Holland Cuts Shoah Survivor’s Pension for Living in ‘West Bank’

Cynthia Blank

Dutch Holocaust survivor who moved to Israel to escape anti-Semitism finds pension chopped for living in town over 1949 Armistice Lines.

Holland has cut down the pension payments of a Dutch Holocaust survivor who recently immigrated to Israel, because she settled in a town in the “West Jordan Bank.”

According to a Channel 2 report on Thursday, the 90-year-old Dutch national decided to join her family in the Jewish state in the wake of increased anti-Semitism across Europe.

In addition to financial help from the Israeli Justice Ministry, the woman, identified only as D., was also receiving an 1,100 euro ($1,234) pension from the Netherlands every month, as well as additional assistance for her status as a Holocaust survivor.

Several months after moving to Israel, to a community near Modi’in slightly over the 1949 Armistice Lines, D’s son related to Channel 2, that “she received a letter” from the Dutch government.

It read: “Dear lady, because you went to live in the West Jordan Bank and we have no agreement with this periphery, we are obligated to deduct a large amount from your old-age pension.”

“My mother was struck so badly that she started crying,” the son, whose voice was altered, related. “She hasn’t slept since; she’s lost her trust. She wants to leave the country.”

The Dutch government cut D’s pension by 35%, in a move essentially claiming Judea and Samaria are not part of Israel, and she is now only being paid 740 euros a month.

“This is a law voted on by the Dutch government” the son said in response. “It has affected my mother catastrophically. I was personally shocked, my entire family was shocked.”

“This is just unbelievable: They are punishing a 90-year-old woman because she immigrated to Israel and because it’s the ‘occupied territories’ and she lives in the State of Israel… and this is her livelihood. I mean, this is her pension. How is that possible?”