The German government has decided that thousands of Holocaust survivors can now resubmit claims for compensation. The Jewish Claims Conference has announced that 13,000 Holocaust survivors can begin applying for a one-time payment of € 2,556 (US$ 3,460). The Claims Conference convinced the German government to repeal a clause in their agreement that said those who had failed to hand in applications on time would lose the right to resubmit claims.
While around 7,500 of Holocaust survivors live in Israel, the Claims Conference also said the German government had agreed to increase monthly funding to elderly survivors in poorer eastern European countries, to make their final years more comfortable. The monthly pensions will rise from € 178 to € 240. Needy Holocaust survivors in eastern Europe will receive major increases in monthly payments from Germany. The decision followed intensive negotiations between Germany and the Claims Conference.
According to the agreement, an additional estimated US$ 80 million will be paid over the next 10 years to approximately 13,000 Holocaust survivors in 22 countries. In addition, there will be major increases in monthly payments from the Central and Eastern European Fund (CEEF) to survivors in European Union and non-EU countries, bringing the two groups to parity. As of next January, recipients of CEEF pensions will receive about US$ 339 per month, which represents a 35 per cent increase for those in non-EU countries and an 11 per cent increase for EU residents.
The agreement "reinforces for me the commitment I saw during the lengthy negotiations [for the Clinton administration] with the Germans to continue their moral responsibility," Stuart Eizenstat, the former US deputy treasury secretary and a special negotiator for the Claims Conference, told JTA in a telephone interview following Thursday's talks with the German Ministry of Finance. Roman Kent, one of several survivors on the negotiating team and a board member of the International Auschwitz Committee, said that many of the survivors in Eastern Europe live well below the poverty level.
"They lack money for food, medicine and fuel," he told JTA. "And time is not the best medicine for the survivor," many of whom are alone in later years. "And when you are older, you think about what happened not yesterday but what happened 60, 70 years ago."
Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, said there would be an unprecedented second meeting before the end of this year to deal with open questions such as home care funds for 2010.
