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In a shift, Latvia and Lithuania are paying Holocaust survivors and heirs for their stolen property
(JTA) — A narrow window is open now through Dec. 31 for Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their descendants to apply for restitution, under the terms of a law passed last year.
A similar law enacted in Latvia has also taken effect, giving Holocaust survivors from that country the chance to secure one-time payments of about $5,300.
“For many people, these agreements are not just about money; they’re about recognition,” Gideon Taylor, president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It’s countries coming to terms with the past, acknowledging that there were Jews there, that every house, every building represents an individual story.”
Both of the Baltic nations contained rich centers of Jewish life and history before World War II. The Nazis, together with their Lithuanian and Latvian collaborators, killed 90% of the 220,000 Jews in Lithuania and 75% of the 95,000 Jews in Latvia. Today, there are about 5,000 Jews living in Lithuania and 9,500 in Latvia.
Both countries were occupied by the Soviet Union during the war and remained part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution. That explains why they are only offering restitution more than 80 years after their Jews were expropriated, deported and killed, Taylor said.
“The communist ideology was that they were those who had fought against the Nazis and they had no responsibility,” he said. “So there was never any possibility of reparations or compensation for property, and in addition, property was all confiscated by the communist government and belonged to the state.”
Some Latvian and Lithuanian survivors might draw compensation through the annual reparations packages negotiated by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which last year secured $1.4 billion, the most ever, for survivors. But the former Soviet countries have not offered their own direct compensation programs, and most programs for descendants of those who were killed, imprisoned or had their property seized by the Nazis and their collaborators have expired.
Starting in 1991, for example, Lithuania passed a series of laws dedicated to the restitution of private property expropriated by the totalitarian regimes — but since these laws required applicants to have current Lithuanian citizenship, they effectively excluded most Holocaust survivors and families who fled the country.
Now, the Lithuanian restitution program is open to both survivors and direct heirs of private Jewish property that was nationalized or illegally expropriated under the Nazi and Soviet regimes. A 2022 law granted 5 to 10 million euros (roughly $5.4 to $10.8 million) to be distributed among Holocaust victims by the Good Will Foundation. The exact amount of each one-time payment will be determined based on the total number of approved applicants, who will receive their compensation by July 1, 2025.
The Latvian program, also launched in 2022, offers a payment of 5,000 euros (about $5,370) to survivors who lived in Latvia as of June 21, 1941, during the country’s brief German occupation, meaning that only people 82 and older could be eligible. The Latvian Jewish Community Restitution Fund will approve the compensation funds on a rolling basis.
The World Jewish Restitution Organization is attempting to find survivors and direct heirs who might be eligible for restitution across the Jewish world, including in Israel, the United States and Canada. Survivor databases have allowed them to contact some people directly. But they are also running social media campaigns, placing ads and even partnering with influencers to reach the shrinking number of people who still hold a connection to the past.
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The post In a shift, Latvia and Lithuania are paying Holocaust survivors and heirs for their stolen property appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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