Holocaust Survivor, 84, Learns She Won’t Have to Vacate Home

An 84-year-old Holocaust survivor said Friday that she has been assured she won’t be forced from her federally subsidized apartment because of monthly payments from the German government for Nazi-inflicted injuries.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development more than doubled Fanny Schlomowitz’s rent to $127 a month last June after learning of the payments.

Previously, she had paid $63 for her one-bedroom apartment at Kivel Campus of Care, a housing project for the elderly. HUD also started charging her $100 a month to pay the government back for the years she paid the reduced rent.

“I’ve lived here for the last 13 years,” Schlomowitz said Friday. “I love it here. I’d die if I had to move.”

Schlomowitz said she contacted Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), who wrote a letter last week to HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros objecting to the rent increase. DeConcini said the policy was “grossly unfair to those who suffered through the most appalling event in modern history.”

She said HUD officials have assured her through DeConcini’s office that at the least she will be offered a payment schedule allowing her to remain in the apartment.

Officials in HUD’s Phoenix office said Friday that they have appealed to their superiors in Washington for guidance in the case.

“We’re still waiting for a decision,” said spokeswoman Marjorie Carpenter. “We’re all working real, real hard on this case.”

Schlomowitz receives $370 a month in Social Security benefits. To live in the project, she must pay 30% of her income in rent.

She also receives about $500 a month from the German government for injuries suffered in a wartime beating by Nazis in the Jewish ghetto at Budapest, Hungary.

A HUD spokesman said that counting such payments when setting rent is required by federal law. He said any change would require action by Congress.

Schlomowitz, a native of Poland, was a legal secretary in Hungary before World War II. Her husband died in a Nazi concentration camp.

She said the $127 rent payment is becoming a financial burden. She also pays $816 quarterly for medical insurance.