In re Kohn’s Estate

The decedent Viktor Kohn had joint accounts with his uncle Otakar Kohn in three New York banks (defendants). Viktor’s administratrix, Antonie Mautner (plaintiff), petitioned the court to declare that Otakar predeceased Viktor, entitling Viktor to the accounts, and to direct the banks to pay the deposits to Mautner. The banks maintained there was insufficient proof that Otakar predeceased Viktor. Mautner presented evidence that Viktor and his wife and children were deported from Prague, Czechoslovakia, to the concentration camp at Lodz on October 26, 1941; Viktor’s brother Oskar and uncle Otakar were sent to the concentration camp at Terezin in 1942; and Oskar and Otakar were transferred “to the east” on August 20, 1942, and October 22, 1942, respectively. Mautner submitted copies of the decrees of various Czechoslovakian courts, one fixing October 26, 1943, as the presumed date of Viktor and his wife’s deaths and April 26, 1942, as the presumed date of the children’s deaths; another fixing February 20, 1943, as the presumed date of Oskar’s death; and another fixing April 22, 1943, as the presumed date of Otakar’s death. A Czechoslovakian-law expert explained that in fixing death dates, certain camps were known to be extermination camps and others like Lodz were not; deportation “to the east” usually meant deportation to an extermination camp; the elderly and young could not have survived concentration-camp conditions; and in some camps, the elderly, sick, and very young were killed immediately upon or shortly after arrival.