Feb 20, 2006 -- The topic, Dr. Gerald Feldman acknowledged, seems almost blasphemous. But the financial aspects of the Holocaust, he said, are integral to the history of the Holocaust. Dr. Feldman, professor of history at the University of California - Berkeley, addresed an audience of Sy Syms School of Business students Feb. 20 and outlined the detailed and systematic ways that Germany and Austria, and many other European countries, deprived Jews of property, employment, possessions, and family businesses in the years leading up to World War II. Dr. Feldman said this economic plundering, which began as early as 1931, before Hitler came to power, lay the groundwork for what was known as The Final Solution, the Nazis' plan to murder millions of European Jews. Dr. Feldman pointed out that while Germany was the cog, many other countries were spokes in the wheel that led to the Holocaust. "It was hardly the work of Germany alone," Dr. Feldman said. "There were few countries in Europe that did not benefit in some way from the expropriation of Jewish property." One of the initial methods of depriving Jewish citizens of their economic capital was Germany's 1931 Flight Tax, which sought to prevent the wealthy from leaving the country with their assets. As more Jews emigrated from Germany, they were heavily taxed. In 1935, Dr. Feldman said, Germany reaped $45 million from the tax. By 1938-39, the figure was $342 million. Dr. Feldman also discussed the systematic process of Nazis confiscating Jewish-owned businesses and turning them over to other Germans, a process known as "Aryanization." So thorough and so devastating was the Nazi economic war against European Jews that practically any and all Jewish property was confiscated, initially through intricate governmental legislation, such as the Flight Tax, but later through plain brutality. Nothing was spared, Dr. Feldman said. Jewelry, art, furniture, clothes. Even in the concentration camps, after death, Jewish citizens were not free from economic, not to mention human, degradation. It is well known that gold fillings were removed from mouths of the deceased, Dr. Feldman said. The effect of this economic plunder is still felt today, Dr. Feldman said. And well- publicized efforts continue to seek restitution from German financial, and other European, institutions that played a role in depriving Jewish citizens of their capital. Dr. Feldman said that one unfair aspect of the seeking of restitution was that wealthier people who could afford good lawyers often ended up with disproportionately large restitution sums, while poorer people were awarded disproportionately low sums. In the end, Dr. Feldman said, it is "virtually impossible" to estimate what was lost in terms of economics. "Pure monetary value of Jewish businesses is not the issue," he said. "The true value would have come from that business continuing to be run by the Jewish families who owned them, who were invested in them, who treasured them.