ISRAEL: Lawyers representing holocaust survivors file suit worth millions of Euros against Germany

Record ID: 395859

  • Title: ISRAEL: Lawyers representing holocaust survivors file suit worth millions of Euros against Germany
  • Date: 17th July 2007
  • Summary: (BN15) TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JULY 16, 2007) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF COURT BUILDING LAWYERS TALKING TO JOURNALISTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) HOLOCAUST VICTIMS LAWYER, GIDEON FISCHER SAYING: "Its the very first time ever worldwide that a court will be addressed and asked to ask the German Federation, the German government, to step ahead and to take responsibility for the damage that n
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Legal System
  • Reuters ID: LVAB6EDHW893CT5C9FCWGWXW4MCG
  • Story Text: An Israeli court is set to decide on a suit filed on Monday (July 16), under which a group of Israelis who consider themselves a second generation of Holocaust survivors demand compensations from Germany to finance psychological therapy.
    The lawyers filed a suit to Tel Aviv's District Court in what they said was the first ever that a court will have to make the decision to compel Germany to pay for the upkeep of children and relatives of Holocaust survivors.
    "Its the very first time ever worldwide that a court will be addressed and asked to ask the German Federation, the German government, to step ahead and to take responsibility for the damage that not only the first generation has suffered, but unfortunately the second generation. Psychiatrists have it that the second generation walk around with the feeling that the Holocaust is not something that happened in the past. The Holocaust is still something that is still within their world," said attorney Gideon Fischer, himself a son of Holocaust survivors who founded a non profit group called the Fischer Fund.
    Baruch Mazor, the director of the Fischer fund, addressed the press alongside Fischer before they handed over the petition.
    Mazor clarified that the legal action was not about money but for the German government to take responsibility for what had happened and to provide psychiatric care for the victims.
    "This is an open lawsuit, it depends of how many people will join. At the end of the day it is not a huge amount for a state like Germany, it could be also hundreds of millions of Euros but this is also not big money. The idea is to take responsibility, the idea is to solve a problem. The idea is to see that people who were suffering, a very deep suffering will have a chance to lead normal lives." said Mazor.
    After addressing the press, the two officials later walked into the court building and handed over their petition to a court official.
    The attorneys said they represented some 4,000 Israelis, sons and daughters of Holocaust survivors.
    Over the past half a century, Germany has paid out billions of dollars to concentration camp survivors and families of the millions of Jews killed during the Second World War.
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