After 22 months of negotiations, West Germany and The Netherlands agreed this week-end on an indemnification program for Dutch victims of Nazi persecutions, involving German payments that will total between 100,000,000 and 125,000,000 Deutschemarks.
By far the largest number of beneficiaries will be survivors of Dutch Jews who died in concentration camps, or Jews who suffered material damage or injury to their health during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. Of the Dutch citizens who died in concentration camps, for whose deaths Germany will now pay compensation, 104,000 were Jewish and 1,500 non-Jewish.
The Bonn Government has also completed similar negotiations with Luxembourg and Norway, and will open negotiations on compensation to Nazi victims of Denmark this week. The sum to be paid Norway has not yet been determined. Luxembourg compensation is expected to total 90,000,000 Deutschemarks.
Meanwhile, a German militarist publication, the German Soldiers’ News, continued today a vicious campaign it launched a few weeks ago against paying of indemnification and compensation to victims or survivors of Nazi persecutions. The newspaper denounces Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and other government officials who agreed to compensate Nazi persecutees as “traitors to the German people.”
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