No More Holocaust Reparations, Says German Finance Minister on November 11, 2007
Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (pictured, right) said in Jerusalem Thursday that Germany had no plans to renegotiate a Holocaust reparations deal signed with Israel in 1952.
“The existing deal is signed and final and there is no need to change it,” said Steinbrück after meeting with the chairman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Noah Flug.
Flug said that although the reparation agreement with Germany would not be amended, if there were “specific problems” Germany would try to solve them.
“We didn’t ask for money, we spoke of the responsibility of the German government,” added Flug.
Complaints that Germany’s reparations fail to compensate in any reasonable way for the trauma of the Holocaust are ongoing. But the Israeli Holocaust survivors who met with Steinbrück on Thursday, Nov. 23, to request improvements to the reparations arrangement specifically argued that the original agreement failed to take into account today’s longer life expectancy or the tens of thousands of survivors who immigrated to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union.
According to news agency DPA, Steinbrück did agree that Germany would try to help needy survivors via the Claims Committee, the international organization that coordinates compensation payments to survivors.
An unofficial request?
Earlier this month, an Israeli paper published comments by Israel’s Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafael Eytan saying Israel was keen to reopen the deal, but he later said he was misquoted and only wished to examine with Germany ways to support survivors given the ‘holes’ in the original agreement.
On Thursday, a spokeswomen for the Israeli finance ministry confirmed that Israel has never officially requested Germany revise the reparations deal.
The Luxembourg agreement between the two countries stipulated that Germany would pay Israel reparations, and Israel would look after the survivors, who would not be permitted to sue Germany directly.
Since the 1950s, Germany has paid 26 billion euros ($38 billion) in compensation. Around 1.7 billion of this went to Israel, the rest to German claimants.
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If they were in the Soviet Union at the time, how could they be Holocaust survivors? Many have also managed to immigrate to the U.S. and get taxpayer subsidies. You won’t find them working in fast food.
Will it never end! What about everybody else who suffered during the war?What about the British who lost an eimpire and were bankrupt by the war they only finished payments for “Lend lease” a few years ago or the Russians in whos country most of that terrible war was fought did they not suffer? or indeed the germans themselves,they suffered terribly in defeat a part of history ignored,no, all repayments to Israel should by stopped at least until they stop droping phosphorus bombs on schools