Hungary signs new Shoah restitution deal
Ending year-long row over transparency and freeze of payments, government in Budapest announces deal with US-based organization on reparations for Hungarian Holocaust survivors living abroad
"The government has concluded an agreement with the Conference of Material Claims Against Germany," Janos Lazar, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff, said in a statement to the Hungarian news agency MTI.
Hungary signed a five-year agreement with the Claims Conference in 2007 for the distribution of $21 million (€16 million) to Hungarian Holocaust survivors but broke off talks on an extension of the agreement last year.
It stopped payments and asked for some funds to be repaid after accusing the Claims Conference of improper accounting, a charge the organization fiercely denied.
"Holocaust survivors of Hungarian origin living abroad will be able to receive as soon as possible the compensation to which they are entitled," Lazar said Saturday.
"In order to now faster disburse restitution monies, the government will transfer $5.6 million within three days," he said.
Lazar said the money would be transferred to the Jewish Heritage of Hungary Public Endowment (MAZSOK), a Hungary-based committee made up of government officials and Jewish representatives, which liaises with the Claims Conference.
The parties have also agreed to contract an international auditing firm to monitor the transparency of the disbursements, he added.
State pensions for Hungary-based Holocaust survivors were hiked 50% by the government earlier this year.
The Holocaust claimed the lives of some 600,000 Hungarian Jews, but the local Jewish community, thought to number up to 100,000 in total, remains one of the biggest in Europe.
