The organization that handles claims on behalf of Jews who suffered under the Nazis said on Tuesday that Germany has agreed to extend compensation to their surviving spouses and to increase other payments, taking the total to be paid out in 2020 to around $1 billion.
Until now, pension payments to Holocaust survivors had been stopped upon their death, but the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany said Berlin has now agreed to continue survivors' pensions for nine months after a death to his or her spouse.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
The payment is expected to be granted to some 14,000 spouses retroactively and a total of about 30,000 people are expected to qualify, Claims Conference negotiator Greg Schneider said.
"We have survivors who have been just getting by for many years," Schneider said in a telephone interview from New York. "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."
The Claims Conference carries out continuous negotiations with the German government to expand categories of people eligible for compensation for suffering and losses resulting from persecution by the Nazis. Since 1952, Germany has paid more than $80 billion.
The Claims Conference established its own fund in 1963 to also aid the so-called Righteous Gentiles – non-Jews who helped Jews survive the Holocaust – and this year the German government agreed to help fund those payments.
Schneider said there are some 277 Righteous Gentiles still alive today, whose average age is 91, who have indicated that they need financial assistance.
"These are non-Jews who risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews during the Holocaust. They literally put their lives at stake to save others," Schneider said. "Every one of these people should live with the greatest of dignity, so it was important for us to ensure an ongoing funding stream."
In other negotiations, Germany agreed to increase social welfare service funding for survivors by 44 million euros ($50 million) to a total of 524 million euros ($592 million) for 2020.
Those funds go to welfare groups that help Holocaust survivors with a range of services, including psychological counseling and in-home care. Some 132,000 victims of the Nazis currently receive such assistance.
The new payments for spouses of survivors would fall into this category but the costs have not yet been determined to add to the 2020 figure.
Germany has also agreed to increase direct compensation pensions, which are specific payments for a person's particular suffering that go to some 60,000 survivors in 83 countries.
Pensions were increased from 415 euros ($469) a month to 446 euros ($504) retroactive to Jan. 1 as of Monday, then will increase to 513 euros ($579) a month on Jan. 1, 2020, and 580 euros ($655) a month on Jan. 1, 2021.
In all, the Claims Conference expects to distribute 340 million euros ($384 million) in direct compensation pensions in 2020 – a total of 864 million euros ($976 million) from Germany when combined with the social welfare payments.
