According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the conduct of the Finance Ministry in Berlin led to harsh reactions from Jewish officials and provoked international criticism followed by intervention from the Biden administration
Seventy years after the signing of the Reparations Agreement between Israel and Germany, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner sought to reduce the annual amount of reparations Germany pays to Holocaust survivors. According to a recent report in the German weekly Die Zeit, the attempt provoked anger in Israel and among Jewish communities around the world, and was finally rolled back following an unusual intervention by U.S. government.
In September, Israel, Germany and the Claims Conference – the global Jewish organization negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs – announced the details of the annual scope of financial aid that Germany transfers to Holocaust survivors around the world.
According to the announcement, Germany agreed to transfer some $1.2 billion as compensation in 2023. This amount includes emergency aid for Holocaust survivors who fled Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, additional assistance for survivors’ nursing home expenses and an additional distress fund. The announcement was made at a ceremony at the Jewish Museum in Berlin marking the 70th anniversary of the Luxembourg Agreements of 1952.
According to Die Zeit, however, behind Germany’s eloquent words celebrating their “historic commitment,” a controversy behind the scenes almost threatened to blow up the negotiations and cause a diplomatic incident.
Basing their claims from interviews and other sources, the newspaper reported that the German Finance Ministry “tried to reduce as much as possible” the sum that would be transferred next year to Holocaust survivors. Reports on the negotiations between Germany and the Claims Conference asserted that the amount requested was “excessive” and that the number of Holocaust survivors presented in the discussions was inflated.
According to the report, the conduct of the German Finance Ministry garnered harsh reactions from Jewish officials as well as within the German government, even provoking international criticism. It was also noted that the U.S., Great Britain and Israel claimed that Germany was acting “insensitively” and exerted pressure on various officials in Germany, reaching as far up as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Former U.K. Finance Minister and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein and the head of the German chancellor’s office Wolfgang Schmidt also criticized the German actions.
Die Zeit quoted a letter from U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sent last May to Lindner and German Foreign Minister Annalena Barbuk, in asking for their aid on the matter. Blinken wrote that many Holocaust survivors are still alive and need assistance, and that some 10,000 of them are currently in Ukraine and deserve to live with dignity. Blinken wrote: “I call on Germany to honor its obligations and guarantee the funding for the Claims Conference, as it has done in the past.”
Blinken previously spoke about his grandfather, Maurice Blinken, who fled pogroms in Russia and his late stepfather, Samuel Pisar, a Holocaust survivor from Bialystok, Poland, who survived the Holocaust as a child after spending four years in a concentration camp.
Yet behind the drama that preceded it, the annual agreement was finally signed in a festive ceremony that would allow the transfer of the German aid. Die Zeit harshly criticized the conduct of the German Finance Ministry and wrote that it behaved as if they were negotiating salary agreements, and not a sensitive and complex operation related to the welfare of Holocaust survivors.
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