Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Claims Conference Workers Guilty in $57 Million Holocaust Fraud Case

Three people, including two former employees of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, have been convicted for stealing $57 million intended for Holocaust victims.

Semen Domnitser—who was the director of two of the Claims Conference’s funds from 1999 to 2010—Oksana Romalis, who left the Claims Conference before the fraud was discovered, and a co-conspirator, Luba Kramrish, were found guilty of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud after a half-a-day of deliberations by a jury inside the Federal courtroom in Manhattan.

In a statement, Claims Conference chairman Julius Berman thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and said, “Those who perpetrated this unthinkable fraud enriched themselves by abusing the historic effort to obtain a small measure of justice for Holocaust victims.”

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement, “We said we would not stop until we brought to justice those who committed these unthinkable crimes and today our objective was accomplished.”

In total, 31 individuals have now been convicted in the thefts. According to the FBI and government prosecutors, the $57 million scheme was facilitated by Russian-speaking Claims Conference employees and aided by a network of runners and recruiters who submitted thousands of claims on behalf of people across North America who were ineligible for the funds.

Berman said in his statement that, “The web of conspirators—both former employees and many outsiders—used their knowledge of the organization’s work in order to fabricate and approve false stories of suffering during the Holocaust for monetary gain.”

Additional reporting by Paul Berger

A message from our CEO & publisher 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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.