Until now, payments to Holocaust survivors stopped when they died — often leaving their spouses without a major source of income. The German government has now agreed for the first time to extend compensation.
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The spouses of Holocaust survivors who have passed away will now be able to receive compensation payments from the German government, according to the organization that handles claims for Jewish Holocaust survivors.
The New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany released a statement on Monday, saying that Berlin agreed to continue paying a pension to the surviving spouse for up to nine months after their partner's death.
A total of 30,000 people are expected to qualify, with some 14,000 spouses expected to be granted the payment retroactively, Claims Conference negotiator Greg Schneider told the Associated Press.
"We have survivors who have been just getting by for many years," Schneider said. "This extra nine months of income gives a cushion for the family of the survivor to figure out how to deal with their new circumstances," he added.
Previously, the compensation payments were halted when the Holocaust survivor died, which often left their spouse without a major source of income.
Since 1952, the German government has paid over $80 billion (€71 billion) in pensions and social welfare payments to Jews who suffered under the Nazi regime.
Jewish memorials in Berlin
The Holocaust may have been eight decades ago, but it is never to be forgotten. Large and small memorials all over the German capital commemorate the victims of the Nazis.
Image: DW/M. Gwozdz
The Holocaust Memorial
A huge field of stelae in the center of the German capital was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenmann. The almost 3,000 stone blocks commemorate the six million Jewish people from all over Europe who were murdered by the Nazis.
Image: picture-alliance/Schoening
The "Stumbling Stones"
Designed by German artist Gunther Demnig, these brass plates are very small — only 10 by 10 centimeters (3.9 x 3.9 inches). They mark the homes and offices from which people were deported by the Nazis. Around 10,000 of them have been placed across Berlin.
Image: DW/T.Walker
House of the Wannsee Conference
Several high-ranking Nazi officials met in this villa on the Wannsee Lake in January 1942 to discuss the systematic murder of European Jews, which they termed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Today the house is a memorial that informs visitors about the unimaginable dimension of the genocide that was decided here.
Image: Paul Zinken/dpa/picture alliance
Track 17 Memorial
White roses on track 17 at Grunewald station remember the more than 50,000 Berlin Jews who were sent to their deaths from here. 186 steel plates show the date, destination and number of deportees. The first train went to the Litzmannstadt ghetto (Lodz, Poland) on October 18, 1941; the last train to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on January 5, 1945.
Image: imago/IPON
Otto Weidt's Workshop for the Blind
Today, the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin Mitte are mentioned in every travel guide. They are a backyard labyrinth in which many Jewish people lived and worked — for example in the brush factory of the German entrepreneur Otto Weidt. During the Nazi era he employed many blind and deaf Jews and saved them from deportation and death. The workshop of the blind is now a museum.
Image: picture-alliance/Arco Images
Fashion Center Hausvogteiplatz
The heart of Berlin's fashion metropolis once beat here. A memorial sign made of high mirrors recalls the Jewish fashion designers and stylists who made clothes for the whole of Europe at Hausvogteiplatz. The National Socialists expropriated the Jewish owners. Berlin's fashion center was irretrievably destroyed during the Second World War.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Kalaene
Memorial at Koppenplatz
Before the Holocaust, 173,000 Jews lived in Berlin; in 1945 there were only 9,000. The monument "Der verlassene Raum" (The Deserted Room) is located in the middle of the Koppenplatz residential area in Berlin's Mitte district. It is a reminder of the Jewish citizens who were taken from their homes without warning and never returned.
Image: Jörg Carstensen/dpa/picture alliance
The Jewish Museum
Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a dramatic design: viewed from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum is one of the most visited museums in Berlin, offering an overview of the turbulent centuries of German Jewish history.
Image: Miguel Villagran/AP Photo/picture alliance
Weissensee Jewish Cemetery
There are still eight remaining Jewish cemeteries in Berlin, the largest of them in the Weissensee district. With over 115,000 graves, it is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Many persecuted Jews hid in the complex premises during the Nazi era. On May 11, 1945, only three days after the end of the Second World War, the first postwar Jewish funeral service was held here.
When the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse was first consecrated in 1866 it was considered the largest and most magnificent synagogue in Germany. One of Berlin's 13 synagogues to survive the Kristallnacht pogroms, it later burned down due to Allied bombs. It was reconstructed and opened again in 1995. Since then, the 50-meter-high golden dome once again dominates Berlin's cityscape.
Image: Stephan Schulz/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/picture alliance
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Payments for those who saved Jews
In another first, the German government also agreed to pay into the Claims Conference fund for so-called Righteous Gentiles — non-Jews who helped Jewish people survive the Holocaust.
Around 277 Righteous Gentiles are still alive today, according to Schneider, adding that many are in need of financial assistance in their old age.
The German government also agreed to give an additional €44 million ($49.7 million) in funding for social welfare services — amounting to a total of €524 million for 2020.
Those funds provide financial assistance for some 132,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors around the world, including in-home care for over 78,000 people, the Claims Conference said.
"These increased benefits achieved by the hard work of our negotiations delegation, including additional compensation and greater funding for social services, will help ensure dignity in survivors' final years," Claims Conference President Julius Berman said in a statement.
"It remains our moral imperative to keep fighting as long as there are still survivors with us," he added.