Survivors protest
Photo: Gil Yohanan
Disabled survivors complain of cut in monthly stipends
Many disabled Holocaust survivors eligible for increased pensions yet to receive funds; some say regular monthly benefits reduced. Finance Ministry: Payments delayed due to technical problem
Rachel Meiner, along with many more Holocaust survivors, has yet to receive the retroactive increase to her pension from the Finance Ministry. Moreover, the ministry has deducted NIS 100 (about $29) from the recent monthly allowance of the 80-year-old woman, who suffers from 68% percent disability.
Dorner Report
Yael Branovsky
Holocaust survivors to receive additional pension in accordance with Dorner Report just before Rosh Hashana. 'Many survivors are smelling flowers from roots by now,' says one survivor
About two weeks ago Holocaust survivors eligible for Finance Ministry stipends under the Persons Disabled by Nazi Persecution Law of 1957 were promised an increased pension, which was to contain the deficits that have piled up since the beginning of this year; however, many of them have yet to receive the reimbursements and have even had their regular monthly benefits cut by dozens of shekels.
The increase in the survivors' monthly pensions was one of the recommendations made by retired Judge Dalia Dorner in the report published by the committee she headed.
Meiner's son Meir told Ynet that his mother had lost her entire family in the Holocaust. "She was left alone; they were all murdered. For many years she refused to talk about it or receive any reparations from the Germans," he said.
"Only in the past few years has she opened up to her grandchildren, and that's how we learned of the horrors she had experienced. She also filed her claim and began receiving stipends form the Finance Ministry. She suffers from 68% disability as a result of what she went through during the Holocaust."
Meir said he was able to support his mother financially throughout the years, but added that 'the payment to the survivors is a matter of principle, and if Judge Dorner determined in her report the exact amount the survivors are entitled to, then my mother should be receiving this sum."
The Finance Ministry said in response that its Rehabilitating Office has been working toward "making certain that the survivors' funds are retrieved. In light of the numerous complaints received by survivors who have yet to receive the full amount promised them, we checked the matter and found out that the allocation of the funds was delayed to a technical problem, which is currently being fixed. The deficits will be deposited in the survivors' bank accounts within a month."
