Swiss Armenian Emmanuel Tchividjian lobbied for billions of dollars which Swiss banks owed to Holocaust survivors, reported Press Republican.

Millions of dormant accounts owned by Jewish people during the Holocaust still rested in Swiss banks in the late 1990s.

That is when a scandal broke, revealing that the monies were never returned, which led to a lawsuit that eventually issued $1.24 billion to Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

Tchividjian, who grew up in Switzerland and later moved to Boston, embarked on a personal mission to right the wrong that he felt was 50 years overdue.

His father was an Armenian refugee who was relocated to Greece, but asked his parents to send him to boarding school in Switzerland.

Switzerland had been good to his family, so he felt he owed a debt to the country.

This motivated Tchividjian in his efforts to change the lives of the many Jewish people and their descendants who were robbed of their money.

He packed his bags for Switzerland for a three-week trip that extended into a three-month quest.

During his trip, he spoke to Swiss bankers, politicians, members of parliament, diplomats, leaders of Switzerland’s Jewish community, historians, two federal Supreme Court judges, journalists, accountants, and a clergyman to advocate for the refunding of the Swiss bank accounts.

Because of the dormant-account scandal, Switzerland had to create the Bergier Commission, led by the Swiss historian Jean-Francois Bergier, and as a country had to revisit Switzerland’s WWII history.

“I think the Swiss had a moral wake-up call, and they realized the history was not as rosy as they thought,” Tchividjian said. “And, I think, it’s always good for a country to acknowledge the past and change the attitude.”