ZURICH BRIEFING April 2005

News this month

Payout

On April 13th, a federal judge in Brooklyn approved a $21.8m award for the surviving members of two Viennese-Jewish families whose trust account in a Swiss bank was plundered by the Nazis. This is by far the largest award in a claims process distributing $1.25 billion, which Swiss banks paid to settle an immense class-action suit in 1998. The Bloch-Bauer and Pick families owned a sugar factory in Vienna; in March 1938, eight days before Hitler annexed Austria, they set up a trust account with a Swiss bank (which the judge did not name) to preserve their ownership. Nine months later, however, the bank unilaterally abrogated the trust agreement and sold the sugar factory to a Nazi sympathiser in Cologne.

The judge wrote that Swiss banks, “having marketed themselves to the Jews of Europe as a safe haven for their property...repeatedly turned Jewish-owned property over to the Nazis to try to curry favour with them.” The claim was made by Maria Altmann, the 89-year-old niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, on behalf of about two dozen living descendants.

Dumping ground

Ammunition of various sorts has been littering the bottom of Lake Zurich for decades. Oerlikon Buehrle, a machine company, dumped leftover munitions here from 1935 to 1966, and until 1935 Zurich's police force also dumped old bullets in the lake. Both had official cantonal approval.
The city's officer for waste, water, energy and air has undertaken a technical survey to see whether the munitions have impaired the lake's water quality, and whether they should be excavated and dumped elsewhere or left where they are. Officials have promised a full analysis by the end of June, though so far there are no obvious signs of damage to the lake.

Best of the best

For the fourth straight year, Zurich and Geneva share the number-one spot atop Mercer Consulting's worldwide quality-of-life survey. The survey ranked 215 cities around the world according to 39 criteria, including safety, political stability, medical care, housing costs and entertainment. Three Swiss cities—Zurich, Geneva and Berne—were included in the survey, which aims to help governments and multinational corporations evaluate how and where to relocate employees.

Zurich and Geneva each earned 106.5 points in the survey; Vancouver and Vienna followed closely, with 106 each. Berne dropped to eighth place, with 105 points; it follows Munich, Düsseldorf and Frankfurt. Atop the charts for safety alone was Luxembourg. Not surprisingly, Baghdad finished firmly at the bottom of the rankings for both personal safety and quality of life.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

With the top ranking come more tourists, reasons Frank Bumann, the director of Zurich Tourism, which means proportionally fewer German-speakers. He has therefore proposed putting English as well as German on signs and notices associated with major attractions. His proposal has won the support of the Free Democratic Party, which holds a legislative plurality and is working to push it through the city council. The party says multilingual signs would also benefit Zurchers, as they promote language skills.

The Zurich Public Transport system is taking a similar tack: from 2007, new touch-screen ticket-purchasing devices will operate in English as well as German. German, however, will continue to be the sole language for announcements on local transport. Inter-city trains already make announcements in a variety of languages, including English.

Spring cleaning

One of the most famous paintings by one of the most famous painters in Swiss history is due to leave the country, taking up residence at the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris. “Der Holzfäller” (The Lumberjack), by Ferdinand Hodler, came from the private collection of a Swiss citizen, and sold for CHF2.52m ($2.1m). It had been valued at CHF1.5-2m. Created in 1910, the oil-on-canvas work was the centrepiece of Christie's spring auction, held annually at Zurich's Kunsthaus. Hodler's lumberjack figure once appeared on a Swiss 50-franc note.

Catch if you can

May 2005

Sigmar Polke: Works and Days

Until June 19th 2005

Sigmar Polke is nominally a painter, though he has always been more willing than most to experiment with different materials and media. Since he began exhibiting widely in the 1960s, his works have often combined paints with materials as diverse as lacquer, transparent sheeting and fabric. This exhibition brings together a number of previously displayed works, as well as several new immense ones created specifically for the Kunsthaus.

Kunsthaus Zürich, Heimplatz 1, 8001 Zürich. Tel: +41 (0)44 253-84-84. Open: Tues-Thurs, 10am-9pm; Fri-Sun, 10am-5pm. For more information, visit the museum's website.

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