Posted on 05/03/2006 12:31:11 PM PDT by EvilHomer
Tuesday, April 25 was a day of remembrance for the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. Around the world television programs and news outlets broadcast stories of courage and resolution in the face of Nazi terror, preaching tolerance of other cultures lest history be repeated. But for 90,000 Holocaust survivors living in Israel today, life is still a harsh struggle of living day to day with little to get by on.
Gizela Burg is one such survivor. Having lived in four concentration camps over the course of her life under the Nazi regime, she knows what it’s like to barely scrape by. Now at age 83, she cannot afford meat, fix her broken television or pay her medical bills. "I don't pay for medicine because I have to pay for electricity and for gas and property taxes," she said.
Her story is not unique. Israel’s Holocaust Survivors' Welfare Fund, the organization that distributes aid for medical costs and other services for Holocaust survivors, is greatly lacking in funds. The government of Israel only pays for about 10 percent of the program’s $35 million annual budget. 85% comes from Germany and Austria.
Zeev Factor, chairman of the fund and a Holocaust survivor himself, says that the government has enough money but isn’t spending it on the survivors. "The government of Israel has received money from the German government…but I think the government didn't use enough for the survivors."
The problem cannot stem from lack of available funds: Israel’s taxes are among the highest in the industrialized world and the government has recently announced a $1.7 billion surplus, not to mention the amount of money it receives from Germany and Austria for the very purpose of aiding the Holocaust victims.
Yet most of that money will be spent convincing political parties to stay in the current coalition. Prime Minister elect Ehud Olmert has already promised billions of shekels to allied parties. Indeed, such friendly exchanges of tax money accounted for over half of Israel’s 2005 budget (which is the most recent one available, as the government operated without a budget in 2006).
Not that I have schadenfreud on any of their poverty. But ask me--would Gizela Berg have been better in Communist Poland (or wherever she lived before the Holocaust) after the war? Israel never promised that life would be like "The Magic Kingdom" to those that emmigrated there.
If all those Hasids would contribute to Israeli society maybe (go out and go to work) maybe the Israeli government could help subsidize elderly Holocaust survivors a little more adequtely.
I suspect you do. In any case, Eastern Europe under communism was no magic kingdom either, was it?
Stop giving all those millions to the murderous Palestinians muslims-islamists-arabs, and give it to the survivors. Problem solved.
Living across the street from me is a couple who BOTH went to 4 concentration camps, including Auschwitz. He became a rabbi and cantor. Until his recent bit of bad health, he was a rabbi on cruise ships. They live very well indeed.
So many felt that for some reason their lives were spared, and they pushed ahead and succeeded, as all their dead loved ones would have wanted. My grandfather crying at all the bar Mitzvahs, where people experienced the joy and freedom to be Jewish, even taking it for granted, meant a lot to me.
So much money has gone into Holocaust survivor funds, I always feel like wealthy Jews are hard pressed to FIND Holocaust survivors suffering. My Dad was only 7 when he escaped the Nazis (on the Kindertransport) and he is 74. Therefore there really aren't too many younger than him.
Well there are 90,000 of them apparently...
I see that politics stink there as well as here. Money sent from Germany and Austria for Holocaust survivors should go to Holocaust survivors. What part of that can't politicians understand?
Is there an alternative fund to which one may contribute?
Exactly. And the fact that politicians have to basically be paid off to keep the government steady stinks more than simple misappropriation of money. Call me an idealist, but these are the people elected to govern the nation, pocketing half of the nation's budget that should be going to these survivors, defense, education or any number of places while taxes are sky high. I mean, American politics has its pitfalls, but the system doesn't allow for half of the national budget to be more or less handed to the politicians on a silver platter.
God,there is no excuse for this.
I'm your Dad's age and still remember when we saw the Movietone News in our local theatre on a Saturday afternoon after the Allis had arrived at the camps. The films were awful.
We were all horrified and none of us suffered as your Dad and his family did.
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"Now at age 83, she cannot afford meat, fix her broken television or pay her medical bills. "I don't pay for medicine because I have to pay for electricity and for gas and property taxes," she said. "
This is confusing. Israel has socialized medicine which covers doctors, hospitals and prescriptions.
ping a country with worse pols then the usa who would have thunk it :-)
Holocaust reparations given to Israel by Germany were never intended to be used for individual survivors. They were to be used to support the State of Israel which was created as a save haven for Jews the world over.
"an agreement was signed in September of that year, and West Germany paid Israel a sum of 3 billion marks over the next fourteen years; 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments were made to the State of Israel as the heir to those victims who had no surviving family. The money was invested in the country's infrastructure and played an important role in establishing the economy of the new state."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_West_Germany
But now Israel's economy and taxes are capable of sustaining all that. Shouldn't German money now be used for the victims?
That's terrible, but somewhat surprising. I know a few Holocaust survivors. Some of them aren't so well-off, although most do ok (especially as even if they didn't do so great, and many of them did, their kids generally turned out very well), but this is awful.
Still, maybe some of the money earmarked for 'Palestine' should be reearmarked for Holocaust survivors. We should at least be able to ease their final years.
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