TORONTO — The new executive vice-president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany says he will strive to obtain more funding for the victims of Nazi oppression.
Gregory Schneider
The funds will be used to tend to the social welfare needs of needy Holocaust survivors, Gregory Schneider said in an interview shortly after his appointment was announced in New York City recently.
Founded after World War II, the Claims Conference represents world Jewry in negotiations for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs.
Schneider said that 26,000 survivors worldwide are dependent on soup kitchens for their daily meals.
Calling this an “intolerable situation,” Schneider said it’s “painful” that some survivors are so impoverished that they can’t afford to buy food, much less medicine, or pay for in-home care and rent.
Schneider, whose wife’s parents are survivors from Poland, said the Claims Conference has begun negotiations with Germany so that their needs can be met.
Stating that many elderly Nazi victims are in poor health due to “the deprivations and persecution of their youth,” he said that current talks with the German government are designed to ensure that survivors can live out their final years in comfort and dignity.
The Claims Conference is also asking Germany for additional and increased compensation payments.
“There are still 8,000 [survivors] of concentration camps, ghettos and forced labor [battalions] who still do not receive any pension,” he said. “Because of German eligibility criteria, there are camp survivors who are not entitled to the monthly payments that are made by the Claims Conference to others who may have been right alongside them during the Shoah. This must change.”
In addition, he noted, there are almost 100,000 victims of Nazism in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who are ineligible for one-time payments from the Claims Conference.
“More than 350,000 such victims who immigrated to the West have received the payment. It is not right [that the others] should now be treated differently based on where they live today. This must change.”
Schneider said his third priority is to ensure that Jews who lost property during the Holocaust are fully compensated.
“In partnership with the Jewish Restitution Organization, we must continue working to attain full restitution for Jewish assets stolen during the Holocaust, especially in eastern Europe,” he said. “Survivors, heirs and the Jewish people have the right to receive what was unjustly taken from them.”
He added, “Restitution of assets is the final chapter of the legacy of the Holocaust, and one that we cannot allow to remain unfinished.”
Schneider said that 70,000 survivors around the globe will receive pensions directly from the Claims Conference this year, while another 20,000 will get one-time payments.
He pointed out that about 250,000 victims of Nazism in 43 countries rely on social services provided through Claims Conference allocations.
Asked what the main problems of survivors are, Schneider replied, “Later in life they suffer from physical and emotional distress at higher rates than the elderly population as a whole. Prolonged malnutrition under the Nazis has affected their health in old age, triggering osteoporosis and broken bones, heart problems, impaired vision, dental problems and high blood pressure. There are particularly high rates of dementia and schizophrenia, and many are alone as a result of having lost their entire family.”
In Toronto, he said, the Claims Conference funds emergency assistance grants, home care, medical and dental care, food programs, transportation, case management and socialization programs through Jewish Family and Child, Circle of Care and Baycrest.
In Montreal, similar services are provided through the Cummings Jewish Centre for Seniors, while the group Montreal Child Survivors uses a Claims Conference allocation for a Cafe Europa program.
Claims Conference funds also enable social service agencies in Vancouver and Ottawa to help survivors.
Schneider, who was previously chief operating officer of the Claims Conference, said his organization works closely with Canadian Jewish Congress, which names a representative to its board of directors, and the Canadian Holocaust Survivors Association.
Schneider said the Claims Conference will issue approximately $160 million (US) in direct payments to survivors in Israel in 2009. It will also allocate $82 million (US) for social welfare needs in Israel this year.
“Since 1995, the Claims Conference has been the primary body identifying and providing for the social needs of Nazi victims in Israel,” he stated, adding that about $550 million (US) has been channelled to the Jewish state for such purposes.
Schneider – whose maternal Hungarian grandparents lost almost their entire families during the Holocaust – is credited with conceiving and implementing the program for former slaves and forced labourers, which has paid $1.4 billion (US) to 174,000 survivors in 87 nations.
He has also supervised programs to compensate 2,552 victims of Nazi medical experiments, 3,923 refugees who fled to wartime Switzerland and 6,004 survivors of Nazi-occupied Budapest.
As well, Schneider oversaw the institutional allocations program, which enabled German survivors and heirs to file claims for property that was either sold after 1933 under duress or confiscated by the Nazi regime.
