Jerusalem - An Israeli minister who said Holocaust survivors
in Israel need more money did not mean that the 1952 agreement with
Germany granting reparations needed to be reopened or re-examined,
his spokeswoman said Sunday.
Elle Baror told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa that Pensions Affairs
Minister Rafi Eitan did not want to tamper with the Luxembourg
Agreement, but rather wanted teams from Israel and Germany to meet in
order to discuss ways of finding money to cover expenses which were
not taken into account when the original deals were signed.
These expenses include the high cost of the last stage of life in
the modern era, and a life expectancy at least 10 years longer
compared to that of the 1950s, when the original reparations
agreements were signed, she said.
In addition, Israel has absorbed 'hundreds of thousands' of
Holocaust survivors from the former Soviet Union who were not
accounted for in the original reparations agreement, Baror said.
Baror said that Eitan believed that since Germany bore prime
responsibility for the Holocaust, it should help Israel find the
funds to meet these new expenses, which are only for survivors and
not for their descendents.
The minister has proposed that teams from Israel and Germany meet
to determine how much money is needed, and how it should be raised.
Eiutan has asked for a meeting with German Finance Minister Peer
Steinbrueck when he visits Israel in two weeks time.
The Luxembourg Agreement stipulated that Germany would give Israel
833 million dollars in reparations, and Israel would look after the
survivors, who would not be permitted to sue Germany directly.
But Eitan says that in the 50 years between 1954 and 2004, the
Israeli government had spent some 3.5 billion dollars on the
survivors, more than four times the sum transferred by Germany.
Many Holocaust survivors and refugees in Israel are said to live
below the poverty line, either because as Jews who survived the
Holocaust in countries not under Nazi occupation they were not
eligible for repatriation, because they have no proper pensions, or
because they refused or failed to apply for reparations.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
Your Talkback on this Story