Victim's Fortune: Inside the Epic Battle Over the Debts of the Holocaust

“Imagine a book with the narrative force and the behind-the-scenes revelations of Barbarians at the Gate. Now imagine that what’s at stake isn’t just which rich investment banker gets richer, but rather is one of the great moral issues of our time, restitution for Holocaust survivors. Imagine no more, because John Authers and Richard Wolffe have written just such a book in The Victim’s Fortune.”— Samuel G. Freedman, author of Jew vs. Jew

A riveting account of what went wrong in the battle over compensation for Holocaust survivors

Fifty years after World War II, a small group of Americans launched a campaign to confront the world with the fact that many assets looted by the Nazis had never been returned to their owners. Backed by class-action lawsuits and threats of economic sanctions, they mounted a vigorous challenge against some of the world's largest corporations and governments to demand billions of dollars. But what began as a moral crusade soon became a bare-knuckle battle that opened up painful debates about whether money can ever compensate for the horrors of the Holocaust.

John Authers and Richard Wolffe offer a spellbinding investigative account of this momentous international struggle. The Victim's Fortune captures the personalities, ruthless tactics, and moral dilemmas surrounding the fight over compensation -- all unfolding against the backdrop of one of the darkest moments in human history.

The Victim’s Fortune goes behind the headlines to uncover the real story of the fight for Holocaust restitution:

• Swiss Banks and Secrecy: An inside look at the decades-long stonewalling by Switzerland’s most powerful financial institutions and the campaign that finally forced them to open their vaults.
• A High-Stakes Legal Battle: Follow the masterminds, from the World Jewish Congress to aggressive American lawyers, as they deploy threats of economic sanctions and massive lawsuits to challenge governments and corporations.
• Looted Nazi Gold: Uncover the shocking truth about how gold stolen from victims of the Holocaust flowed through neutral countries, prolonging the war and enriching a network of international banks.
• The Human Cost of Justice: Witness the painful debates and personal toll on the survivors themselves, caught in a crossfire of politics and finance, asking whether money can ever atone for unimaginable loss.

John Authers has been a Financial Times journalist since 1990, and conducted most of the research for this book in New York where he was the paper's banking correspondent from 1996 to 2001. Shortly after completing the manuscript, he moved to Mexico City where he is now the paper's bureau chief.

A graduate of Oxford University, he more recently took advantage of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Economic and Financial Journalism to study at Columbia University, conducting the early planning for The Victim's Fortune at the journalism school, and earning an MBA from the business school

Before going to New York he worked in London, winning awards for coverage of investment (as the Unit Trust Association's national journalist of the year in 1992) and of education (as the Business and Technical Education Council's national newspaper journalist of the year for 1994). Prior to the FT, he did freelance work for London's Daily Telegraph and Guardian, and also worked for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, DC.

A keen classical singer, he has performed in Carnegie Hall and in concert halls across Europe, in the choirs for soloists including Cecilia Bartoli, Luciano Pavarotti, and Bryn Terfel. He is also an enthusiastic walker, who has climbed Kilimanjaro and reached the base camps of Everest, and of K2's Concordia glacier.

Authers lives in Mexico City with his fiancee Sara Silver, also a Financial Times journalist.

Richard Wolffe is U.S. diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times and deputy bureau chief in Washington, D.C.

Richard Wolffe is a New York Times best-selling author and Emmy Award-winning TV producer. He has worked closely with José Andrés for two decades: from op-eds and speeches to books, podcasts, and TV shows. He was executive producer of the National Geographic movie We Feed People and the Discovery series José Andrés and Family in Spain. Change the Recipe is the fourth book they have written together. Wolffe was an MSNBC political analyst for a decade, and previously worked as a White House correspondent at Newsweek and the Financial Times. He wrote three books about President Barack Obama, and writes a regular column for The Guardian focusing on US politics.