“Authers and Wolffe’s well-researched and nuanced book demonstrates how the struggle for reparations has simultaneously been a fight for justice and a vindictive squabble over money.” - Publishers Weekly
“The Victim’s Fortune is an important record and gives a powerful if painful recounting of the internal squabbles among Jewish organizations and between them and Holocaust survivors. . . .The portraits of the claims lawyers who joined the fray are especially good.” - Moment
“Authers and Wolffe tell the story with the clarity of first-class journalists. . . . Their impressive research results in fair and balanced writing. . . . The best summary to date of this ethical and legal world war.” - Library Journal
“A powerful chronicle of the riveting negotiations and litigation that led to Germany, Swiss Banks, and many European corporations and insurance companies paying out billions of dollars to survivors of the Holocaust and to families of those who didn’t survive. . . . This is an almost Ludlum-esque page-turner.” - Booklist
“Wolffe’s and Authers’ book is a fascinating morality tale. It is also an intriguing story about individual lawyers, politicians, corporate executives and Jewish leaders.” - Alan Dershowitz, The Financial Times
“A well-written account of a fascinating, convoluted set of events. . . . Authers and Wolffe excel in describing the effort of the World Jewish Congress, a battalion of class-action lawyers, and numerous politicians . . . to force Swiss banks to settle the issue of accounts that had lain dormant since the war.” - Neal Sandler, Business Week
“Imagine a book with the narrative force and the behind-the-scenes revelations of Barbarians at the Gate. Now imagine that what’s at stake isn’t just which rich investment banker gets richer, but rather is one of the great moral issues of our time, restitution for Holocaust survivors. Imagine no more, because John Authers and Richard Wolffe have written just such a book in The Victim’s Fortune.” - Samuel G. Freedman, author of Jew vs. Jew
“John Authers and Richard Wolffe avoid the trap of easy moralizing as they describe how what started out as a crusade for justice became caught up in petty squabbling, greed and ambition of richly drawn characters, from Jewish machers and class-action lawyers to leading bankers and heads of state.” - Washington Post
“Fascinating and disturbing. . . . A Bleak House for our time. . . . The authors do a commendable job of charting the political and economic complexities of the various cases involved, keeping the narrative readable throughout.” - Kirkus Reviews
“Authers and Wolffe have turned an important, depressing, and intensely technical subject—the negotiations over how to repay Holocaust-era debts—into a gripping tale replete with deserving victims, grandstanding politicians, greedy class-action lawyers, and tightfisted European bankers.” - Foreign Affairs
“A gripping, exhaustively reported book. A highly readable tale, with richly drawn characters, Authers and Wolffe’s work shows how a just crusade was ultimately diminished by petty squabbling, misplaced ambition, and avarice. Along the way, the authors skillfully raise larger questions about the inadequacies of money as a measure of justice and about who can really speak for the victims of history’s greatest crime. A remarkable achievement.” - Evan Thomas, author of Robert Kennedy and co-author of The Wise Men
“The Victim’s Fortune, a weighty piece of research and reporting, is not just a story about the Holocaust. It is the spellbinding account a half-century later of Jewish leaders, lawyers, judges, businessmen, government officials, and, above all, the victim-survivors who were searching for justice in the form of some kind of payback.” - Washington Times
“This suspenseful tale is captured with journalistic verve [and] judicious balance. . . . A mesmerizing account of intrigue, inspiration and ingenuity.” - Jewish Week