European Jewry’s monetary losses during the Nazi reign of terror amounted to at least $27,000,000,000 in property, assets and income, according to a new survey evaluating the financial cost of the holocaust released here today by the World Jewish Congress. The survey had been made by Dr. Nehemiah Robinson, director of the WJC’s Institute of Jewish Affairs. It was issued here prior to the gatherings scheduled for this weekend of the administrative committee of the WJC, the board of directors of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, and the Conference of Jewish Organizations.
“Even deportations and killings,” Dr. Robinson noted in the survey, “became a source of income for the Nazis. The Germans were paid large sums of money for deporting Hungarian Jews. In some cases, the Jewish community was forced to pay to the Germans the value of the bullets used to kill part of the community, or for urns containing the ashes of deported and gassed leaders.”
The amount of lost income, the survey showed, aggregated between ten and fifteen billion dollars. Other means of German spoliation under the Nazi regime, the data showed, included a levy against the German Jewish community and an “emigration” tax; a billion-franc tax against the Jewish community of France; and “vast sums,” sometimes as much as $1,000,000, to allow certain families or groups of Jews to escape. All the figures, Dr. Robinson said, are based on monetary values applicable during the Nazi regime. Today’s values, he said, would be, in many instances, between 60 percent and 80 percent higher.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
