CONFERENCE ON JEWISH MATERIAL CLAIMS AGAINST GERMANY
>
> ANNOUNCEMENT
>
> At its annual meeting July 8-9 2008, the Board of Directors of the
> Claims Conference approved the nomination of a new member organization
> to the Board, the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the
> Holocaust.
>
> “We warmly welcome the World Federation and look forward to its
> contributions to the work of the Claims Conference in the future. As
> many of the survivors still with us were children during the Shoah,
> the organization’s voice will be a valuable one on the Claims
> Conference Board,” said Chairman Julius Berman.
>
> The World Federation has 54 chapters in 19 countries, representing the
> interests of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were persecuted as
> children during the Nazi era. Members survived the Shoah in ghettos,
> in camps, in hiding, or by fleeing. The organization’s members
> perpetuate the memory of Holocaust victims and the legacy of the
> survivors by telling their stories, engaging in Shoah education, and
> holding conferences.
>

CLAIMS CONFERENCE INCREASES ALLOCATIONS TO ASSIST JEWISH VICTIMS OF
NAZISM WORLDWIDE, EXPANDING SOCIAL SERVICES

At its annual meeting July 8-9 2008, the Claims Conference Board of
Directors approved a plan to increase its overall annual allocations
from various sources and also approved a multi-year allocation plan,
following a review of current and future needs and resources.

Total allocations by the Claims Conference will increase to $193 million
in 2009 from $170 million in 2008, expanding services for Nazi victims
worldwide. Allocations are primarily from the funds of the Successor
Organization (recovery of unclaimed Jewish property in the former East
Germany), with other funds coming from various sources of
Holocaust-related compensation.

“Increasing Claims Conference allocations is essential to addressing the
growing needs of Nazi victims as they age. These funds are for homecare,
hunger relief, medical care, winter supplies, emergency cash grants, and
other vital services to Nazi victims worldwide,” said Chairman Julius
Berman.

The Board of Directors reviewed a June 2008 report by Myers - JDC -
Brookdale Institute which had been presented to the Foundation for the
Benefit of Holocaust Survivors in Israel. The report projects that in
15 years, the number of Nazi victims in Israel still eligible for
homecare under current criteria will be 11,100, which is 77 percent of
the 2007 number of 14,300. The report shows that as survivors get older
and sicker, their needs will become greater. The Claims Conference funds
all homecare for Nazi victims in Israel beyond that provided by the
government.

The Board also unanimously approved an overall multi-year plan to
distribute approximately $135 million a year primarily from funds of the
Successor Organization over the next 5-7 years. This is based on current
Successor Organization funds available and projected income of the
Successor Organization. It represents an increase in Successor
Organization allocations of $25 million from 2007 in order to replace
humanitarian funding from the International Commission on Holocaust Era
Insurance Claims, which has now been distributed.

Successor Organization funds are primarily for social welfare programs
and institutions aiding Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in more than
40 countries. The amount to be allocated from the Successor Organization
for programs of Shoah research, documentation or education for the
period commencing July 10, 2008 will be up to $18 million per year. This
amounts to 20 percent of the earlier annual allocations of $90 million
per year and will now be 14 percent of the planned Successor
Organization allocations for 2008-2012.

In addition to allocations from the Successor Organization, the Claims
Conference allocates funds for social welfare services from the German
government, the Swiss Banks Settlement, the Hungarian Gold Train
Settlement, and the Austrian government.

The Board also resolved that intensive efforts should continue to be
made to expand and extend funding to meet social welfare needs of Nazi
victims from all other sources (including the German government, the
Israeli government, other restitution sources such as the Israeli
Company for Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets and the Romanian
Foundation, and philanthropic sources).

Conference tackles Shoah survivors’ needs for next decade
By Jane Ulman

Holocaust survivors are rapidly dying off and will soon disappear, according to perceptions held by the international Jewish community. But a conference in Los Angeles devoted to caring for victims of Nazi persecution in North and South America, which took place from June 22 to 24 demonstrated otherwise.

Not only are survivors alive in large numbers — estimated at 700,000 worldwide, with about 85,000 in the United States — but they are projected to be a part of Jewish society for another 10 to 15 years, and even longer for child survivors.

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Stolen Victimhood
By NETTY C. GROSS

Cover story in Issue 7, July 21, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report.

Rochla Trachtman survived the Holocaust, but she isn’t a Holocaust survivor. The 88-year-old Yiddish-speaking woman, blind and wheel-chair bound, lives in a tenement in Jaffa with a 24-hour caretaker. Sitting in her neat, modest living room, she tells a visitor that she, her husband Haim and their infant daughter, Eta, fled from Kishinev, Moldava, on the eve of the German invasion of Soviet territory, in June 1941. They boarded a cattle wagon, which took them to Stalingrad (today Volgograd, Russia) on the west bank of the Volga River. Caught up in one of the bloodiest battles ever, they endured bombardment and starvation. The baby died in her arms. But they were among the very few people who survived the Battle of Stalingrad.

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