Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, expressed the hope here today that the West German Government will reconsider its present plans to defer the 1966 and 1967 payments to a special group of victims of Nazism who were voted the right to indemnification in a new law enacted by the Bonn Parliament only last May.
The so-called “Final Indemnification Law,” passed in the spring, set up a “hardship fund” totaling $300, 000, 000, to meet the indemnification claims of persons who could not file claims before 1953 because they could not leave Iron Curtain countries in time. An estimated 150, 000 of those new claimants are Jews. Under the new law, they were to be paid a first installment of $50, 000, 000 in 1966 and a second installment of the same size in 1967. Now, the Bonn Government has proposed “for budgetary reasons” to defer the 1966 payments for a year and possibly to defer the 1967 payments as well.
“I hope sincerely,” Dr. Goldmann told a press conference here today, “that the German Government will remove from the new budget bill the provisions relating to the payments to victims of Nazism, and thus avoid a campaign of protest and a feeling of deep disappointment and indignation which this provision will inevitably bring about.”
“We must express our great indignation at the policy of the German Government in treating compensation to victims of Nazism on the same basis as any other obligation or promises to categories of the German population,” Dr. Goldmann stated: “The entire legislation on indemnification was based on the recognition of Germany’s duty to compensate the victims of Nazism at least materially, and to regard this as a moral obligation which has priority over any other financial obligation.”
Dr. Goldmann noted that the bill to curtail Bonn’s budget, now under discussion by a Bundestag committee, would defer certain payments for two years, reducing that part of the 1966 and 1967 budgets by 400, 000, 000 Deutschmarks ($100, 000, 000). He said the Claims Conference would protest to the Bonn Government basing its complaints on the following points:
1) These victims of Nazism have already had to wait 20 years or more to obtain compensation.
2) Most of the victims are old and cannot wait months, let alone years.
3) Compensation to victims of Nazism is a debt of honor and not to be deferred. German leaders have stated repeatedly that compensation to these victims should receive the highest priority.
4) The “Final Indemnification Law” was passed only a very short time ago and declared twice that compensation awards are due immediately.
5) The law itself did not fully satisfy the legitimate demands of the victims of Nazism but was reluctantly accepted by Jewish organizations on the assumption that payments would be made without delay.
6) The budget bill is contrary to Article Three of the German Constitution which guarantees property or acquired property rights. If passed, the bill will, therefore, be contested before the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional.
7) Similar cuts are not made in the draft bill in respect to all groups in receipt of Government payments. Thus, former Nazi victims are made to suffer, while former Nazi civil servants are not.
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