Holocaust survivors blast $20 stipend Options

[James]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070731/ap_on_...caust_survivors

Holocaust survivors blast $20 stipend By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jul 31, 4:34 PM ET



JERUSALEM - An Israeli government offer of a new $20 monthly stipend for Holocaust survivors provoked outrage Tuesday, with survivors charging the meager allowance will do nothing to make up for years of neglect of the 240,000 Israelis who lived through Nazi horrors.

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Survivors have long claimed that European countries treat them far better than Israel, where many elderly survivors live in poverty. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement of the new allowance did nothing to change that impression. One survivor called the offer "absurd and insulting."

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Hundreds of thousands who survived concentration camps came to Israel after the war. Many suffered physical or psychological damage from the torture and deprivation they suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

Six decades after the war ended, the remaining survivors are elderly, and many have been unable to provide for themselves in their final years, suffering chronic shortages of money for medical and psychological treatment and in some cases even food.

Israel TV showed video of an 85-year-old survivor who said the only meat he could afford was chicken necks.

Olmert presented his program as a solution.

"We are correcting a 60-year-old blight," he said. "Holocaust survivors living in Israel are entitled to live respectably without reaching a situation in which it is beyond their means to enjoy a hot meal."

Beginning next year, the amount allocated for 120,000 needy survivors, about half the total number still living in Israel, will be $28 million annually, according to Olmert's statement.

But that works out to an average of just $20 a month for each survivor.

"Of course the survivors cannot accept such an offer," said Dubby Arbel, chairman of the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Survivors in Israel. Arbel said about 65,000 survivors are in acute need of assistance, but his foundation can provide for only half of them.

Many survivors were outraged. "This doesn't solve anything," said survivor Avraham Roet, 79. "The government doesn't understand the significance of the Holocaust and what horrors the survivors went through. If they did, they wouldn't propose this absurd and insulting plan," he told The Associated Press.

The new payment is in addition to government support already given to survivors, including those deemed physically or psychologically handicapped, and regular pension payments of about $487 a month.

Survivors groups charged — in what was meant to be an especially painful dig at the Israeli government — that survivors are treated better in Germany.

"We know what the conditions of the Holocaust survivors are in Holland, France, Germany and Poland. They are much better than in Israel," Noah Frug, chairman of a consortium of Holocaust survivors' organizations and a survivor himself, told Israel Radio.

Hillary Kessler-Godin, spokeswoman for Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, said Germany still pays monthly pensions to 80,000 survivors around the world, after starting in the 1950s.

"Each survivor's pension can be different depending on their persecution history," she told the AP. Other funds have paid out billions of dollars to various categories of Nazi victims.

Roet said the average stipend for survivors in Holland, where he was born, is between $2,740 and $4,110 a month.

Arbel urged Olmert to raise the allowance "for the sake of Jewish identity and Zionist identity, and so that we can all tell our grandchildren that we took care of the Holocaust survivors."

"For 42 years I received nothing from the state," survivor Kathleen Schwartz, 71, told the newspaper Haaretz. "This grant has arrived too late for thousands of survivors. Time is working against us."

Critics maintain that more of the nearly $80 billion in reparations Israel has received in compensation from Germany should have gone to the survivors. A large percentage of the money, which was paid beginning in the 1950s as Israelis struggled to build their fledgling state, went to the military and for infrastructure.

OK. WTF. The Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust, not Israel. Just be fucking happy that Israel is giving you anything. I don't care if you had to watch your entire family die or whatever. Shit happens. Deal with it or die off. People piss me off when they lack gratitude for acts of kindness

[Inferia]

way to show compassion there James... Anyway, I think the point being is this:

"...Critics maintain that more of the nearly $80 billion in reparations Israel has received in compensation from Germany should have gone to the survivors. A large percentage of the money, which was paid beginning in the 1950s as Israelis struggled to build their fledgling state, went to the military and for infrastructure."

I haven't done the math, but it should roughly equal to a bit more than 20 bucks per month.

