Germany and the Claims Conference are establishing a $250 million fund for child survivors of the Holocaust. The fund will provide one-time payouts of approximately $3,280 (2,500 euros) to Jews born in 1928 or later who spent at least six months in Nazi concentration camps, in ghettos, in hiding or living under a false identity…
Ninety-year-old Sonia Anger survived the Nazis by fleeing Romania after the Germans invaded in 1941 and taking refuge in the Ural Mountains. Today, the brown-haired, 5-foot-6-inch widow struggles to survive in New York City on a monthly Social Security check of $1,130, or $14,000 a year. “I’m sweeping the floor, and have little to eat,…
(JTA) — A special panel tasked with examining the governance and strategic vision of the Claims Conference is recommending that the organization shift its long-term focus to Holocaust education and remembrance, JTA has learned. The panel was appointed last year following a scandal involving the Claims Conference’s failure to detect a $57 million fraud scheme…
A Replacement Life: A Novel By Boris Fishman Harper, 336 pages, $25.99 Like the Soviet Union, from which its main characters hail, Boris Fishman’s debut novel, “A Replacement Life,” is a good idea in theory, if not in execution. After his grandmother dies, aspiring writer Slava Gelman is asked by his grandfather to forge a…
(JTA) — When a 2009 Holocaust-era assets conference concluded with a landmark statement of principles on Holocaust restitution, many restitution advocates had high hopes that a corner had been turned in the struggle for survivor justice. The Terezin Declaration, which had the support of 46 countries participating in the conference in the Czech Republic, outlined…
When Judge Edward R. Korman asked us to assist him, as special master and deputy special master, with the allocation and oversight of the $1.25 billion Swiss Banks Settlement, we knew that there were lessons we needed to learn from those who had devised and administered earlier Holocaust compensation programs. We remain ever grateful that…
(JTA) — Saul Kagan, the founder and a longtime chief of the Claims Conference, died Saturday at age 91. Kagan helped found the organization in 1951 to be the main vehicle for negotiating with Germany over restitution for Holocaust survivors. In a statement announcing his death, the Claims Conference credited Kagan with securing tens of…
Julius Berman, 78, chairman of the organization that distributes millions of dollars in German reparation funds to Holocaust survivors, has long been seen as one of American Jewry’s most capable lay leaders. But that reputation was called into question this year. An internal probe by the Conference for Material Claims Against Germany found that he…
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