West German Minister of Finance Fritz Schaeffer has assured Dr. Bruno Weil, president of the New York “Axis Victims League,” that advance payments on the compensation claims of former German Jews will be expedited, it was learned here today.
Dr. Weil, a prominent Berlin attorney prior to the Nazi regime, has for some time pleaded with German governmental quarters for redress of the inadequacies of indemnification legislation dealing with Jews who were formerly self-employed. Some 900 Jews of German origin, who fall within these categories, signed an appeal prepared by him, which in the form of a petition to the German Government makes specific recommendations on ways and means of improving the handling of indemnification for individual applicants.
This petition he recently submitted to Federal President Theodor Heuss in a special audience. Additional signatures, which were collected in the meantime, he has handed to Herr Schaeffer, who said that he looked forward to the possibility of making advance payments under the Federal Indemnification Law to individual applicants, beginning next month. Although the law is more than a year old, practically no payments have as yet been made under its provisions.
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