Al D'amato

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		Al D’Amato spent 34 years as a public servant. The first 16 were spent in local capacities, serving Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead in a variety of offices. This span lasted from 1965-1981. D’Amato’s second stint as a public servant lasted 18 years as a U.S. Senator. It was in this latter capacity that D’Amato left his biggest imprint on his native New York. The list of his public service deeds is too long to regurgitate here. The focus will be, instead, on a single act that secured retribution for many, deserving people. Prior to World War II many Europeans put their life’s savings in Swiss banks in an effort to protect whatever they had. When the war ended and Holocaust survivors escaped the Nazi Labor camps, naturally, they sought their money. To the dismay of many, the Swiss banks failed to accommodate them. Some forty years later Al D’Amato was acting as a U.S. Senator for the state of New York. When he caught wind of the atrocity he quickly reacted. Leading the fight on the Senate floor to recover the lost funds for Holocaust survivors and victims families was no small undertaking. Never a man to back down from a challenge, D’Amato approached the issue with a full head of steam. The legal wrangling consumed his time, yet he never tired and when the dust cleared the Swiss banks involved had paid out over one billion dollars to Holocaust survivors and Holocaust victim’s families. Further investigation uncovered the possibility that the United States may have harbored Holocaust victim’s assets and a bill authored by Al D’Amato was passed creating a 21-member commission to further investigate the possibility. As a United States Senator, Al D’Amato truly served the public.