Claims Conference Allocates $10,075,000 for 1962 Program of Aid

The distribution of $10, 075, 000 in 1962, for the benefit of 170, 000 Jewish victims of Nazism in 25 countries, was approved at the annual meeting of the board of directors of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which concluded its three-day sessions here today.

Jacob Blaustein, senior vice-president of the Claims Conference, made the budget presentation to the 37-board members present representing 23 Jewish world organizations. This year’s allocation brings to $90,000,000 the sum the Claims Conference has allocated for Nazi victims outside of Israel since the original reparations agreement was reached with the Bonn Government in 1952.

“Requests for aid are continuing to run well beyond our resources, ” Mr. Blaustein said. “The volume of applications submitted has failed to shrink over the years, not-withstanding the great number of allocations granted in earlier years. In point of fact, applications actually increased by seven percent in 1962, with 433 applications requesting considerably over $20, 000, 000 coming from 33 countries, where Nazi victims are making their homes. You will appreciate that the task of scaling down those huge demands to the approximately $10,000,000 available has raised an exceptional volume of difficulties.”

Distribution of this year’s funds were calculated by Mr. Blaustein as follows: Relief and Rehabilitation, $7, 836, 409, of which $7, 000, 000 are going for the continent of Europe, Australia and to other programs for Nazi victims; Cultural and Educational Reconstruction, $1, 863, 776; Administration relay of expenditures and contributions for the Israel Purchasing Mission, $375,000.

GRANT TO UNITED HIAS INCREASED; MIGRATION AID TO 5,100 CITED

An increase of the Claim Conference grant to United Hias Service Jewish Immigration Agency from $375, 000 in 1961 to $450, 000 this year was voted by the board. During the past year United Hias has helped move 2,100 Jews from Cuba, of whom more than one-third were Nazi victims. In addition it helped nearly 3,000 Nazi victims to migrate from Europe.

“The importance of these cultural grants cannot be over-estimated,” Mr. Blaustein stated. “The Jewish schools, which Nazi persecution had laid waste had been rebuilt with Conference aid or are currently in construction wherever the need for them is urgent. At the same time a new generation of children born in years of the middle fifties had begun to knock on school doors.

“Conference allocations over the years for the rebuilding of Jewish schools in Europe have reached truly formidable proportions,” Mr. Blaustein emphasized. “They deserve to be appraised in terms ranging beyond mere quantity alone. In the entire annals of our history no epoch has ever witnessed before a transfusion of one so massive for the rebuilding of the fiscal Jewish school plans, which had been destroyed. In the generations to come I am confident it will stand out as an enduring monument of Conference activities and will take its rank in the forefront of the Conference achievements,” Mr. Blaustein declared.

LEADERS OF CLAIMS CONFERENCE RECEIVED BY KING OF DENMARK

A check for $10,000 was presented today to King Frederick IX by senior officers of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany at a private audience. The check was presented to the King “as a token of the gratitude of the Jews of the world for the exceptional events of the Danes during the Nazi occupation to save the lives of their Jewish fellow citizens, with a recommendation that it be used for scholarships to children of the heroic resistance fighters.”

Participants in the audience at Amaligenborg Palace included Dr. Goldmann, Mr. Elaustein and Moses Leavitt, treasurer of the Conference. They were accompanied by Otto Levison, president of the Copenhagen Jewish community and were presented to the King by United States Ambassador William MacBlair, Jr.