They are two very different and very complex people from different generations and different backgrounds, and yet — in their own ways — they are waging the same battle. State Treasurer Barbara Hafer and heralded Holocaust survivor Professor Elie Wiesel were together at Professor Wiesel’s speaking engagement last month at The Forum. That night marked just one occasion on which, as part of their vast careers, the two notables have been called upon to spread the cause of their missions and recount the horror that existed in World War II Europe.

Last month at The Yeshiva Academy-sponsored, An Evening with Elie Wiesel, the capacity crowd had the opportunity to hear first-hand the injustices and terror delivered by Nazi Germany and, through the message delivered by the Nobel Peace Prize award winner, were able to relate that indifference to today’s issues of racism, hate, and intolerance. Calling indifference “its own sin and its own punishment,” Wiesel detailed his personal experiences as a Holocaust survivor and was able to trace many of today’s troubles to the fact that indifference is common merely because it is “so easy” and because it is based on “objectivity” — a downfall that, according to Wiesel, eventually turns into a mindset that he referred to as “neutrality.” In Wiesel’s terms, neutrality — not becoming involved — “covers up all kinds of sins” and, after listening to the renowned author and activist, it is clear that it is those sins of hate and ignorance that still haunt the world today. And it was that struggle for universal justice and truth that became the path on which the careers of Wiesel and Hafer began to intersect.

Hafer became involved in Holocaust issues after attending an informative meeting in New York City in December 1997. Shortly after that meeting, she was named to The National Executive Monitoring Committee, a five-member national board comprised of some of the nation’s top financial officers. The committee, which includes Hafer and officials from California and both New York City and state, has been pivotal in monitoring and securing the recovery of Holocaust assets for survivors and their heirs. What the committee found was that, unlike American treasury practices that return unclaimed property to its rightful owner, many European banks — including Switzerland — accrue unclaimed assets to themselves. Therefore, the majority of the monies that were deposited before and during the events surrounding World War II, including the Holocaust, became dormant after seven years and were claimed as property of the country. It was this perceived unethical “taking” of the dormant and “looted” assets, combined with the World Jewish Congress and a survivors lawsuit that brought the actions — and the committee — to the forefront. “This event is so outrageous that it just had to come to a head. And there was enough of us on our side willing to take the risk … that were willing to take the initiative to come forward that it just brought it to a head.”

While the battle is far from over — the committee is still working on a settlement with banks from Germany and have scheduled discussions with French banks that are to be held in September — Hafer is eager to express her pleasure in helping to bring about the first settlement reached by the committee — the $1.25 billion that the Swiss banks have agreed to pay in Holocaust claims. Although much of Hafer’s involvement has been on a national level, she has been sure to keep her efforts close to home. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., 1800 Holocaust survivors are on record as being Pennsylvania residents, with 400 of those filing claims under the State Treasury’s Holocaust claims workshops. According to Hafer, the twelve workshops, held in various regions throughout the area, including Harrisburg, were organized to give the local survivors “the specifics of what was happening” and to identify “the people that have had monies or had families who placed their assets in Swiss banks or other banks.”

It was during this process that Hafer found herself dealing with not only business issues, but issues of the heart, as the more knowledgeable she became, she found that she “became more emotionally involved — it was impossible not to …” “Many people had not talked about these incidents,” Hafer added, as she conveyed the great sense of emotion that surrounds the issue, “They didn’t want to talk about them. They had pushed them back in their minds, they may have never even told their families.”

With the 1998 settlement from the Swiss banks, approved claims have begun to be paid out over a three-year period by Credit Suisse and Union Bank of Switzerland to those survivors or heirs that had dormant accounts in World War II Europe. While the Treasury is no longer taking claims at the moment, Hafer takes pride in the fact that the global settlement — a settlement whose final amount remains a question — is helping to, in some way, ease the horror of the past for some of the survivors. “$1.25 billion is nothing compared to what the original amount is,” Hafer states, adding, “There is really no way to pay a cash amount for the recovery of family members … it’s a matter of justice, it’s a matter of fairness, it’s a matter of history so that people understand how horrible this had to have been.”