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Remember
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Compensation Changes
From the pages of the Jewish News for
this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60
years ago.
992
New requirements broaden opportunities for Holocaust survivors.
DON COHEN
Special to the Jewish News
Changes Bring Opportunities
However, Wildstrom points to two changes of particular
note that provide new opportunities to apply for compensa-
ith all the talk about "Holocaust repara-
tion.
tions," funds being made available by
The first is newly announced changes in compensation
European countries and "Swiss banks,"
requirements for those who lived in Polish ghettos under
IVIIT you'd think those who went through the
Nazi occupation.
horrors of the Holocaust would simply have to apply to
Negotiations have liberalized the requirement of time spent
collect.
in those ghettos — lowering the
It's nowhere near that easy.
requirement from the previous 18
Survivors and their families need
months down to six months. In
- to keep current on a variety of
accordance with German law that _
programs and revisit events they
allows one to begin work at age 14,
have struggled to move beyond.
applicants must have been 14 years or
"Each time a new program
older when they lived in the Polish
comes out, there seems to be no
ghettos. The application deadline for
centralized database to inform
this liberalized program is June 30,
those who are eligible based on
2003, and, if approved, payments to
claims they have previously filed,"
victims are retroactive to 1997.
says Marcy Borofsky of
There is currently work being done
Farmington Hills.
to provide a similar program for sur-
Her mother, Bell Storchan of
vivors of Hungarian ghettos, but no
West Bloomfield, endured slave
announcement has been made yet.
labor and incarceration in
No discussions about compensation
Lithuania's Kovno Ghetto and also
for survivors in Lithuania, such as
the Stutthof German concentra-
Borofsky's mother, have taken place.
tion camp.
. Funds for compensation for
"Each time, they have to retell
internment in ghettos come from the
their stories, reaffirm the horrors,
German Social Security Fund. Such
go to doctors again, go to psychia-
funds are the most stable because
trists again," Borofsky says. "It is
they are ongoing, can be claimed by
very painful and emotionally diffi-
the living spouse of a survivor (but
cult and opens up a lot of wounds.
not their children) and are not sub-
I've sat there as my mother was
ject to documenting a current finan-
quizzed. If the programs are to
cial hardship. According to
help the survivors, they fail to do
Wildstrom, a survivor herself who
that."
has long been the point person for
"She's right," says Marianne
JFS on compensation, "every other
Indemnification counsels-or Marianne
Wildstrom, indemnification coun-
fund dies with the survivor."
Wildstrom of Jewish Family Service.
selor at Jewish Family Service in
The second important change is
Southfield. She's the local expert
for those who file claims under
on Holocaust compensation, the preferred term to
Article II, commonly known as the Hardship Fund. New
"reparations" because it encompasses all programs and
regulations raise the eligible income for single-person fami-
funds available to eligible Holocaust survivors.
lies to $16,000 (a modest $2,000 increase), but raise the eli-
Wildstrom shares Borofsky's frustration, and confirms
gible income for a couple to $32,500, an increase of more
the onus is always on the survivor to keep up with new
than $10,000 from the previous allowable level. They also
programs and changes, even if the person previously
exclude Social Security income from the income allowances
made claims and received benefits from a program.
for survivors older than 70.
"It is repetitious, what they [the Germans] want,"
The higher levels, says Wildstrom, coupled with the exclu-
Wildstrom says, noting a recent case where all the
sion of Social Security income, "may make it possible for those
requested forms were filed but "now, they send me new
who have previously filed but been refused, to now qualify for
forms with additional questions. It sometimes seems an
unnecessarily difficult process."
CHANGES on page 41
9/ 6
2002
40
Temple Kol Ami of West
Bloomfield offers a service aimed
specifically at singles for the second
night of Rosh Hashanah.
1982 '119111,91WORWIPPRnall
Shaarey Shomayim, the former
Fenkell Shul in Detroit, names
Cantors Dennis Eisenberg and Reb
Mottel Weiss to lead services for the
High Holidays.
Former Detroit Pistons player
Earl Williams converts to Judaism
while playing on the Maccabi Tel
Aviv basketball team.
1972 VONNINOPM/Mitlf.
,
Special assemblies are quickly sum-
moned in the Detroit Jewish com-
munity for mourning the 11 Israeli
athletes assassinated at the Munich
Olympics.
David Barrett, a former social
worker, becomes the first Jewish
provincial premier in British
Columbia.
Detroit Council of Jewish Women
holds a dedication of the Orchards,
a halfway house intended to offer a
stable Jewish environment for chil-
dren requiring special care away
from home.
,,, ev
y
twz
,v7
Five youths from Detroit — Vicki
Somberg, Judy Wesley, Harriet
Subrin, Samuel Flam and Eddie
Lesson — leave for Israel on a
work-study program arranged by
Habonim and the Jewish Agency
for Israel.
N;
\\Xi
isNV V
.
The Jewish News receives a citation
for war service, the first-ever to an
English-Jewish newspaper.
Detroit's Congregation B'nai
David has engaged Moshe Ber Gor-
don as its new cantor.
' ‘s•
— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Leo M Franklin
Archives, Temple Beth El