Christopher Shays: “I want to explain my support for S. 768, and say why this private bill serves an important public purpose. In January…”

“I want to explain my support for S. 768, and say why this private bill serves an important public purpose. In January, Christopher Meili made a simple moral choice. When he found financial records documenting accounts opened by European Jews while the Nazis were in power, he could have ignored them. He was a security guard at the Union Bank of Switzerland, and he could have followed orders. He could have allowed the records to go to the shredder, to oblivion. Instead, Meili made a choice. He gave the records to Jewish leaders, to help them document the problem of assets stolen from the heirs of Holocaust victims. It's true that theft is less egregious than murder, greed less evil than race hatred. But justice demands a reckoning, a settling of accounts. Christopher Meili's choice placed him on the side of those against forgetting, in favor of justice. Christopher Meili's employer, the Union Bank of Switzerland, acknowledged that an employee had destroyed records in a regrettable incident. But the chairman accused Meili of having some other motive than morality or compliance with a Swiss law mandating preservation of these records. Christopher has also received death threats. He has had to leave his homeland, with his family. I support Christopher Meili's moral choice, and I support this bill.”