Shoah survivors who lived under curfew to get restitution
State committee broadens definition of victims eligible for reparations by ruling Jews whose life had been restricted by curfew during Holocaust in Romania and Bulgaria should be compensated
Jews who lived under conditions of curfew in Bulgaria and Romania during the Holocaust will be eligible for restitution according to law, the State of Israel's official Appeals Committee ruled on Sunday.
The committee also recommended that every Jew who lived under Nazi rule should be entitled to reparations.
Until today, people who did not live in concentration camps during World War II have not been recognized by law as eligible for financial compensation.
The committee granted a request filed by 100 petitioners and stated that from now on Bulgarian and Romanian-born survivors would receive restitutions, pending an individual examination of each case.
However, the survivors would not be retroactively compensated.
Mental scars remain
In their ruling, the committee members noted that the circle of those eligible for reparations should be expanded to include "any Jew who was in Europe or North Africa during the war and endured the horrors of the Holocaust."
They added that "minute distinctions" between survivors had led to a situation in which some have been recognized as victims while others have not.
"The numerous testimonies reveal the unbearable daily hardship endured by the petitioners only because of their Jewishness. This reality had left mental scars that they carry with them until today," the committee stated.
