Through publication of a “call-up notice” in the Federal Legal Gazette, payment has been authorized for claims in three categories filed by Nazi victims who are more than 60 years old, indigent or suffering from invalidity that has reduced their earning power by at least half.
Full payment can be made in the future on account of illegal arrest and incarceration, for which disbursements were heretofore limited to the equivalent of about $700. Since compensation is at the rate of $35 for each month of imprisonment, the beneficiaries will be those sick, elderly or indigent Nazi victims who were held in jails or concentration camps for a period in excess of 20 months. No distinction is made in this respect between those of Hitler’s prisoners who used to live in Germany and those who did not.
The other two categories of claims affected by the new “call-up” are of interest mainly to former residents of Germany. Compensation for injury to one’s professional or economic career may now be granted up to a maximum amount of $2,400. Property damage can be made good up to a maximum of $1,200, provided the sick, indigent or elderly Nazi victim has not already received some indemnification under another section of the law, as a pension or as payment for illegal arrest or custody.
The only claims “called up” by the present notice are those which have already been investigated and approved by the state indemnification agencies, but which were not hitherto paid out because of “low priority.” For the elderly, indigent and sick, these claims categories now rate a higher priority.
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