The World Jewish Federation of Nazi Victims has announced that it will hold a demonstration outside the West German Embassy on January 21 to protest the final restitution agreement recently signed between the Bonn government and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany. The agreement calls for the payment of 440 million Marks over a three-year period. It will be the last payment to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
The Israeli government has endorsed the agreement. But Tuvia Friedman; chairman of the Federation, said at a press conference that his group will challenge it. He said they were dissatisfied by the way Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Claims Conference, handled the negotiations and are convinced that the payments are too small.
According to Friedman, the payment of restitution should continue for at least another 20 years by which time most of the survivors will have passed away — and that all payments should be made through Israel, not through the Claims Conference in New York. Friedman claimed that the 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel constitute the bulk of the claimants.
The January 21 date was chosen for the demonstration because it will mark the 37th anniversary of the “Final Solution” decision at Wansee which put the Nazi death machine into action.
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