The German cabinet has approved a proposal that would give thousands of elderly Jews additional pension payments for work they were forced to do under the Nazis in ghettos.
The plan will see all payments backdated to 1997, when Germany began recognizing work in ghettos as eligible for pension payments. Until now, recipients have only received payments backdated four years from when they applied.
- Labor Minister Andrea Nahles promised payments would be issued "swiftly and efficiently."
She says there are still tens of thousands of people, primarily non-Germans, whom the Nazis used as laborers in exchange for food or meager wages in Jewish ghettos.
The government did not offer an estimate for how much the additional pensions would cost.