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Germany agrees to record $1.4 billion in annual Holocaust reparations as survivors age
(JTA) – Conditions didn’t seem favorable in early May as Stuart Eizenstat entered annual negotiations with the German government over reparations for the estimated 240,000 remaining Holocaust survivors around the world.
Eizenstat had served as the special negotiator for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany since 2009, and had analyzed the country’s economic and political landscape: high inflation, spiraling fuel costs and unprecedented government spending on defense to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. Add to that a German finance minister, Christian Lindner, who was elected less than two years on a platform of budget cuts, fiscal restraint and smaller government.
“We’re dealing with German taxpayer money. That has to be accounted for. And we’ve been in an era in the last couple of years and particularly this year with negative factors that would seem to have an inauspicious impact,” Eizenstat said in an interview.
Yet the compensation package Eizenstat helped secure for the Claims Conference — more than $1.4 billion — was the largest monetary figure agreed to for a single year since German reparations began more than seven decades ago. The figure reflected a recognition that, even as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles with each passing year, the needs of the remaining survivors are increasing as they age.
Some of the $1.4 billion that Germany agreed to spend will be paid directly to survivors; the bulk will fund social welfare services such as home care and food packages, administered through about 300 agencies across 83 countries. Germany also agreed to boost funding for Holocaust education programs.
“This is perhaps the most productive session we’ve ever had,” Eizenstat said. “And the fact that it has occurred almost 80 years after the war is a testimony to the Claims Conference’s relentless pursuit of justice and the partnership that we’ve had with the German government.”
Total direct compensation to survivors is expected to reach $535 million next year, mostly paid out in pensions to survivors. In addition, negotiations resulted in four more years of hardship payments — direct allocations to survivors who have not qualified for pensions —which were introduced following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. More than 128,000 survivors can expect to receive 1,250 euros each, or about $1,360, in 2024, an amount that will go up by 50 euros each year through 2027.
The hardship payments were negotiated on top of the regular Holocaust survivor pensions, and they primarily benefit Jews from the former Soviet Union who were not interned in camps or placed into ghettos and were therefore not included in the pension program. These Jews survived Nazi mobile killing units that murdered more than 1 million Jews, including entire communities, and today are more likely to experience poverty.
Another category of aid has skyrocketed over the past two decades: social services. German spending in this category will reach about $890 million in 2024, an increase of $105 million over last year. Fifteen years ago, the total was less than $50 million.
In 2023, 120,000 survivors received home care, medical transportation and other forms of support through Jewish social service agencies.
“Survivors are getting more frail, and they are needing more hours of care, and more assistance,” said Reuben Rotman, president and CEO of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies.
The agencies represented by Rotman’s group keep track not only of the services they have provided to survivors but also of unmet needs. So if a survivor needed 20 hours of care but received only 12 due to funding constraints, the gap would register in data collected by the Claims Conference.
“The Claims Conference goes back to Germany each year and aggregates all the unmet needs for all the organizations that are funding and makes the case for increases. And generally, they’ve been successful in those negotiations,” Rotman said.
Germany also agreed to continue increasing funding for Holocaust education around the world, providing the Claims Conference with about $150 million for educational programs over the next four years. The money is meant to counter findings from recent surveys showing that the public is growing less knowledgeable about the Holocaust as it recedes further into the past.
According to a 2018 survey commissioned by the Claims Conference, nearly half of American adults could not name a single concentration camp and almost a third were under the impression that the number of Jewish victims was far lower than the 6 million who were murdered.
The Claims Conference’s education budget helped pay, for example, for the production of “Son of Saul,” a 2015 Hungarian film set in the Auschwitz concentration camp that won an Oscar for best foreign film.
Exposure to survivors and education about the Holocaust deserve credit for the successful outcome of this year’s negotiations, according to Eizenstat. He noted that in the leadup to the formal meetings, chief German negotiator Luise Hölscher was taken on a tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem; Polin, a Jewish history museum in Warsaw; and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
“I took Luise for three hours before the negotiation and introduced her to three of our survivors who are docents at the Holocaust Memorial Museum,” Eizenstat said. “It really gave her a historical sense of the Holocaust, but also how much these funds mean to the dignity of survivors.”
