The Bundestag, the lower house of West Germany’s Parliament, will consider this month an amendment to provide individual compensation for victims of Nazism who were trapped in Iron Curtain countries and could not file claims before the 1953 deadline.
The proposed amendment to the West German compensation legislation could cost another 4,000,000,000 marks ($1,000,000,000) and bring the total outlay for individual reparations by West Germany to 30,000,000,000 marks ($7,500,000,000). Under the Government proposal, a special fund would be opened for the victims of the Nazi era who were able to migrate to the western world, and particularly to Israel, only after the deadline.
The Bundestag committee handling the issue has made estimates for such payments of from 600,000,000 marks ($150,000,000) to 700,000,000 marks ($175,000,000). However, Social Democrat Martin Hirsch, head of the Bundestag Indemnification Committee, favors a settlement which would provide 2,300,000,000 marks ($575,000,000) to 2,500,000,000 marks ($625,000,000).
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany has demanded full indemnity for those victims. It has been said that fulfillment of this demand would cost West Germany another 6,000,000,000 marks ($1,500,000,000).
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