Yellow stars, this time in Israel

A group of elderly Holocaust survivors have accused Israel of stealing money intended to compensate them for the suffering they endured. ...

A group of elderly Holocaust survivors have accused Israel of stealing money intended to compensate them for the suffering they endured. Wearing yellow stars similar to those the Nazis forced Jews to wear, the protesters said yesterday they were seeking reparations for years of neglect by an infant state unable to cope with their trauma. An indictment is likely to resurrect painful memories as Israel approaches Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow.

8220;The money was for the survivors, not for other people,8221; said Yaakov Kfir of the Children of the Holocaust Advocacy Group. A 1953 German reparation fund should have been used by Israel for the survivors rather than for investments in the five-year-old state8217;s fledgling infrastructure, he said bitterly. 8220;We lost a lot of years and a lot of opportunities,8221; he added.

Kfir8217;s family was killed in the Holocaust and he came to Israel alone as a child refugee from Yugoslavia. When he turned 18, he went into the Israeli Army and stayed there for 25 years because 8220;I hadno where else to lay my head8221;.

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. European countries, chiefly Germany, have paid out billions of dollars in restitution to thousands of individuals and to the State of Israel, founded in 1948, three years after the war ended.

Ongoing lawsuits and negotiations with banks, insurance companies and corporations who employed Jews as slave laborers are expected to yield billions more for survivors and their heirs. Most of the money has been disbursed by the Israeli or German Governments either in one-time or continuous payments to survivors depending on their situation and disabilities. Some 300,000 survivors live in Israel. About 120,000 who applied at the time for compensation, still receive 410-820 in monthly checks from the German government. Few child survivors were among the beneficiaries however, mostly because they did not apply when the money was offered. Others, including those who came to Israel after 1953, ended up behind the Iron Curtain at the end ofthe war, or were forced laborers. They were left out of the compensation package altogether.

Professor and historian Yehuda Bauer, who is a director at Yadvashem, said survivors have legitimate claims but the money Israel kept was essential in order to provide a haven for the war8217;s many refugees. 8220;I think Israel would have been sunk without that money. Then, there was no money for fuel, for food or anything,8221; he said, adding, 8220;the state used that money in order to develop the Israeli economy and that benefited everyone including the survivors8221;.

Today, many of those survivors find themselves elderly and poor. With a flourishing Israeli economy 50 years later, demonstrators said yesterday that the country could afford to give something back. 8220;Israel took the money and left us the crumbs. At the time, I didn8217;t mind because they needed to build a state,8221; said Yehudit Kutner.

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The country too has begun to deal with old wounds. Last month, a state-appointed panel found that the government failed to usereparation funds properly to help some 1,000 Holocaust survivors hospitalised for mental illness.