Jewish Labor Committee Asks Germany to Reverse Stand on Fayments

The Jewish Labor Committee sent cables today to West Germany’s Chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Foreign Minister Gerhard Schroeder, requesting reversal of the Bonn Parliament’s decision to defer 1966 and 1967 payments to certain victims of Nazism. The West German Parliament has passed a budget bill which includes deferment of such payments amounting to $100,000,000 because of alleged “budget deficiencies.”

In the telegrams, addressed to the two German leaders by Adolph Held, chairman of the JLC, Bonn was asked to reverse the Parliament’s decision “in light of the moral issues” involved. The budget bill has not yet been enacted, pending its signature by the German president and chancellor, and publication in the Government’s official gazette.

“The individuals concerned,” stated the cables, “are, in many cases, old and destitute. The postponement of justice to them will, in large measure, be tantamount to denial of justice.” The issue affects payments of German reparation to those victims of Nazism, including 150,000 Jews, who were unable to file restitution claims prior to a former cut-off date fixed at October 1, 1953, when these victims were still in countries behind the Iron Curtain.

In the same messages, Mr. Held also called the German Government’s attention to its failure to date to negotiate an economic agreement with Israel, expressing the hope that Bonn “will act with due dispatch” on this matter. Germany had promised last spring, when it decided on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, to negotiate such a pact. “We are profoundly concerned,” stated the JLC messages, “that so long a period has elapsed since promises of negotiation were made, and yet no action has been forthcoming from your Government.”