Comments (0)Germany Boosts Funding to Holocaust Survivors
March 13, 2010Berlin
JTA Wire Service
Germany will nearly double its funding for home health care to aging Holocaust survivors.
Annual negotiations between the Claims Conference and the German Ministry of Finance concluded Wednesday with the announcement that Germany will provide some $77 million toward home care and social services this year, up from about $40 million in 2009.
The agreement is “a major step forward in addressing vital social welfare needs for the poorest of Jewish Holocaust victims living around the world,” Stuart Eizenstat, the Claims Conference’s special negotiator, said in a statement to JTA.
In all, Germany signed off on $125 million toward programs to aid aging survivors. The funding comes at a time when many survivors are most in need, but when other restitution-related funding is on the decline, according to the Claims Conference.
“We are pleased that we can provide additional services to 50,000 of the poorest and most disabled Holocaust survivors around the world,” Gregory Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, told JTA.
Many survivors prefer to receive care at home, Schneider said. A recent study showed that survivors, even more than the general population, tend to fear the loss of control that institutionalization brings.
In 2009, the Claims Conference spent $170 million, including the German contribution, on social services for Holocaust victims living in 43 countries.
Three Confess to Auschwitz Theft
Three of the men who allegedly cut up and stole the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the front gate of Auschwitz have confessed to the crime.
The men are facing prison terms of up to three years, the Krakow Post reported Tuesday, citing the Prosecutor’s Office in Krakow.
The 16-foot metal sign, which means “work makes you free,” was cut into three pieces and stolen on Dec. 18; it was recovered across the country 72 hours later.
Anders Hogstrom, a former Swedish neo-Nazi, is suspected of ordering five Polish men to steal the metal sign. Hogstrom, who is in custody in Sweden and awaiting extradition to Poland, reportedly acted as an agent for a British Nazi sympathizer who wanted the sign.
Experts are working to restore the sign. It is not certain that the sign will be returned to its place; a copy that was placed at the front gate immediately after the theft remains there.
Some 1.1 million people, including about 1 million Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz.
European Parliament Backs Goldstone Report
The European Parliament passed a resolution that said European Union states should “demand the implementation of the Goldstone report’s recommendations.”
The resolution, which was approved Wednesday by a vote of 335-287, said that the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, should monitor the progress of the implementation of the U.N.-ordered report.
The parliament also expressed its concern about “pressure placed on NGOs involved in the document’s preparation”—a statement that apparently refers to the targeting of the New Israel Fund for supporting Israeli organizations that assisted South African judge Richard Goldstone’s committee in the preparation of his report.
The report accused Israel, as well as Hamas, of committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter.
The European Jewish Congress in a statement released Wednesday expressed its “deep disappointment” over the resolution and said it would be a “blow to the peace process.”
“Blaming the conflict and placing the onus for it on Israel, as the report does, will firstly push the Palestinians further away from the negotiating table and make them more recalcitrant, believing they can use international bodies to fight Israel’s case rather than reaching a negotiated solution,” Dr. Moshe Kantor, the EJC president, said in the statement. “Secondly, it demonstrates to Israelis that if you evacuate from a territory and are then attacked from it, you have little military recourse to defend your major population centers.
“If the Europeans want Israel to make concessions and tough decisions in the future, it will need to reassure its government and people that it stands by their full and unquestionable right to self-defense.”
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.