Dutch Jews slam Germany over Shoah payment loophole - Haaretz

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Sun., November 11, 2007 Kislev 1, 5768

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Dutch Jews slam Germany over Shoah payment loophole

By Cnaan Liphshiz

tags: Holocaust, Netherlands

Germany is unjustly withholding money from Dutch Holocaust survivors, an umbrella group for Dutch Jews told Haaretz. Yesterday, on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the group's leaders presented Germany with a petition protesting "injustice to 2,000 Dutch survivors."

The bone of contention is a one-time grant the Dutch survivors received in the 1960s. Because of this grant, most of the survivors from the Netherlands are ineligible for compensation under a new arrangement agreed last year.

"We found that because of this one-time grant of some 1,400 euros on average, we're not entitled to a monthly payment of 270 euros which is guaranteed in Article 2 of the Claims Conference," said the initiative's leader, Avraham de Vries.

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Along with the de Vries group in Tel Aviv, a group of Jewish survivors in the Netherlands gave the German embassy in the Hague a copy of the petition, which is addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Article 2 of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany - a body representing world Jewry in compensation talks - was regarded as an achievement when it was signed in 2006. It awarded needy survivors a lifelong monthly stipend. But anyone who had received a grant from Germany was ineligible.

De Vries' organization, Platform Israel, found that Germany had approved 949 of 2,954 Jewish applicants for payment under Article 2. Five hundred denied applicants live in Israel. The remaining 1,500 are in Holland.

"If Germany wishes to engage in petty bookkeeping, then by all means, let them deduct our one-time grants from what we are owed in monthly payments," says Dr. Eldad Kisch, de Vries' partner in the fight.

Kisch says the Dutch Jews would never have taken the money had they known it would become grounds for refusing them payment in old age. "They gave us milk money and we were stupid enough to take it."

De Vries says that at the time the Netherlands had not yet recovered from World War II. "We were happy to get anything," he says. Kisch recalls that many survivors used the modest income supplement to buy furniture or a car.

Marthi Herschler, head of Ajalah, a group that represents Dutch Israelis, recalls the points system that was used to determine the size of the grant. "Wearing a yellow patch got you a certain number of points. A murdered parent got you more points."

Each point was worth 15 euros, says veteran compensation campaigner and former Dutchman Avraham Roet. "An orphan who'd lost both his parents in the Holocaust got 200 points, or 3,000 euros, but men who were sterilized for marrying non-Jewish wives received only 750 euros."

According to Roet, some survivors who received only one point, or 15 euros, are now refused a monthly stipend of 270 euros. Roet says the Dutch government contacted the German government on the survivors' behalf, without success.

The German embassy in Tel Aviv received the cosignatories but would not comment on their timing - the 69th commemoration day for the pogrom the Nazis orchestrated across the Third Reich. "The Embassy is aware of this issue and will transmit the petition to the German authorities for further examination. We have been in touch with the Dutch Embassy on this matter," the German embassy told Haaretz.

The cosignatories say they are prepared for a backlash in Europe. "More people are saying that the compensation issue is dragging on for too long," Kisch says. "Some might say the Jews are out to get money again. Let them. This injustice must be corrected."

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