Hungarian Gold Train
After American forces seized and looted the train in Austria, almost none of the valuables were returned to Hungary, their rightful owners, or their surviving family members.
A government official appointed by the Schutzstaffel (SS), Árpád Toldi, concocted a plan to evacuate much of the Jewish loot out of Hungary.
Toldi ordered large amounts of the valuables onto a 46-car freight train with 213 people on board that was to head for Nazi Germany via Austria: According to various reports about the train, the contents included gold, gold jewelry, gems, diamonds, pearls, watches, about 200 paintings, Persian and Oriental rugs, silverware, chinaware, furniture, fine clothing, linens, porcelains, cameras, stamp-collections and currency (mostly US dollars and Swiss francs).
On reaching a considered safe location close to the Hungarian/Austrian border, Toldi halted the train for 92 days to carefully document what he catalogued as Hungarian Government property.
Toldi then turned to SS officer Wilhelm Höttl, to whom he handed over 10% of his convoy's goods (4 cases of gold) in return for both German passports and Swiss visas for all of his family.
"[1] The US Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) sent their officer Morton Himmler, who was stationed in Salzburg, to take charge of what they referred to as the Werfen Train.
As ownership of the valuables was impossible to ascertain, the official US position, as stipulated by United States Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, was that the belongings were to be given to refugee aid organizations in accordance with international restitution agreements.
[1] The majority of the remaining assets from the train was either sold through Army exchange stores in Europe in 1946 or auctioned off in New York City in 1948, with the proceeds going to the IRO.
[3] Items of clothing allocated for Army exchange store sales that were considered of lesser value were turned over to a Division chaplain for distribution "to needy DPs" (displaced persons).
[1] Some of the property from the train ended up in the possession of high-ranking US Army officers who were stationed in Central Europe to oversee post-war and Marshall Plan reconstruction efforts.
[7] The case was settled as President George W. Bush intended to appease Jewish voters in Florida to secure their votes for the upcoming elections in 2004.
[8][9] Among the items of evidence submitted by attorneys who represented the survivors was a January 1949 letter written by Evelyn Tucker, a fine arts officer serving with the United States' Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program who had been assigned to the Reparation, Deliveries and Restitution (RD&R) Branch of the U.S. Allied Command, Austria (USACA).