[impala454]

and if israel hadn't used that money for military, they wouldn't even exist right now.

and so what if it was $300/month? would that make the horrors of the holocaust go away? how much money does it take? gimme a f'n break. "waah, I went through something terrible, gimme money!". it reminds me of a time some asshole homeless guy was at a stop light, I was with my friend and his parents, we'd just driven through whataburger, and my friend's dad offered up his double cheeseburger and fries to the guy. the guy threw it back in his face sayin he "didn't want that kinda shit", he wanted money.

[cupcake]

my granddad spent two years in a nazi prison camp for serving america. I don't recall him ever wanting or getting a monthly check.

POW medal and his life seemed to suffice.

fuckin jews...

[James]

my granddad spent two years in a nazi prison camp for serving america. I don't recall him ever wanting or getting a monthly check.

POW medal and his life seemed to suffice.

fuckin jews...

This was the kind of situation rolling in the back of my mind when I commented. They should be happy Israel even let them come into their country; should've just let them rot outside so they couldn't bitch today.

I don't know why you're surprised Lang; it's not like I've said anything in the past that would lead to the expectation of a different response out of me to this story.

my granddad spent two years in a nazi prison camp for serving america. I don't recall him ever wanting or getting a monthly check.

POW medal and his life seemed to suffice.

fuckin jews...

This was the kind of situation rolling in the back of my mind when I commented. They should be happy Israel even let them come into their country; should've just let them rot outside so they couldn't bitch today.

I don't know why you're surprised Lang; it's not like I've said anything in the past that would lead to the expectation of a different response out of me to this story.

[Inferia]

oh james, I'm not surprised, I wouldn't expect anything less from you...

[James]

oh james, I'm not surprised, I wouldn't expect anything less from you...

More. You wouldn't expect anything more from me. Unless you're saying I'd be a lesser person to show sympathy, then cool.

[Seeker]

The reason Israel doesn't do anything for the holocaust survivors is because the people that run Israel are not real Jews. The people that run Israel are called "Zionists" and they're originally from a tribe called the "Khazars" that hijacked Judaism to use for their own nefarious means.

Read about the mass-conversion of the Khazars to Judaism on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

The Khazars were a war-like tribe hell-bent on ruling the world. They're behind most of the New World Order and Illuminati schemes today.

[Inferia]

More. You wouldn't expect anything more from me. Unless you're saying I'd be a lesser person to show sympathy, then cool.

I was being facetious James...

[impala454]

The reason Israel doesn't do anything for the holocaust survivors is because the people that run Israel are not real Jews. The people that run Israel are called "Zionists" and they're originally from a tribe called the "Khazars" that hijacked Judaism to use for their own nefarious means.

Read about the mass-conversion of the Khazars to Judaism on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars

The Khazars were a war-like tribe hell-bent on ruling the world. They're behind most of the New World Order and Illuminati schemes today.

man i dunno where you get your stupid outlandish news from, but it's totally wrong. everybody knows it was the aliens who landed in 147 BC and assumed the human forms of the people over there. pshh, there is no "new world order" or "illuminati", those are simply the cover up stories the aliens invented to keep all the human conspiracy experts at bay. they then took the form of non-libertarian politicians all over the world in order to achieve world domination. their world domination is obvious, with the pain and suffering they've caused by increasing starbucks prices by $0.09, gas prices by $0.30, and *gasp* only allowing the jews $20 per month. the reason we have so much fighting over there is because the aliens found the all-spark and started using it to spread evil, destructive technologies such as world of warcraft, myspace, and the iPhone over to that area, but the autobots detected this terrible misuse and are now in the process of fighting the aliens off so they can regain the all-spark and rebuild their home planet so we can live in peace. the problem is, the only thing they had to transform into over there was cheap ass hand-me-down mopeds or crappy old passats, so it's taking a while for them to defeat the aliens.

sheesh man get your stories right.

[GOB]

I haven't done the math, but it should roughly equal to a bit more than 20 bucks per month.

actually, if you do the math, that's pretty much exactly how it works out



they can either take it or leave it. it's fucking $20 free each month. in this country they would have just said it was a tax refund and that the only people receiving the money were the only ones that it applies to. tomato, potato.

[woody]

$20 > $0