Claims Conference
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The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents world Jewry in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. The Claims Conference administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish property, and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the Shoah.
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[edit] Mission statement
An excerpt from the Claim Conference's official mission statement:
"The mission of the Claims Conference over its 50-year history has always been to secure what we consider a small measure of justice for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. We have pursued this goal since 1951 through a combination of negotiations, disbursing funds to individuals and organizations, and seeking the return of Jewish property lost during the Holocaust."[1]
[edit] History
The Claims Conference was founded in 1951 as a body to engage the German government in negotiations for material compensation for Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Nahum Goldmann, then president of the World Jewish Congress (JWC), was a cofounder of the Claims Conference, and JWC designates two members to its Board of Directors.
[edit] Compensation Programs
As of 2006, the Claims Conference has administered the following programs, which provide direct payments to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Programs were negotiated with the German government and are subject to eligibility criteria determined by the German government. The Claims Conference continually negotiates to expand and liberalize eligibility criteria in order to include additional victims in the programs.
- The Article 2 Fund, a lifetime pension for certain persons who were incarcerated in concentration camps, ghettos, or forced labor battalions, or who were forced to go into hiding. Eligibility criteria have been negotiated continually with Germany, and include limits on income, established by the German government.
- The Central and Eastern European Fund, a pension program similar to the Article 2 Fund, which distributes payments to survivors located in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
- Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers, a one-time payment for persons "compelled to perform work in a concentration camp...a ghetto, or a similar place of incarceration under comparable conditions."[2] Application deadline has expired.
- Fund for Victims of Medical Experiments and Other Injuries Application deadline has expired.
- Hardship Fund, a one-time payment for Jewish victims of Nazism who emigrated from Soviet bloc countries and meet certain eligibility criteria established by the German government.
- The Claims Conference also works with the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHIEC) to process claims for unpaid Holocaust era insurance policies. The Claims Conference also administers programs on behalf of the U.S. District Court administering the Swiss Banks Settlement.
[edit] Other Programs
The Claims Conference negotiated with the newly united German government in 1990 to enable original Jewish owners and heirs to file claims for properties in the former East Germany. In order that unclaimed properties should not revert to the state or to beneficiaries of Nazi policies, the Claims Conference also negotiated to recover unclaimed formerly Jewish properties in the former East Germany.
The Claims Conference uses proceeds from these properties to allocate funds to social service organizations and institutions that provide assistance to Jewish victims of Nazism. These services include hunger relief, homecare, medical assistance, and emergency cash grants. The Claims Conference also administers social service allocations on behalf of several other sources of restitution funds.
The Claims Conference uses a small portion of the proceeds from the East German properties to support programs engaging in Holocaust education, documentation, and research.
[edit] Criticism
The Claims Conference has been criticised recently both for its high staff salaries and of its priorities.
On May 19, 2006, the Jewish Chronicle revealed that the Claims Conference highest-paid official, executive vice-president Gideon Taylor, was awarded $437,811 (£240,000) in salary and pension (2004 numbers), [3] An advisor to British survivors in compensation claims in the 1990s, Dr Pinto-Duschinsky, commented: "It is wrong for the executive vice-president to earn annually the same as the compensation for several hundred former slave labourers. The moral authority of the leading Jewish organisations is gravely weakened by excessively high salaries for top officials."
The priorities has also been criticised. Among the critics is the Claims Conference own treasurer, Roman Kent, a Holocaust survivor, who told the The Jewish Chronicle: "Survivors are suffering. Our only priority should be the survivors, and everything else should be secondary. We are spending money for thousands of projects, but the health of the survivors can't wait. They are dying daily." [..] "I'm not saying that these are bad programmes, but they can wait - or else they should be the responsibility of the world Jewish community, not the Claims Conference."[4]
