German Pensions To Waffen SS Veterans Unfathomable, Says American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Committee
Tuesday, 4 February 1997

Against the backdrop of recent media reports on the subject, the American Jewish Committee has renewed its urgent appeal to the German government to compensate Jewish victims of Nazi persecution living in the Baltic states and in countries of the former Warsaw Pact. While AJC has raised this concern in private letters and meetings with Chancellor Kohl, and has discussed the issue of compensation on numerous occasions with senior German government officials over the years, today's appeal takes on an added dimension because of revelations that Nazi Waffen SS veterans living in Western countries, including more than three thousand in the United States alone, are receiving German pensions.

Almost two years ago, AJC compiled a list, country by country, of individual ghetto and concentration camp survivors living in Central and Eastern Europe. That list was sent to Bonn in the hope that it would aid the government in beginning the process of compensation. To date, the German government has taken no action on this list.

In meetings with German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel in May and October 1996, AJC leaders reiterated their appeal to the German government.

Ironically, while media reports continue to surface regarding the often generous pensions paid to Waffen SS veterans - in fact, the higher the rank achieved in the SS the greater the pension earned -- the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe are living out their final years often in destitution and despair.

It seems unfathomable that those individuals who may well have been involved in crimes against humanity are today enjoying regular benefits for their wartime service in Nazi Germany, while the victims of their atrocities receive nothing for their suffering.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org