Later this year, the Claims Conference will release what it says is the most comprehensive demographic report on survivors ever, detailing where they live, broken down by country and city.
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Trump Says Gas Prices May Remain High Through November Midterm Election
U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“It could be, or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the cost of oil and gas would be lower by the fall.
The average price for regular gas at US service stations has exceeded $4 per gallon for most of April, according to data from GasBuddy. Trump’s comments on Sunday came after weeks of asserting that the spike in prices is a short-term phenomenon, though his top advisers are cognizant of the war’s economic impacts, officials have said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced on social media that the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and intercept any ship that paid a crossing fee to Iran, after marathon talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend did not yield a peace deal.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Any US blockade is likely to add more uncertainty to the eventual resolution of the conflict, which is currently subject to a tenuous two-week ceasefire. The new tactic is in response to Iran’s own closure of the strait’s critical shipping lanes, which has caused global oil prices to skyrocket about 50%.
UNPOPULAR WAR HITS TRUMP’S APPROVAL
The war began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran. The scope quickly expanded as Iran and its allies attacked nearby countries, while Israel targeted Hezbollah with massive strikes in Lebanon.
The war has buffeted global financial markets and caused thousands of civilian deaths, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s political standing at home has suffered, with polls showing the war is unpopular among most Americans, who are frustrated by rising gasoline prices.
The president’s approval rating has hit the lowest levels of his second term in office, raising concern among Republicans that his party is poised to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. A Democratic majority in either chamber could launch investigations into the Trump administration while blocking much of his legislative agenda.
US Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned the strategy behind Trump’s planned blockade.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In a separate appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warner said the blockade would not undermine Iranian control of the waterway.
“The Iranians have hundreds of speedboats where they can still mine the strait or put bombs against tankers in closing the strait,” he said. “How is that going to ever bring down gas prices?”
Although Trump has repeatedly said that the war would be over soon, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that achieving US aims in Iran “could take a long time.”
“It’s going to be a long-term project,” said Johnson, who was not asked about Trump’s proposed blockade. “I never thought this would be easy.”
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Israel’s Ben-Gvir Visits Flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir walks inside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying he was seeking greater access for Jewish worshipers and drawing condemnation from Jordan and the Palestinians.
The compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City is one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Known to Jews as Temple Mount, it is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Under a delicate, decades-old arrangement with Muslim authorities, it is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there.
Suggestions that Israel would alter the rules have sparked outrage among Muslims and ignited violence in the past.
“Today, I feel like the owner here,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said in a video filmed at the site and distributed by his office. “There is still more to do, more to improve. I keep pushing the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to do more and more — we must keep rising higher and higher.”
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said it considered Ben-Gvir’s visit to be a violation of the status quo agreement at the site and “a desecration of its sanctity, a condemnable escalation and an unacceptable provocation.”
The office of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said such actions could further destabilize the region.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman said the minister was seeking greater access and prayer permits for Jewish visitors. He also said that Ben-Gvir had prayed at the site.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Previous such visits and statements by Ben-Gvir have prompted Netanyahu announcements saying that there is no change in Israel’s policy of keeping the status quo.
Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites, including Al-Aqsa had been largely closed to the public during the Iran war. There was no immediate sign of unrest on Sunday after Ben-Gvir’s visit.
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Netanyahu Visits Troops Fighting Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Aug. 10, 2025. Photo: ABIR SULTAN/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon on Sunday as military operations against Hezbollah-linked targets continue.
Netanyahu toured forward positions alongside Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Eyal Zamir, and Northern Command Commander Rafi Milo, meeting troops and receiving operational briefings from commanders on the ground.
Speaking to soldiers, Netanyahu praised their performance and said operations in the Lebanese security zone were ongoing.
“The war continues, including within the security zone in Lebanon,” he said, adding that Israeli forces were working to prevent infiltration attempts and neutralize threats such as anti-tank fire and missiles.
He described the northern campaign as part of a broader regional struggle involving Iran and its allies, saying Israel’s adversaries were now “fighting for their survival” following sustained Israeli military pressure.