East German Jews Get Last Chance for Property
Jews who owned property in what would become East Germany have a last chance to receive compensation for it.
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany published on its website a list of Jews who owned property in eastern Germany before the beginning of the Nazi era. The list, which contains thousands of entries, includes the owner’s name, street address and city.
The Late Applicants Fund will accept applications through Dec. 31, 2014.
The German government recognized the Claims Conference as the legal successor of Jews or Jewish communities and organizations to property owned by them in the former East Germany that were left unclaimed after Dec. 31, 1992.
The Claims Conference sold the properties for some $2.9 billion and has paid out some $800 million to legal heirs who have proved their claims. It has allocated another $1 billion mostly to help needy Holocaust survivors, using money coming from properties whose owners died without heirs.
Germany has paid the equivalent of more than $70 billion to survivors and programs to help survivors.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO