Germany Expands Compensation for Holocaust Survivors
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Germany and the Jewish Claims Conference have signed a new accord that will increase the monthly pension benefits for Jewish Holocaust survivors as well as make payments to victims who still have not been compensated nearly 70 years after the collapse of the Nazi regime.
The amended accord was signed by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Julius Berman, chairman of the Jewish Claims Conference, to mark the treaty’s 60th anniversary.
Germany and the Jewish Claims Conference have signed a new accord that will increase the monthly pension benefits for Jewish Holocaust survivors as well as make payments to victims who still have not been compensated nearly 70 years after the collapse of the Nazi regime.
The amended accord was signed by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Julius Berman, chairman of the Jewish Claims Conference, to mark the treaty’s 60th anniversary.
As part of revisions made to the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement, under which West Germany assumed responsibility for the Nazi genocide, the ministry said some 80,000 Jews in Eastern Union and the former Soviet Union who had not yet received any compensation were entitled to a one-time payment of 2,556 euros ($3,992).
In addition, some 100,000 elderly Jewish victims of the Nazi regime in the region will see their lifelong pensions increase from 200 euros to 300 euros per month, to match the sum Holocaust survivors elsewhere are already receiving.
At the same time, Germany will provide home care services for about 100,000 Holocaust survivors around the world. Germany already increased home care payments this year by 15 percent over 2011, and has pledged to raise that further in 2013 and 2014.
The JCC estimates the accord revisions will cost Berlin about $300 million.
To date, Germany has paid out an estimated 55 billion euros to survivors and more than three billion marks (about 1.5 billion euros) to Israel and the JCC.
Jewish groups welcomed the decision as an important step but said aid money alone would never make amends for the suffering experienced by survivors.
“But through the compensation, victims get the recognition that is so sorely needed,” said President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann.
“It’s an important signal that despite the growing distance to the historical events, the German government continues to exhibit its responsibility to helping the survivors with their last years in dignified circumstances,” he added.
Schaeuble commented:
[quote] When doing this work for the victims of persecution, everyone is conscious that we cannot undo the terrible events or the suffering and the injustice that was inflicted on millions of people and that no compensation or reparation can change anything about that. [/quote]
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