The West German Government said today it had rejected the complaint of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee against payment by Germany of reparations to Israel on the grounds that the Arab intervention was “incompetent.” A Government spokesman pointed out that if the Arabs felt obliged to raise such claims (for a share of the German reparations) they should address themselves to the State of Israel. There was, he said, no reason for the Federal Government to put a new strain on the reparations talks with Israel or in any way to consider the Arab protest.
Claims of individual victims of the Nazis should be considered as equal to the reparations claims of Israel and given the same priority, Dr. Bruno Weil, president of the Axis Victims League in the United States, said today in a broadcast over the Hamburg radio. He stressed the severe losses suffered by individual Jews and urged their claims to compensation. He welcomed the announcement by the Social Democrats of their intention to introduce a bill for the indemnification of individuals on a Federal level.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
