German government doubles funding for home care for Holocaust survivors

09 December 2010

Germany has agreed to double to € 110 million (US$ 147m) its annual funding for home care provided to Holocaust survivors. The change takes into account "the sharply increased need for home care", the Federal Finance Ministry said. The money paid by the German government to Holocaust survivors is distributed to 32 countries by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. "Germany has been exemplary in facing its past, and the government has demonstrated its commitment to alleviating the plight of elderly victims who need the care that these funds will provide," the Claims Conference said in a statement. Once the increase in funding is ratified by the German parliament, the money will go towards in-home nursing as well as help with eating, dressing and bathing.

"We congratulate the government of Germany for recognizing its historic responsibility to Jewish Holocaust victims, whose advancing age has brought increased hardship to many," said Stuart Eizenstat, a former US ambassador and deputy treasury secretary and today special negotiator of the Claims Conference. "In their final years, survivors who need care and services should not have to fear that they will be forgotten. Germany has been exemplary in facing its past, and the government has demonstrated its commitment to alleviating the plight of elderly victims who need the care that these funds will provide," Eizenstat added.

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