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Jewish Leaders to Meet in Germany on Law for Indemnification

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The executive committee of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany will meet at Bad Godesburg, near here, next Thursday to consider the West German Finance Ministry’s second draft of a law providing indemnification for victims of the Nazi regime. Negotiations between the Conference and the Ministry are expected to begin April 14.

The reparations pact signed by the Bonn Government on one hand and the Israel Government and the Claims Conference on the other, provides for the German Government to submit to the German Parliament a comprehensive measure to indemnify victims of the Nazis. Tens of thousands of Jewish former concentration camp inmates and other victims of the Hitler regime have been waiting for such a measure for eight years.

The first draft of the measure completed by the Ministry last February and another version adopted by the Federal Council February 20 caused considerable concern among Jewish representatives because it would have excluded, in effect displaced persons of non-German nationality from most benefits. The Hague agreement had provided for essential equality of treatment for Nazi victims regardless of nationality.

It is understood that the latest version of the measure is less objectionable. However, the time for its consideration and adoption is very short since the current Bonn Parliament will probably be dissolved in June.

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