The Dutch cabinet has decided that compensatory payments to victims of Nazi or Japanese persecution during World War II will continue to be paid, but the government will not consider applications from the so-called second generation of victims, it was announced Monday.
The existing payments will not be reduced, despite a general freeze on government expenditures, and there will be no time limit for applicants. An advisory committee has proposed that applications may be made until the year 2010, when children born, during the Nazi occupation of Holland and the Japanese occupation of Dutch colonial territories will have reached age 65, entitling them to old-age pensions.
The burden of proof of “physical or mental” suffering will not fall on the applicant. The authorities will have to prove the absence of any link between the applicants’ condition and their experiences during the occupation.
Nevertheless, the advisory committee’s report has been sharply critized by representatives of the victims and by psychiatric and social workers.
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.
