Social Insurance for Jewish Forced Laborers Will Be Sought from Defeated Germany

Emphasizing that delegates to the UNRRA session in Montreal reacted coldly when confronted by representatives of Jewish organizations, Dr, Arieh Tartakower, addressing a press conference here today expressed satisfaction at the fact that the British and American delegations incorporated the majority of the Jewish demands in resolutions which they presented to the UNRRA conference. “This,” he said, “will prove an opening wedge for relief work by the UNRRA among hundreds of thousands of Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.”

“After the war,” Dr. Tartakower continued, “Germany, her allies and satellites, will be forced to pay indemnity to the hundreds of thousands of Jews whom they wrested from their homes and sent to forced labor battalions, and will also have to pension the widows and orphans of these men.” It was through the negotiations of the World Jewish Congress with the leaders of the International Labor Office, whose representatives also participated in the UNRRA Conference, that this suggestion was adopted, he said.

Jews who were forcibly taken from their homes by the Nazis and their collaborators will, within the framework of the ILO international agreements, be given recognition as laborers for whom the German government and the governments of her allies and satellites will have to pay social insurance in accordance with the prescriptions of social security. Details of this resolution will be determined by a special commission of the ILO, to which a representative of the World Jewish Congress will be invited. Dr. Tartakower stated. The press conference at which Dr. Tartakower spoke was arranged jointly by the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Conference.