Starting January 1, 2012, a new program comes into effect providing a one-time payment of 2,556 euros to people who fled from territories that were not occupied by the Nazis during the war. This decision of the German government can be called a victory for the staff of the Claims Conference. To achieve the desired result, they had to collect facts and evidence over several years of the losses suffered by those included in the new list.
“Despite the fact that the German economy is going through hard times, this country understands its responsibility towards Jews who suffered from Nazism,” said the organization’s representative Stuart Eizenstat.
The main argument that forced Germany to revise the criteria for helping Holocaust victims was a map showing how close death was if the Jewish population had not left their homes in time. “Jews who were forced to flee the advancing Nazis to avoid becoming victims of total extermination also became victims. These payments cannot compensate for the losses they suffered during the war, but they will serve as recognition of their suffering,” said Claims Conference head Julius Berman at a press conference held last week in Tel Aviv.
According to the new rules, compensation will be received by those who, between June 22, 1941 and January 27, 1944, fled from areas within one hundred kilometers of the line of maximum advance of the Nazi German troops. In particular, this definition includes former residents of Moscow and Stalingrad, Leningraders who evacuated the city from the first days of the war before the blockade ring closed around the northern capital, as well as residents of some cities in Central Russia and the North Caucasus. Notably, the new rule applies only to Jews who left the territory of the USSR.
Starting January 1, 2012, Jews living in countries of the former Soviet bloc who were born in 1928 or later and were orphaned as a result of Nazi persecution also became eligible for a one-time payment of 1,900 euros. From the same date, fund payments will be available to applicants who, during the Wehrmacht offensive, were citizens of certain Western European states, and also during the period in which these states had a global agreement with Germany.
Sveta BLAUS.
