A resolution calling upon West Germany to amend its present law on indemnification of victims of Nazism, so as to provide compensation to and more adequate treatment of those victims who could not file restitution applications under the present law, was adopted unanimously here yesterday at a mass meeting organized by the Coordinating Committee of Nazi Victims Organizations.
The meeting emphasized the fact that tens of thousands of Nazi victims, living in the United States and elsewhere, have been unable to file applications for German restitution because, under the present German law, the cut-off date for eligibility is October 1, 1953. Nazi victims who could not leave Eastern Europe before that 1953 deadline have, thus, been unable to file their applications.
The resolution called for extension of the present law, wiping out the 1953 deadline; compensation for damage to the health of victims of Nazism who had been imprisoned in concentration camps, forced labor camps and ghettoes, and whose earning capacity was impaired; and full equality of treatment for widows of Nazi victims who had died before October 1, 1953.
Addresses upholding these demands were delivered at the rally by Kurt R. Grossman, secretary of the Coordinating Committee; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress; Morris B. Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee; and U. S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, New York Democrat. Mr. Grossman, in his address, sharply criticized “the unhealthy influence of German civil servants in drafting the law on indemnification which, for historical and moral reasons, surpasses narrow, legal and fiscal concepts.”
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