me the insurance benefits that my father left. The only thing my father left me was this insurance benefit. These are monies that my grandmother and I needed. If Generali and Reunione Adriatica had paid the claims when I made them in 1945 I would have had the money I needed so I could get my grandmother the psychiatric and medical help she needed. She would not have had to live her last few years in torment. I needed those monies then and I want them today. I can never forgive or forget. I can never forgive or forget what the Nazis did to me or my family. The Nazis were ruthless murderers who took pleasure in our destruction. For 50 years I thought the Nazis acted alone. I know the truth. I realize that the Nazis did not act alone. They had bankers and they had financial institutions behind them. And then when the Nazis were defeated and are War Criminals the financial institutions like these insurance companies who took our monies not only survived but prospered. The insurance giants Generali Reunione Adriatica and Allianz have become even greater and wealthier companies in part because they had refused to pay out on policies like my father's policies that were bought and paid for belonging to Holocaust victims. It was not only the Nazis who victimized innocent people. Europe's insurance giants also participated and benefited from the theft of assets, policy proceeds, accumulated cash value from Holocaust victims. I have almost nothing left from my family. From my father I have a copy of the paper on which he wrote the notes about the insurance policies. From my mother all I have is a little piece of the dress I last saw her wear. Every night I have nightmares about what happened to us. Please do not let the insurance companies get away with the theft of not only monies but the memories that my family and the families of thousands who left their children money to survive after the war. Please help us get justice by exposing these financial criminals. Please help us. Please help us end the nightmares. Thank you.