Budapest – In a statement posted on its government website, Hungary is requesting that the monies it paid as compensation for Holocaust survivors be returned with interest, arguing that the Claims Conference has failed to provide accurate documentation of how the funds were used, the AFP reports (http://bit.ly/PAMI4A).
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“The US organisation Claims Conference… has not been able to show proper accounts of how the funds received from the Hungarian government were used.” Hungary alleges it has “requested on several occasions that Claims Conference open its accounts but since it failed to do so, the government has requested that the disputed money be reimbursed with interest.”
The Hungarian government agreed in December 2007 to pay $21 million (16.7 euros) in damages over a period of five years to Hungarian Holocaust survivors. The money was to be distributed by the Public Fund for Jewish Heritage in Hungary (Mazsok), and the Claims Conference was to manage payments to survivors living abroad. “In line with the deal, the Hungarian government transferred $12.6 million to Mazsok between 2007 and 2009, two thirds of which went to Claims Conference,” the statement said.
Hungary has already released the funds to Mazsok for the fourth-year payment, but is withholding the monies from the Claims Conference until the previous distribution reports are satisfactorily provided to them. Claims Conference documents do not state who received the compensation or if they were truly Holocaust survivors. The government intends to assign Mazsok to manage all payments to survivors, both domestic and international, going forward.
Approximately 600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.
Let them first bring back all those killed in their hands hten we can talk,its an absolute disgrace theese hungarians and the nerve they have.
The “Claims Conference” cannot reveal how the money was used as it would show that the people running it and the lawyers kept an overwhelmingly large chunk of the money for themselves.
While most Holocaust reparation agencies are dedicated and honest, unfortunately I have seen many organizations that take advantage of elderly Holocaust survivors like my mother who is from Hungary. While I believe that the main reason for Hungary’s request for a full accounting is probably coming from the anti-semitic Jobbik party , I also believe that among our own Jews there is corruption and funds are stolen from Holocaust survivors. I therefore welcome a full accounting. If they did nothing wrong, why are they not providing the information?
They may have a legitimate point. If the Agreement required the Claims Conference to document how the funds were spent and assure that recipients were legitimate survivors (however that term was legally defined) and they failed to do so, the Hungarians certainly have the right to withhold further payments although their rights to demand refunds of prior payments is unclear. In any event, nothing they do or say can remedy the inappropriate behavior of the Hungarian government during the war.
Can’t think of a printable response to this.
Wow $30.00 per killed or $60.00 per survivor. It’s impossible that these survivors should have any benefit of these besides the people sitting by the bucket. that’s why they don’t want to open the books.
This does not sound like an unreasonable request to me.
I’m so sorry Hungery for not keeping my reciepts of how my turtured grandparents had spend their money, I would gladly give it back to you! But before we do that can we have our properties youe guverment stole from us back? Also do you want the money in cash or headchecks ?
There are several aspects to this issue but based on my visit in July to Budapest, I must weigh in: Anti-Semitism is rampant across Eastern Europe today and the Hungarians have no shame about what happened to a once-thriving and vibrant Jewish community. Even if a few dollars were misspent by the Claims Conference (not sure that that accusation is correct!), Hungary owes the world, and especially Jews, untold more millions in reparations . . . along with on-going apologies for doing bad things to lots of people.
today everyone uses the holocaust to their own ends.
21 million?!?!
There were hundreds of millions of Jewish dollars stolen during the holocaust and even more than that stolen from us over the time that we’ve living in the carpathian basin going back to 895 CE.
We want our money with interest! All of it!
My father’s family consisting of his parents and fourteen siblings were deported in April 1945.
Many years ago we finally convinced him to go visit his hometown.
What did he find?
A restaurant bar sitting on his former home.
He immediately left the town, and didn’t want anything to do with them.
While he was there in Budapest a jew told us that the government was giving money family members ot