The class action suit against the Vatican Bank and others was raised by attorneys Tom Easton and Jonathan H. Levy in San Francisco, California on November 15, 1999. The plaintiffs are a diverse group of individuals and organizations originating from Eastern Europe in World War II. This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ... is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar). ... Pre-1989 division between the West (grey) and Eastern Bloc (orange) superimposed on current national boundaries: Russia (dark orange), other countries of the former USSR (medium orange),members of the Warsaw pact (light orange), and other former Communist regimes not aligned with Moscow (lightest orange). ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

The plaintiffs claim conversion, unjust enrichment, restitution, an accounting and human rights violations and violations of international law. The defendants include the Vatican Bank and a number of banking and religious organizations connected to the Roman Catholic Church. The Vatican Bank is a common name given to the Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR) or Institute for Religious Works, the central bank for the Roman Catholic Church located in Vatican City. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic...

Allegations contained in the lawsuit have been denied by the Holy See.

Lawsuit

Depositions started with Ukraine and then a Serb Petar Makara started working with the attorneys, Easton & Levy, supplying names of victims, including those from the family of the American Bill Dorich. The attorneys asked Bill Dorich to be a plaintiff and filed an amended complaint with these three parties mentioned as plaintiffs. Serbs (in the Serbian language Срби, Srbi) are a south Slavic people living chiefly in Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. ... An attorney is someone who represents someone else in the transaction of business: For attorney-at-law, see lawyer, solicitor, barrister or civil law notary. ... William (Bill) Dorich is the name of the journalist and writer whose name is upon the class action suit against the Vatican Bank and others, a US federal lawsuit in California against the Vatican. ... A plaintiff, also known as a claimant or complainer, is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an action) before a court. ...

Involved in assisting is the Jasenovac Foundation of Birmingham, Michigan, an organisation dedicated to bringing public attention to what they call the "Hidden Holocaust" victimisation of Serbs during World War II. Birmingham is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. ... Languages Serbian Religions Predominantly Serbian Orthodox Christian Related ethnic groups Other Slavic peoples, especially South Slavs See Cognate peoples below Serbs (Serbian: Срби or Srbi) are a South Slavic people who live mainly in Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and, to a lesser extent, in Croatia. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

The lawsuit intitially involved Ukrainian plaintiffs but now involves people killed by the Ustashe fascists in former Yugoslavia. It is claimed that the Ustashe, whose movement was marked by a clerical fascism character allegedly controlled by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. The Ustaše (often spelled Ustashe in English; singular Ustaša or Ustasha) was a Croatian right-wing organisation put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers in 1941. ... Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. ... Yugoslavia (Jugoslavija in the Latin alphabet, Југославија in Cyrillic; English: Land of the South Slavs) describes three political entities that existed one at a time on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century. ... Clerical fascism is an ideological construct that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with theology or religious tradition. ... A hierarchy (in Greek: , derived from — hieros, sacred, and — arkho, rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things or people, where each element of the system (except for the top element) is subordinate to a single other element. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Pope · Archbishop of Canterbury Patriarch of Constantinople Christianity Portal This box:      The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic...

The Jasenovac concentration camp was the first test-case death camp of the Nazis before efficient industrialised organisation of murder had been achieved. Victims in Jasenovac, who according to Dorich number between 600-700,000 people, were bludgeoned, disembowelled or dismembered to death. It is alleged that in the nightly hand-killing contests that one priest single-handedly killed 1500 Serbs. Jasenovac concentration camp (in Croatian: Logor Jasenovac in Serbian: Логор Јасеновац) was the largest concentration and extermination camp in Croatia during World War II. It was established by the Ustaša (Ustasha) regime of the Independent State of Croatia in August 1941. ... A death camp is either a concentration camp, the important (though not necessarily single) function of which is to facilitate mass murder of the people deported into such a camp (such as the Nazis Auschwitz and Majdanek, which acquired their murderous functions only some time after they had been... National Socialism redirects here. ...

All victims were buried in pit-graves together, whether Jews, Serbs, Roma or Ukrainians. Languages Romani, languages of native region Religions Christianity, Islam Related ethnic groups South Asians (Desi) The Roma (singular Rom; sometimes Rroma, Rrom) or Romanies are an ethnic group living in many communities all over the world. ...

The lawsuit alleges that the Vatican played not only a leading role in the Ustashe, but in the hoarding of related war-loot and in the setting up of ratline escape routes for the Ustashe. Ratlines were systems of escape routes for Nazis and other fascists fleeing Europe at the end of World War II fleeing the pursuit of Nazi collaborators. ...

The federal lawsuit was then brought against the Vatican for its alleged collusion in war crimes by the Croatian Ustashe and even more ominously, for secreting large vaults of Croatian war-loot into the Vatican coffers. The Ustaše (often spelled Ustashe in English; singular Ustaša or Ustasha) was a Croatian right-wing organisation put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers in 1941. ...

The suit alleges that this secret Vatican project financed yet more of the almost 'mythic' rat-lines mentioned in ODESSA, the re-location and funding of implicated Nazi and Ustashe priests and monks to largely South America. ODESSA (German: Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, Organization of Former SS Members) is the name commonly given to an international Nazi network alleged to have been set up towards the end of World War II by a group of SS officers. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... The Ustaše (often spelled Ustashe in English; singular Ustaša or Ustasha) was a Croatian right-wing organisation put in charge of the Independent State of Croatia by the Axis Powers in 1941. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

Members of the Illyrian College of San Girolamo in Rome who were reportedly involved in the 'rat lines' were friars Krunoslav Draganović, Petranović and Dominik Mandić. The Pontifical Croatian College of St. ... Krunoslav Draganovic (?–1983) was a Croatian Catholic priest. ... Dominik Mandić (December 2, 1889 - August 23, 1973) was a Bosnian Croat historian and politician, a member of the Franciscan Order. ...

Trial

The California court of law first declined the case claiming a lack of jurisdiction. As of 2005 the plaintiffs appeal was honored. Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• "Nazi-Era Victims Demand Army, CIA Release Documents on Vatican", CNS News, September 4, 2000. 
• Pleading paper
• Vatican Bank Claims
• Time Magazine on Ustasa Gold in Vatican Bank
• Flame online magazine: Vatican and Ustasa links
• The Fate of the Ustasha Wartime treasury (official US Gov't report)