Germany has agreed to pay pensions to about 16,000 Holocaust victims worldwide who survived wartime ghettos or were forced to hide from Nazi persecution.
The agreement between the New York-based Claims Conference and the German government was announced Monday.
Conference official Greg Schneider tells The Associated Press that it took a year of "hard-fought negotiations" with German officials to reach the humanitarian deal.
A total of about 65,000 Holocaust survivors will now receive compensatory pensions for their suffering.
Survivors are invited to apply, including those who lived in the ghetto in Budapest, Hungary, for the three months it existed. Previously, a survivor had to have lived under such duress for at least 18 months to receive a pension.