Holocaust survivors will not have to prove their suffering in order to receive reparations from the State, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Attorney Ilan Yaakobovich originally filed a suit in the name of his client, Chaim Hershko, 85, who has claimed reparations for the suffering he underwent in ghettos and detention camps during the Holocaust. After a long legal battle, Hershko and other Holocaust survivors were gratified when their suffering was finally recognized and reparations were ordered to be paid.
Demanding proof of suffering made it somewhat more difficult for the survivors to claim their allowance, as evidence of a given situation 64 years ago in war-torn Europe is not currently readily available.
However, their joy was short-lived, as the Finance Ministry declared that in order to pay the money, each claimant would have to prove that his or her freedom had been restricted even beyond the normal curfew hours.
This made it somewhat more difficult for the survivors to claim their monthly reparation allowance, as evidence of a given particular situation that occurred 64 years ago in war-torn Europe is not currently readily available.
Attorney Yaakobovitch then filed another suit with the Supreme Court, explaining that the Finance Ministry’s demand is impossible to fulfill and that it amounts to denying the survivors their reparations.
The three-justice panel – Eliezer Rivlin, Edna Arbel, and Chanan Meltzer – accepted the suit, and ruled on Tuesday that the demand for proof must be immediately revoked. The reparations must thus be paid to any person who can prove that he or she was under curfew, with no need for proof of additional restrictions.
“This is a tremendous victory for Holocaust survivors in general,” said Attorney Yaakobovich after the verdict was delivered. “There are some 5,000 survivors who are eligible for reparations for having been detained under curfew during the war – most of them in Bulgaria and Romania… The extra requirements merely prolong the legal process. Unlike the Finance Ministry, time is something that the survivors do not have a lot of…”