World Report Needy survivors to receive U.S. aid

WARSAW (JTA) -- Authorities in Warsaw have successfully resolved a controversy over a planned housing complex on the site where 300,000 Jews were deported during the Holocaust.

This week, Warsaw's mayor said he will turn over another plot of land for the proposed complex, leaving the area around Umschlagplatz free for the possible construction of a memorial, according to Stanislaw Krajewski, a Polish Jewish leader and the American Jewish Committee's consultant on Poland.

The controversy erupted when Polish Jewish groups denounced plans by a housing cooperative to build houses at Umschlagplatz. A monument has stood at Umschlagplatz since the late 1980s, but the site has not been maintained.

Did Allies warn Swiss about Nazi gold?

GENEVA (JTA) -- Switzerland's central bank failed to halt purchases of Nazi gold in the latter stages of World War II despite warnings from the Allies that it was buying looted gold, according to a new study conducted by the Swiss National Bank.

Still, the report defended the bank's overall wartime practices of buying gold as necessary for the country's economy.

Red Cross to probe dealings with Nazis

GENEVA (JTA) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross agreed this week to appoint a panel of historians to investigate why the organization provided passports after the war to Nazi war criminals such as Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann.

The decision came after the Red Cross came under pressure from Swiss lawmakers who had seen recent media reports about the organization's postwar activities. In a related development, the Swiss government promised to investigate media accusations that the Swiss consul in Genoa, Italy, provided several war criminals with Red Cross travel documents at the end of the war.