Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) was founded in 1951 as a coalition of 23 international Jewish organizations to represent Jewish victims of National Socialism and Holocaust survivors in negotiating for material compensation. In the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement, the Claims Conference succeeded in establishing the duty of the Federal Republic of Germany to make individual compensation for the wrongs of the Nazis. As a consequence, the Claims Conference had a formative influence on the numerous revisions of the Federal Compensation Law (BEG, Bundesentschädigungsgesetz) and thus was able to close quite a number of the serious loopholes in the law. On the basis of its negotiations, various funds were set up: the Hardship Fund in 1980, the Article 2 Funds in 1992, and in 1998 the Central and Eastern European Fund (CEEF), through which Jewish persecutees who were not covered by the BEG can receive compensation benefits. To this day, the Claims Conference continues to negotiate with the German government regarding liberalizations of the existing compensation agreements. In the indemnification of former Nazi slave laborers and forced laborers, the Claims Conference, as one of seven partner organizations of the “Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future” Foundation, was responsible for Jewish applicants all over the world.
(KM; transl. KL)