emm
s k is k
L..*
German Fund Advances
MATTHEW DORF
a
Jewish. Telegraphic Agency
Washington
erman companies and
Jewish officials took a step
this week toward creating a
fund that could top $1 bil-
lion to compensate Holocaust sur-
vivors used as forced
laborers during World
War II.
The Jewish officials,
representing an umbrel-
la group responsible for
negotiating Holocaust-
era claims with
a•
Germany, accepted in
principle" a German
proposal presented at a
meeting here Monday. "We have a
possible breakthrough," said Israel
Singer, the secretary-general of the
World Jewish Congress, who led the
Jewish delegation at the talks.
The sides agreed to open formal
negotiations to create a fund to com-
pensate slave laborers and those who
were forced to sell property in Germany
at bargain prices during the Nazi era.
In return, German negotiators, rep-
resenting the government and German
companies, want to end the class-
action lawsuits brought by Holocaust
survivors seeking some $18 billion
from such companies as Volkswagen,
Siemens and Daimler-Benz, which
recently merged with Chrysler. About
20 companies, including. Volkswagen
and Siemens, as well as the Deutsche
and Dresdner banks, would contribute
to the fund.
These lawsuits, along with threats
to oppose a buyout by Deutsche
Bank, Germany's largest bank, of the
U.S.-based Bankers Trust are widely
credited with bringing German indus-
try to the negotiating table.
The recent flurry of
activity also comes less
than one week after
Deutsche Bank revealed it
had funded the construc-
tion of Auschwitz and
other Nazi projects.
The deal could be
thwarted by lawyers
involved in the class-
action suits, several of
whom say they will oppose any effort
to end the lawsuits. They say the
umbrella group negotiating the settle-
ment, the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany,
does not best represent the interests of
individual Holocaust survivors and
vow to continue the suits.
Although no money was discussed at
this week's Washington meetings, which
included representatives of the U.S. and
Israeli governments, sources indicated
that they expect the German funds to
match or exceed the $1.25 billion Swiss
settlement negotiated last year.
However, the actual amount of the
settlement will be determined by the
number of slave laborers, Germany's
previous reparations programs and the
Companies
move closer to
creating fund
for slave
laborers.
Aid For Ethiopian Jews
U
p
to $2 million donated
by evangelical Christians
will redeem the Jews of
Kwara, Ethiopia, and
bring them to Israel.
The sum has been
promised by Rabbi
Yechiel Eckstein,
founder and president
of the International
Fellowship of
Christians and Jews.
His offer has been
accepted by the government of Israel,
an official confirmed.
Eckstein's offer came with two
conditions: that all the Kwara Jews
— believed to number between
2,500 and 3,000 — be brought to
Israel within six months, and that
the source of the money be publicly
acknowledged.
Between 1984 and today, an estimat-
ed 45,000 Ethiopians have arrived in
Israel, including some
14,000 during Israel's
dramatic Operation
Solomon in 1991.
But those from the
remote northern region
of Kwara were left off
official Operation
Solomon lists because
of a long-standing feud among
Ethiopian Jewish religious leaders.
The following year, some 3,500
Jews from Upper Kwara made their
Evangelical
Christianspledge
$2 million fbr Jews
of Kward.
2/12
1999
20 Detroit Jewish News
way to Israel.
However, the 3,000 or so in neigh-
boring Lower Kwara were essentially
value of property sold, sources said.
In many respects, the attempt to settle
the claims against German companies
and banks mirrors the standoff between
Jewish officials and Swiss banks accused
of hoarding Holocaust victims' wealth.
But German institutions seem
intent on avoiding the sort of quag-
mire that enveloped Switzerland and
its banks in recent years by pledging
cooperation before tensions mount
and trust dissolves.
However, the Germans made clear
that the size of a settlement would
depend on the level of risk facing the
companies from parties outside a set-
tlement deal.
Negotiations are expected to
resume next week in Germany, with a
goal set by the German side to begin
dispensing checks by September, the
60th anniversary of the beginning of
World War II.
A presumed settlement would
include contributions from a host of
German companies and banks and
would be open to Jews and non-Jews
around the world.
Repairing
Memory
c ,
forgotten. After an article in The
Jerusalem Report last summer brought
their plight to public attention, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
quickly pledged to bring them to Israel.
Unlike the estimated 15,000 Falash
Mura, who also seek entry to Israel
but whose Jewishness is in question,
the Kwara Jews are recognized by the
Israeli government as Jewish.
Fewer than 200 have been given
permission to go to Israel from Lower
Kwara, and an estimated 1,000 Jews
from that region are living in squalor
just outside of the northern Ethiopian
city of Gondar, say some who have
visited the area in recent months.
The rest remain in Lower Kwara,
though more have begun to sell their
farmland and huts to neighbors and
stream toward Gondar, said Eckstein,
a Chicago-based Orthodox rabbi
whose longtime work in interfaith
A man cleans up the
memorial to Jewish soldiers
located on the former secret
military territory of the
Maritime Plant in the south
Ukrainian city of Sevastopoh
Crimean peninsula Monday.
An estimated 500 to 600 Jews
were killed in the 1854-55
Crimean war that pitched
Russia against an alliance
of Britain, France, Sardinia
and the Ottoman Empire.
The unique memorial
complex was built in 1864
upon the initiative of
Sevastopol merchant Savely
Shmerling and with help
of private donations.
affairs led to his involvement with the
evangelical community.
In 1998 the International
Fellowship donated $7 million to the
United Jewish Appeal — funds slated
specifically to underwrite the cost of
flying Jews from the former Soviet
Union to Israel.
Eckstein said some Israeli officials
were reluctant to accept dollars from
evangelical Christians.
But Avi Granot, minister of public
affairs for the Israeli Embassy in
Washington, denied that such an atti-
tude existed. "It was not viewed as a
private donation, but one to the UJA
campaign," he said. "This is not the
first time that money has been given
to Israel, to aliyah purposes, from
non-Jewish sources."
— Debra Nussbaum Cohen
Jewish Telegraphic Agency