Law suit over looted Hungarian train may be settled out of court

The "Hungarian Gold Train" case may be close to settlement after three years of litigation. Lawyers for Hungarian-born Holocaust survivors from Florida and for the US Justice Department have asked a federal judge in Miami to postpone a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, saying they did not want to lose momentum in what they called "substantial progress toward a resolution." The "Hungarian Gold Train" consisted of 29 boxcars filled with treasures stolen from Hungarian Jews. Often torturing the owners, the Nazis confiscated gold, silver, art, jewelry and family valuables from Hungarian Jews sent to death camps during World War II. Estimates of the value of the train's contents vary from $50 million to $120 million. The survivors' lawsuit claims that the US Army mishandled, lost and looted the valuables of Hungarian Jews, which were handed to the Americans at the end of the war. Justice Department attorneys have argued that the case should be dismissed because the statute of limitations ran out years ago, and survivors had no legal standing to make a claim against the US government.