By Hannah Kirsch
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), an organization that secures material compensation for Holocaust survivors, last week announced its most recent allocation of funds. After negotiating with the German Federal Ministry of Finance, the Claims Conference has secured funding to benefit Holocaust survivors around the world either directly or through social welfare agency partners in the Claims Conference’s network.
The Claims Conference was founded in 1951 by 23 Jewish organizations internationally and disburses funds to individuals and organizations as retribution for stolen Jewish property during the Holocaust. Since beginning negotiations in 1952, the German government has paid $90 billion to individuals after persecution by the Nazis to date. The Claims Conference continues to meet with the German government each year to benefit survivors.
Three years ago, the German government paid 1,200 Euros per person in compensation for the years 2021-22. This year, the Claims Conference secured $535 million from the German government to be paid for the year 2024 in direct compensation to survivors. Specifically, this money will benefit Jews who fled the Nazis as they moved further east, eventually ending up in Russia under communism and becoming refuseniks. Because these Jews never technically lived under Nazi occupation, they were never compensated, and they ultimately either remained in Russia or moved to Israel or America. This group is among the most impoverished of the survivor population, yet has not, until this point, received any funds. They also have worse health overall and fewer resources. After negotiations with the Claims Conference, Germany agreed to continue the payment for the next four years with inflationary increases.
Additionally, the German government has also agreed to provide $888.9 million, including an additional $105.2 million in funding to address survivors’ increased needs for home care services, which are provided by 300 agencies, specifically Jewish Family Services, in 40 countries. As survivors age and their health worsens, they have less money available for other needs. This requires more hours of home care as survivors continue in this period of increasing need. Part of the mission of the Claims Conference is to quantify these needs and present it to the German government in hopes of solidifying funds to allocate to the agencies with which they partner worldwide.
The third piece of the new agreement is concerning Holocaust education. The German government is funding education projects around the world to promote Holocaust education and fight distortion and denial. They have agreed to extend this program for an additional two years and are increasing the funding by $3.3 million for each of those years. As the Holocaust survivor population continues to decrease, a newfound mission of the Claims Conference is securing proper Holocaust education so that the survivors, and that entire time in our history, will be remembered accurately.
In conjunction with this, the Claims Conference is determined to make certain that as long as survivors are living, they should live a life of dignity, and that the history and destruction of the Holocaust be remembered and its lessons universally learned. The Claims Conference aims to ensure that the survivors’ voices will live beyond their years.
Greg Schneider, CEO of the Claims Conference, noted that their “priority is that Holocaust survivors live a life of dignity. We can’t tolerate survivors waiting for food, medicine or home care, and we are relentless in ensuring that survivors have what they need.” He also stressed the importance of the agencies they partner with. “The partnerships with agencies [like JFS] is critical because they are the ones sitting with survivors and assessing them; that partnership allows survivors to thrive. We are grateful to the partnership agencies.”
Hannah Kirsch is the intern coordinator at The Jewish Link and a rising senior at Binghamton University.
