Bonn to Pay Jewish Victims of Nazis in East

Germany has signed an agreement to pay millions of dollars to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution who previously received minimal reparations or none at all, the World Jewish Congress said Friday.

Sources said the agreement could lead to Jews in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union--who were barred because of Communist rule from receiving West German reparations in the 1950s and 1960s--now obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

The accord was quietly signed last week in Bonn between the German Finance Ministry, the World Jewish Congress and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, WJC executive director Elan Steinberg said.

He said the agreement was the result of 16 months of negotiations and fulfilled a condition included in the treaty that united East and West Germany in 1990.

Steinberg said the agreement could cover an estimated 50,000 people, mostly from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. About 80% of Europe’s Jews--6 million people--were killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

In Bonn, the Finance Ministry said it had agreed to pay up to $630 million by the end of the century to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.

In 1952, the West German government of Konrad Adenauer agreed to pay Jewish victims of Nazism and the Israeli government reparations that ultimately totaled in the billions of dollars. But the Communist government of East Germany refused to pay reparations, denying that it was a successor government to the Nazis.

When the Communists fell from power, the new democratic government agreed in principle to reparations, but East Germany disappeared before any agreement could be reached.

The Adenauer agreement expired in 1965, and the new agreement applies to Jews who, because of living under communism, could not apply. Many of those Jews have since emigrated with the fall of communism.

The New York City-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany expects to start taking applications next month. Among those eligible for reparations are those imprisoned in a concentration camp for a minimum of six months, those who lived in a Nazi-administered ghetto for a minimum of 18 months and those who lived in hiding under severe conditions for at least 18 months.