The delegation representing the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany at the current reparations negotiations here today requested that West Germany pay $500,000,000 for the benefit of surviving Jewish victims of Nazism outside Israel, in addition to the payment of all individual claims and the return of all stolen property to original Jewish owners.
The demand was made at a session this afternoon which followed a three-hour meeting between the Israeli and German delegations at the suburb of Wassenaar this morning. A Conference spokesman stressed that the statement last Friday by the Germans dealing with Germany’s ability to pay the claims was “not a proper” subject for this meeting.
At the Israeli-German session, the Israelis asked the Germans to explain specifically what they had meant in their opening statement last Friday when they said that the settlement must “align” Israel’s claims with the work of the London conference–of some 30 nations–on Germany’s pre-war external debts. The Israelis also questioned the German delegation’s raising the point of their country’s ability to pay the Israeli demands.
Before the session began the members of the Israeli delegation sent a message of condolence to the widow of Itzhak Besner. Mr. Besner was killed in the crash of a Dutch K.L.M. aircraft at Frankfort this week-end. He was en route to this city to serve the delegation as a financial advisor.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
