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Ghetto Workers Eligible Retroactively for Reparations
by Yated Ne'eman Staff
The Federal Social Court in Germany has issued a ruling that all World
War II ghetto workers are eligible for reparations retroactively from
July 1997, even if their claim was filed after 2009, including claims
filed now. These claims can total as much as NIS 200,000 ($50,000) and
more.
The payments are given by the German Social Security Administration,
which has recognized, after a many-year battle, that Holocaust
survivors who were ghetto workers are eligible for monthly rent and
retroactive payment. Until June 2009, the Social Security offices and
German courts refused to approve claims by ghetto workers, saying the
labor was forced and the remuneration received was not monetary. In
June, following three rulings by the Federal Social Court (the
Bundessozialgericht) in Kassel, the approach adopted by the
German Social Security Administration and by the lower courts
shifted.
Today there is a consensus that all claimants who can prove they
worked in the ghettos and received remuneration of any kind,
regardless of age, do not have to prove they worked "willingly" and in
exchange for "money or a monetary equivalent."
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