Germany announced Wednesday it will grant an additional $720 million to over 300 international welfare organisations to support disabled and vulnerable Holocaust survivors.
The funds will be given to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) to distribute to social welfare organisations that specialise in home care and supportive services for frail and vulnerable Holocaust survivors.
There are an estimated 400,000 holocaust survivors in the world, many of whom still live in poverty, and due to their elderly condition as well as the severe malnutrition they suffered during the Holocaust, many are heavily reliant on medical care, AP reports.
Gideon Taylor, the president of the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany said that they “are proud to announce this significant allocation at a time when these funds are critical, due to the age, poverty and increasing disability of our waning survivor population”.
Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher holds a photo showing her best friend and Holocaust victim, Ruth Nelly Abraham, during a commemoration in Berlin on January 28, 2022, one day after the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We know these funds provide vital support during these difficult times”, Taylor continued.
The Claims Conference have estimated that 120,000 impoverished survivors will directly benefit from the services funded by this latest reparations pay out.
Since 1952, the German government has paid $90 billion to survivors of the Holocaust – many of whom never regained their property or possessions they lost during their persecution – and the new funds are the largest grant the Claims Conference have been able to distribute to social services around the world, beating their 2021 grant of $653 million.
Greg Schneider, the Claims Conference executive vice president has said that, despite the record payout the Claims Conference will continue to “fight for more year-after-year to ensure every survivor has the care they deserve”.
“Survivors will be supported wherever they live, whether war-torn areas or conflict zones, and no matter the obstacle. Whether in the face of the ongoing pandemic, issues of inflation, or threat of war, we are committed to providing home care, food and medicine to elderly poor Holocaust survivors”, Schneider continued.
Greek World War II rescuer Melpomeni Dina (C) reacts as she is reunited with holocaust survivors Yossi Mor (R) and his sister Sarah Yanai, whom she helped escape in 1943, at the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum in Jerusalem on November 3, 2019. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)
The Claims Conference have released that they will be allocating $47 Million to social welfare services in Ukraine, in an effort to ensure their continued “commitment to support Holocaust survivors in the face of imminent threat”.
The news comes as the Kyiv Babi Yar Holocaust memorial dedicated to tens of thousands of Jews were massacred during the Holocaust was struck by a Russian missile attack on Tuesday, as Breitbart News reported.
The attack on the memorial – which is essentially a mass grave for 34,000 Jews who were massacred there by the Nazis in 1941 – was condemned by the Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
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