More Holocaust Money

From Jerusalem Post:

"'Germany agrees to compensate 80,000 Nazi victims'"

Germany has agreed to provide restitution payments to an additional 80,000 Jews in what Claims Conference officials are describing as a historic breakthrough. The agreement, which was reached Monday in negotiations between German officials and Claims Conference representatives, is likely to result in additional payments of approximately $300 million. Most of the money will go to Nazi victims in the former Soviet Union who have never before qualified for pensions or payments from German restitution money. “This is the last group of people who have never received any compensation,” Greg Schneider, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told JTA in a telephone interview from Washington, where the negotiations took place. “For people who suffered during the time of the Shoah, recognition from Germany is vital. To be able to do that at this stage, 60 years after the first restitution agreement, for 80,000 people, is tremendous,” he said. “For a survivor now in their old age to finally get acknowledgment from Germany is critically important.” Most of the money will come from the Hardship Fund, which grants one-time payouts of 2,556 euro -- approximately $3,150 -- to Jews who fled the Nazis as they swept eastward through Europe. Until now, those payments were not available to Jews in Ukraine, Russia and other non-European Union countries in Eastern Europe. Applications for the fund will be available starting November 1. In many of those countries, the lump sum could amount to four years of regular pension payments, according to Schneider. In Monday’s negotiations, Germany also agreed to equalize the monthly pensions it sends to survivors around the world, correcting what until now had been a disparity that saw survivors living in western countries receiving more than those in eastern countries. All survivors will now receive the equivalent of approximately $370 per month. Germany also agreed to relax the eligibility rules for those who receive restitution payments for being forced into hiding during the Nazi era. Until now, only those who went into hiding for at least 12 months were eligible; now the eligibility threshold will be six months.

^ This is a good move in the right direction. Despite what many ordinary Germans feel (ie that they shouldn't be held responsible for what happened 60 + years ago) the German Government should always be held responsible. It was the German Government (elected by the German people) who carried out the Holocaust and now they have to pay the piper. It seems that whenever a case is brought up for resitution the German Government does anything and everything to try and get out of paying (ie requring people to have hidden for 12 months, to prove they suffered  pain and abuse, etc.) Anyone and everyone who suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany - regardless of what country they lived in or currently live in - should be compensated by Germany until they die. This includes those in: ghettos, labor camps, forced labor battalions, concentration camps, had forced sterilizations, transit camps, prisons, death camps, POW camps, death marches, in hiding, in the resistance, those bombed and those that fled. Germany caused the war and committed these acts against humanity and so the German Government is solely responsible to try and make amends to the survivors. I think the same about the Japanese - with their death marches, comfort woman, POW camps, prisions, etc (but that is for another time.) The survivors are very elderly and many die everyday. They all deserve to live the rest of their days in peace, comfort and security and these payments help to that end. ^

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=276863