Germans to Pay $18,000,000 Bulk Settlement to Jewish Group

The Jewish Restitution Successor Organization will receive some $18,000,000 as a result of bulk settlements negotiated with the U. S. States Zone of Germany, as well as in settlement of claims against individual Germans, it was reported here today at the fifth annual meeting of the J. R. S. O. As a result of these agreements, more than 85 percent of all claims pressed by the J. R. S. O. for heir less or unclaimed property have now been successfully settled.

Benjamin B. Ferencz, director general in Germany of the J.R.S.O., told the session that “the relatively few claims remaining in the U.S. Zone should be disposed of during 1953. Our success in assigning these individual claims in bulk to the State of Hesse, Bremen, Wuerttemberg-Baden and Bavaria, in return for reasonable compensation, marks the satisfactory culmination of the major phase of J.R.S.O. activities.”

The annual meeting of the J. R. S. O., formed in 1947 by a group of leading Jewish organizations in the U.S., Great Britain, France and Germany to press Jewish restitution claims against Germany, elected Dr. Israel Goldstein president for 1952-53, succeeding Monroe Goldwater. Mr. Goldwater was chosen chairman of the executive committee. Other officers elected included: vice-presidents, Jacob Blaustein, Frederic Borchardt, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Dr. lsaac Lewin, Dr. Joachim Prinz, and Edward M. M. Warburg: co-treasurers, Dr. Hermann Gray and Shad Polier; and secretary, Saul Kagan.

Funds already recovered by J.R.S.O. representing heirless or otherwise unclaimed property, are now being used to support relief activities on behalf of needy Jewish victims of Nazism both in and outside Germany, through the two “operating agencies” of the J. R.S. O. — the Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency.