Swedish court lets Holocaust survivor keep compensation

Warsaw - A Holocaust survivor from Sweden last week won a long legal fight to reclaim her compensation funds from Germany, which Swedish welfare services unduly confiscated. On Wednesday, a Swedish court ordered she be reimbursed.

"While extensive funds go to Holocaust commemoration, this case shows that not enough is being done for the survivors still with us, who often encounter little consideration," Jakob Ringart, honorary chairman of the Swedish Holocaust survivors association told Haaretz ahead of the January 27 International Holocaust Day.

In the ruling by Sweden's highest administrative legal instance, the court ordered the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) to give back a sum equivalent to some 4,000 euros to Miriam Landau, who was born in Hungary in 1924 and immigrated to Sweden in the 1950s.

The insurance agency confiscated the sum, paid to Landau for the years 1997-2003, because they viewed it as pension payments. Mrs. Landau was already receiving pension payment from the Swedish government, and Swedish law proscribes dual pension collection.

Mrs. Landau receives payments from the German state as compensation for the time she spent living in a ghetto and concentration camp during World War II. She has appealed the confiscation once, but her appeal had been rejected. It was only upheld by the highest administrative court, the Regeringsrätten.

"There are other cases like this, but we have limited resources to fight for them," Jakob Ringart, the honorary chairman of the Swedish association of Holocaust survivors (FFO) told Haaretz. His organization has 620 members.

"This is a case of cold Swedish bureaucracy that occurs because unlike other countries, Swedish authorities have no accumulated experience in dealing with people who need special care because of war injuries or experiences," added Ringart, who was born in Poland.

Landau, who was born in Hungary in 1924, was diagnosed with double lung tuberculosis in 1945 following time in the ghetto and concentration camp and was taken to Sweden with her husband by the Swedish Red Cross.

In its ruling the court said that its assessment of Landau?s case was based largely on a September 2009 statement from the German social insurance agency which highlighted the ?special legal character? of the Holocaust indemnity payments and stated that the payments ?should not be considered as payments made through the social insurance system?.

David Landes, a Swedish reporter who covered the case for The Local, noted that the court rejected Landau?s request that she be paid interest on the lost pension income, stating there was ?no legal basis? by which interest could be paid.