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Report: Berlin to compensate Hungarian Holocaust survivors

Jewish group says Germany agreed to pay 12.3 million euros to some 6,500 Hungarians 'in recognition of the incarceration and suffering of Budapest Shoah survivors'. Claims Conference: These payments mean a historical recognition of the horrible fate of Budapest Jewry during the Nazi persecution

The German government has agreed to pay 12.3 million euros ($19 million) to about 6,500 Jewish survivors of the Nazi occupation of Budapest, an international Jewish organization said this week.

 

"In negotiations with the German government, the Claims Conference has secured payments for certain Jewish survivors of the Nazi occupation of Budapest," the Claims Conference said in a statement released here.

 

The organization has been representing Jews in negotiating compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution since 1951.

 

"In recognition of the incarceration and suffering of Budapest Holocaust survivors, certain Jewish survivors of Nazi-era Budapest -- who currently reside in eastern Europe and previously did not receive any payments from certain major compensation programs -- will receive a one-time payment of 1,900 euros from the Claims Conference Budapest Fund," the statement said.

 

In all, payments totaling 12.3 million euros would be issued to approximately 6,500 survivors living in Hungary.

 

Brief and simple waiver forms

Up until World War II, around 725,000 Jews were living in Hungary. But around 625,000 were deported and murdered by the Nazis in the death camps.

 

The compensation payments were being made to survivors of the Budapest ghetto, since all of the Jews in rural areas had been murdered, the head of Mazsihisz, the Association of Jewish Congregations, Peter Feldmayer, told AFP.

 

"These payments mean a historical recognition of the horrible fate of Budapest Jewry during the Nazi persecution," said Greg Schneider, managing director of the New York office of the Claims Conference, in Budapest.

 

The conference said that in order to "streamline the process and distribute the funds as quickly as possible, the Claims Conference has reviewed over 25,000 files to identify eligible survivors.

 

"Brief and simple waiver forms", as required by the German government, were being sent to 5,790 survivors who the conference believed may be eligible. The application deadline for compensation was August 6, 2009.

 

Mazshisz head Feldmayer welcomed the compensation deal, but said it must be only a first step in negotiations between the Claims Conference and the German government to secure a monthly payment to ghetto survivors.

 

There are some 80,000 Jews currently living in Hungary, out of a total population of 10 million, meaning the Hungarian Jewish community is the second largest in Europe after France.

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.08.08, 14:10
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