Between 10,000 and 12,000 Jewish displaced persons, most of whom meanwhile have reached Israel, will benefit from the new extension of the compensation law for victims of Nazism in Lower Saxony in Western Germany, in the British zone of Germany, Joseph Rosensaft, chairman of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British zone, revealed today at a press conference arranged by the World Jewish Congress.
The law, compensating former prisoners for their detention, originally applied only to individuals having a permanent residence in the German province where they were imprisoned. Accordingly, thousands of Jews did not come within the scope of the law.
Following representations by the Central Jewish Committee to the government of Lower Saxony, supported by simultaneous representations made at the British Foreign Office here last November by the World Jewish Congress, Mr. Rosensaft was informed on Jan. 2 by the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior that compensation might also be claimed by Jewish DP’s who would be considered persecutees, without any further evidence, on the basis of the fact that they are Jews. These perseoutees are to receive compensation of 150 marks ($35) for each month of detention in prison, concentration camps or ghettos, irrespective of whether such detention took place on German territory or outside and providing they were residents of Lower Saxony on Jan. 1, 1948.
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