Last update - 00:00 10/12/2007
Heirs of Holocaust victims could claim up to NIS 200M in assets
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
The Organization for the Restitution of Assets of Holocaust Victims in Israel has publicized the names of 55,000 stockholders in the 19th-century Zionist movement company Jewish Colonial Trust, who perished during the Second World War, Army Radio reported on Monday.
The shares currently made available are worth a total of more than NIS 200million.
The victims' heirs can claim their benefits on the organization's Web site, www.hashava.org.il/eng, over the next twelve months. This is the largest restitution campaign the organization has conducted since its establishment two years ago. To date, the group has collected NIS 700 million in assets.
"This is a remarkable project," the organization's director Yishai Amrami told Army Radio on Monday. "We are dealing with an exceptionally large number of stockholders. We are seeking to give their relatives what they deserve."
Submitting a claim through the organization's Web site is only the beginning of a long process. In the previous campaign, inaugurated in July last year, only a handful of claimants were actually compensated. The organization has often been subject to criticism for its protracted bureaucracy.
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