Representatives of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and of Jewish refugee organizations in Israel, Britain, France and the United States protested yesterday in the West German Parliament that proposed changes in federal indemnification laws for victims of Nazism were inadequate.
The representatives, along with those of non-Jewish organizations, appeared on invitation of the Bundestag indemnification committee at a scheduled hearing on changes in the law to extend its coverage to victims now excluded. The issue has been before the Bonn Parliament for years.
Two major groups of Jewish claimants are involved. One is an estimated 100,000 Jews who could not leave Iron Curtain countries until after October 1,1953, the deadline for filing of claims. The other is some 86,000 Jews who have filed claims for illness or disability suffered in Nazi concentration camps and ghettoes.
West Germany has agreed in principle to compensate Jewish victims who came to the West after the 1953 deadline, and has suggested a fund equivalent to $150,000,000 to be used for one-time payments by Jewish claim organizations for such indemnification. Jewish organizations are asking, however, that such victims be treated on the same basis as Jewish victims who were able to file by the 1953 deadline and have requested a fund of between 2,000,000,000 marks ($500,000,000) and 3,000,000,000 marks ($750,000,000) for that purpose.
The other group of claimants must now prove 25 per cent disability and that the disability is due to Nazi persecution. The Jewish organizations have argued that, due to the lapse of time involved, it is virtually impossible to prove such claims. They have asked that the law be changed to make it the legal presumption that victims of such camps and ghettoes suffered their illness as the result of Nazi persecution. One of the proposed amendments accepts this proposal in principle but hedges it with conditions considered crippling by Jewish organizations, who asked that the restrictions be eliminated.
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