KINDERTRANSPORT SURVIVORS TO RECEIVE COMPENSATION FOR 80TH ANNIVERSARY

KINDERTRANSPORT SURVIVORS TO RECEIVE COMPENSATION FOR 80TH ANNIVERSARY

SARA RUBENSTEIN


The Kindertransport Fund will be opened by the Claims Conference on January 1, 2019. As of this date, requests for compensation can be submitted for free, even in Israel, without the need for assistance from any party.

Children evacuated from Germany on the Kindertransport in 1938/1939 are given candies in Southampton, England. (photo credit: MAARIV)

Julius Berman, President of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), announced on Monday morning that an agreement has been negotiated between the Claims Conference and the German government for child survivors to receive compensation payments for the 80th anniversary of the Kinderstransport.

“Our team has never given up hope that the moment would come when we could make this historic announcement,” Berman said.

The Kindertransport (German for “children’s transport”) is the name of a rescue operation that transported Jewish children under the age of 17 from Nazi Germany and the territories annexed by Austria and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain between December 1938 and the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939.

Following Kristallnacht (November 1938), the situation of Jews in Germany and throughout the Third Reich worsened. An appeal was made to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Neville Chamberlain, to allow unaccompanied Jewish children, without their parents, into the safety of the United Kingdom.

Ultimately, more than 10,000 children from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig were saved from a certain death by being transported into Great Britain. Almost all of the children, who were placed throughout Great Britain in homes, schools, and farms, were the only members of their families to survive the Holocaust.

Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, Claims Conference Special Negotiator, said “This payment comes at a time when we are commemorating 80 years since these children took their fateful journey from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain. After having to endure a life forever severed from their parents and families, no one can ever profess to make them whole; they are receiving a small measure of justice.”

Greg Schneider, Claims Conference Executive Vice President said, “We must all take a moment to commemorate this recognition and sacrifice. No one can imagine the pain on train platforms as the Kindertransports began and the extraordinary steps these parents took to give the opportunity for life to their children – a life those children led without mothers, without fathers, and in many cases, without family of any kind.”

The Kindertransport Fund will be opened by the Claims Conference on January 1, 2019. As of this date, requests for compensation can be submitted for free, even in Israel, without the need for assistance from any party.

In the past, some Holocaust survivors received payment during the 1950s, but previous payments will not prevent those eligible to receive this new compensation. The criteria for receiving the compensation were determined by the German government.


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