The organization Jewish Claims Conference, composed of numerous Jewish associations, which has been fighting since the 1950s for compensation for victims of the Shoah, recently published figures on the survivors still alive. There are still 245,000 of them and they live in 90 countries around the world, half of them in Israel. In Western Europe, France is home to the largest community with 22,000 people. Some 14,000 survivors live in Germany. As with the rest of the Jewish community in this country, many are from the former Soviet Union. The vast majority of these people were children when the war ended. Today they are 86 years old on average.
“ About twenty years ago, survivors demanded compensation. For the last ten years, the need has been: can I receive care at home?explains Rüdiger Mahlo, the representative of the Claims Conference in Germany, to the microphone of our correspondent in Berlin, Pascal Thibaut. One of the questions that concerns them is: who will bear witness to what I experienced for future generations… »
Some 40% of survivors received payments last year from the more than 300 organizations that receive funding from the Claims Conference. If we add direct compensation, nearly $1.3 billion was paid to survivors by the Claims Conference last year. These amounts should be increasing this year.