A pilot project to assure a minimum lifetime maintenance on an annuity basis for aged refugees from Nazi persecution in five European countries was announced here today at the 15th annual overseas conference of the Joint Distribution Committee.
Charles H. Jordan, overseas director of the JDC, said that the availability of funds from World Refugee Year collections made the experiment possible. Funds also will be provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, he said.
Saul Kagan, of New York, secretary of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, reported to the JDC conference that, in addition to $70,000,000 received by the Claims Conference for relief of needy Nazi victims during seven years of operation, more than $1,000,000,000 had been paid in individual Jewish indemnification claims under legislation negotiated by the Claims Conference and approved by the West German Government.
In describing the annuity project, Mr. Jordan said that estimated costs for a first group of 100 men and women, average in 77 years of age, would be $250,000. The refugees to be benefited live in Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain and France. He said preliminary tests of the idea had been carried out in Italy by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, the UN High Commissioner and the JDC.
The annuity plan, Mr. Jordan said, was designed to provide a permanent solution for the care of the aged so that, instead of being dependent on charity they could live out their days in peace, dignity and self-respect. In all cases, he added, World Refugee Year funds will have to be supplemented or matched by the JDC. He expressed the hope that the plan would become “a pattern for additional funds for the care of hundreds of other refugees in similar circumstances.”
Mr. Kagan, in his report, said direct relief rehabilitation for Nazi victims had always and would always continue to have primacy in Claims Conference allocations He said 80 percent of the $70,000,000 spent to date were for direct aid to some 156,000 beneficiaries of JDC program.
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