CGL represented Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose property found on the “Gold Train” in the final days of World War II was appropriated by the U.S. government. We served as co-lead counsel in this landmark class-action Rosner v. United States which alleged that the plaintiffs’ personal property was loaded on a train by the Hungarian Nazi government during the waning days of WWII; that the U.S. Army later accepted the train and its contents into custody; and that, rather than returning the property to its owners, the Army misappropriated it and permitted it to be looted.
In 2005, the court approved a $25.5 million settlement, which provided a minimum of $21 million for use by existing social welfare programs to aid Hungarian victims of Nazi persecution; allocated $500,000 to fund and create an archival collection of information and artifacts as part of the U.S. reckoning; and required a first-of-its-kind statement by the U.S. government acknowledging its part in the events surrounding the Gold Train.