The West German Cabinet approved yesterday an amendment to liberalize the existing indemnification laws for Nazi victims by including also persons who suffered from Nazism but were unable to file their claims before October 1, 1953–the cutoff date in the original indemnification law–because they were then in Iron Curtain countries.
The claims of such persons, most of them Jews, will be recognized only if they have in the meantime left the Soviet bloc countries and are now living in other countries. West Germany does not recognize claims of persons living in the Soviet countries.
The amendment to the indemnification law approved by the Cabinet yesterday provides for an additional $750, 000, 000 for liberalization of payments. This sum includes $150, 000, 000 marked as a special hardship fund for payment of compensation to those who were unable to submit their claims by October 1, 1953, as well as increased pensions and other payments to individual victims of Nazism. The amendment will be presented to Parliament and is expected to be enacted soon.
The amendment is the second approved by the Cabinet to liberalize the existing compensation law. Last week, the Cabinet approved an amendment to the 1957 law on restitution for claims for certain types of movable property confiscated by the Nazis. This included bank accounts, jewelry, furniture and similar property, the location of which is unknown.
That amendment includes a special hardship fund of $100, 000, 000 for victims who never filed claims for restitution because the original law placed the burden of proof on the claimants that the lost movable property was actually shipped to Germany from the various occupied countries. Such victims, particularly those in East European countries, were told by attorneys that it would be impossible to provide such proof and therefore did not file claims.
After the law was enacted, the West German Government dropped the requirement that victims would have to furnish proof. That agreement, however, did not help those victims who had not, in good faith, filed claims under the original burden-of-proof requirements. The $100, 000, 000 hardship fund in the amendment to the restitution law was set up to pay claims for restitution in such cases.
The amounts of $150, 000, 000 and $100, 000, 000 in the two special hardship funds in the amendments are in addition to the $3, 500, 000, 000 already paid out by West Germany as well as in addition to the sums scheduled to be paid out under the indemnification and restitution laws. The amendments will be submitted to the West German Parliament soon and are expected to be enacted into law before the end of 1963.
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