After the historic settlement of Holocaust survivors' claims against banks for World War II-era assets, ADL urged that while justice must be pursued for these survivors, it is important to keep in perspective the central lesson of the Holocaust: Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis solely because they were Jews.

In a major speech at ADL's National Commission Meeting in Boston in November, ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman addressed the quest for restitution, and spoke of his approach to the Swiss bank settlement:

I was concerned that a protracted discussion and debate on this issue would bring a high price for the Jewish people, for history and for memory. I feared that such a debate would skew the Holocaust, making the last sound bite of this century not that the Jews died because they were Jews, but because they had bank accounts, gold, art, and property. If you keep repeating it enough, you establish that sound bite ­ the reason the Jews were killed was because they had money, because they had riches. To me that is a desecration of the victims, a perversion of why the Nazis had a Final Solution, and too high a price to pay for a justice we will never achieve.