Claims Conference Chairman Julius Berman and German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble. Photo: Claims Conference

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as Claims Conference) signed an agreement November 15 in Berlin with the German government that will allow for the continued payment of compensation to eligible Holocaust survivors as well as providing funding for homecare for elderly victims.

German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble hosted the ceremony, which comes 60 years after the Luxembourg Agreements, signed in September 1952, in which  West Germany pledged to provide payments for certain Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. In the following decades numerous other funds and programs to provide payments and assistance to Holocaust victims have been established through ongoing negotiations between the Claims Conference and the government of Germany.

“Our work has never been about the money. It has always been about the recognition, the validation, the acknowledgement of Holocaust victims,” said Claims Conference Chairman Julius Berman. “Our work for them is not done. Not yet. Together, we owe it to these heroes of the Jewish people to make their last years more dignified and comforting than their youth. Survivors were abandoned by the world once — we continue to work to make sure that they will never be abandoned again.”

“Sixty years of the Luxembourg agreements are a reason to look back with a certain pride at what has been achieved together for the survivors. Sixty years of the Luxembourg agreements also stand for 60 years of confidence-inspiring partnership and co-operation of all participants,” said Minister Schäuble. “In this work for the victims of persecution it is evident to all that the gruesome history in the National Socialist period, the suffering and injustice that was brought for millions of people, cannot be undone. No compensation can change anything in that. And even with all the efforts, most suffering can at best be eased somewhat.”