The West German Government’s failure to accord compensation rights to Jews and other persons persecuted in territory outside Germany was hit here in the fifth annual report of the Jewish Trust Corporation, a successor organization active in the British zone of Germany and the British sector of Berlin.
The Federal Indemnification Law, which was amended last week, provides compensation for German nationals who were victims of Nazism and for victims who resided in Germany before or after the war and who were victims, but has done little for Nazi victims in territories occupied by the German armies, the report pointed out.
The report also hit the German Government’s attempt to curtail compensation payments to successor organizations to 75,000 deutschemarks for each of the former Jewish communities–the exact sum which marks the upper limit of claims for individuals who suffered property losses as a result of Nazi action. This, the Jewish Trust Corporation pointed out, was a violation of several reparations agreements and was “unjustifiable on general grounds.” It also criticized the Bonn Government for failing to take care of closed Jewish cemeteries in Germany.
Claims totaling about 45,000,000 deutschemarks had been collected by the organization by the end of 1955, the report said. It will receive a bulk settlement of nearly 32,000,000 deutschemarks this year for claims resulting from Nazi confiscatory measures. The report noted that the process of recovering individual heirless property had come almost to a close.
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