The grandson of pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was awarded $168,000 on Wednesday in a case against Swiss banks accused of betraying their Holocaust-era customers in favor of the Nazis.
The estate of Anton Walter Freud, who died last year at age 83, will receive the money as part of a $3 million payout to 23 claimants, according to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn.
The judge approved the payment on the recommendation of a court-appointed tribunal that disburses funds set aside under a settlement between Holocaust survivors and the banks.
In Sigmund Freud’s case, a tribunal investigation found convincing evidence that he was a victim of persecution and that “much of (his) property and assets were confiscated” by the Nazis, the judge wrote.
Freud and his family were allowed to leave Austria for London in June 1938. He died in exile in September 1939 at age 83.
The Holocaust survivors and their families sued Credit Suisse Group, UBS AG and other Swiss banks, accusing them of stealing, concealing or sending to the Nazis hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Jewish holdings and destroying bank records to cover the paper trail.
The judge approved a $1.25 billion settlement in 1998 and appointed the tribunal to process more than 30,000 claims. Lawyers representing the victims say about 3,000 claims totaling $287 million have been paid so far.