August 2



POLAND:
Gypsies Remember Their Holocaust Dead


Gypsies from across Europe met at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp
in Poland today to remember hundreds of thousands of their ancestors
killed by the Nazis and call for wider recognition of the Gypsy Holocaust.

The ceremony, exactly 60 years after the night the Nazis gassed the final
2,900 Gypsies being held in the camp, also heard warnings that the Sinti
and Roma continue to face persistent discrimination, especially in eastern
Europe.

"Like the Jews, the Sinti and Roma were brutally persecuted and
systematically murdered with an inhuman determination," said Germany's
envoy to the ceremony, Environment Minister Juergen Trittin.

"This genocide is part of our history," he said. "As Germans, we carry the
historic and the political responsibility."

Up to half a million European Gypsies are believed to have perished at the
Nazis' hands during the Second World War along with six million Jews,
though the exact number is not known.

The Nazis considered Gypsies racially inferior and "anti-social." Many
were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the SS set up a special camp
section for them.

On August 2, 1944, the SS liquidated the Gypsy camp and killed most of the
remaining inmates, including many women, children and elderly, in the gas
chambers. Others were sent to German factories for forced labour.

The anniversary was marked with solemn speeches and mournful music amid
the ruins of dozens of prisoner barracks on a vast grassy area, still
ringed by concrete fence posts and watchtowers.

"Auschwitz-Birkenau is a symbol of the genocide perpetrated on our people,
said Roman Kwiatkowski," the top Gypsy representative in Poland.

But he said that prejudice against Gypsies must be fought across Europe
also today, saying the Nazis' crimes were a warning to present and future
generations.

Later, several hundred mourners - including camp survivors - walked from
the barracks area to the ruins of a gas chamber, where Gypsy representatives
placed candles.

"These crimes should be properly commemorated," Kwiatkowski said. "We fear
again that the Roma Holocaust will be forgotten."

SS soldiers blew up the gas chamber and crematorium in early 1945 when the
Nazis abandoned the camp in the face of the Soviet army's westward
advance. In May 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered.

(source: The Scotsman)


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Roma mark holocaust at Auschwitz


Some 500 Roma representatives from across Europe gathered at the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp Monday to mark 60 years since the
Nazis liquidated the so-called "gypsy camp", by gassing to death some
3,000 Roma men, women and children.

"It is extremely important for those who visit such places to have broader
information about the thousands of murdered Roma," leader of Poland's Roma
Association, Roman Kwiatkowski, said, quoted by the Polish PAP news
agency.

Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka and Roma leaders
laid floral tributes at a monument to the Roma victims and lit candles as
they gathered in silence at the ruins of crematorium V in the camp where
60 years ago to the day 3,000 Roma were gassed.

Six million European Jews and an estimated half of the one million Roma
living in pre-war Europe were slaughtered by the Nazis between 1939-44.

Of the 23,000 Roma taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp between 1941-44
only 2,000 survived. A total 1.5 million people, mostly European Jews,
perished at the camp, the largest and most notorious in the German Third
Reich.

Roma from Austria, Germany and Nazi-occupied Czech territories were
deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on the orders of Nazi SS-head Heinrich
Himmler.

Many Roma prisoners died of starvation and disease, while some, especially
children, were subject to the pseudo-medical experiments of infamous
Auschwitz physician Josef Mengele.

Today, an estimated 8 million Roma live in Europe.

(source: Expatica)


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Roma mark holocaust at Auschwitz


Commemorations are under way to mark the 60th anniversary of the Roma
holocaust at Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp in southern Poland.
Hundreds of Roma from across Europe are attending the remembrance ceremony
at the Roma memorial at Auschwitz.

It is the largest act of remembrance ever for Roma victims of the
holocaust.

In August 1944, the Nazis killed all those in the camp they had created
for the Roma, or Gypsies, who like Jews were singled out for
extermination.

On Monday, beside the barbed wire fence in a corner of the 175 hectare
field that housed the Birkenau death camp, both Roma and political leaders
talked of the need not to forget.

Entire families were incarcerated together in what the Nazis called the
Gypsy family camp.

Discrimination

Exactly 60 years ago, the Nazis marched old Roma men, women and children
into the gas chambers for the last time before destroying the camp.

Estimates say 19,000 of the 23,000 Roma sent to Auschwitz died there. Many
succumbed to typhus and smallpox epidemics.

Like the Jews, the Nazis singled out the Roma for racial extermination,
but the Roma holocaust is often forgotten, said local Roma leader Roman
Kwiatkowski as he opened the ceremony.

He reminded the listeners the present-day Roma still face discrimination.

It is not known precisely how many Roma were killed in the Nazis' drive to
wipe them from the face of the earth, but estimates say around a quarter
of the million Roma living in Europe were murdered.

(source: BBC News)




GLOBAL:

1 Million to be Paid to Nazi-Era Slave Laborers; Largest One-Day Holocaust
Payment Ever Made----Claims Conference Paying 130,681 Jewish Survivors in
62 Countries; Total Slave Labor Payments Come to $1.3 Billion in Three
Years


The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims
Conference) is making second payments to living Jewish Nazi-era slave
laborers by sending a total of $401 million to 130,681 Holocaust
survivors around the world.

This is the largest one-day Holocaust-era compensation distribution ever
made.

"These payments represent the first time that German industry as a whole
has acknowledged its role in Holocaust-era crimes. They are a small
measure of justice, for which survivors have waited for more than 60
years," said Claims Conference President Israel Singer.

These payments are the second and final installment under the Claims
Conference Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers. Between June 2001
and July 2004, a total of $703 million was paid as a first installment to
the survivors. From the current payments, each survivor will receive
approximately $3,000.

In addition, the Claims Conference has been responsible for making slave
labor payments from the Swiss Banks Settlement, as compensation for Nazi
profits transacted through Swiss banks. Under this portion of the program,
the Claims Conference has paid more than $217 million to 150,140
survivors.

With these new payments, the Claims Conference will have distributed since
2001 more than $1.3 billion in compensation payments to Jewish former
slave and forced laborers.

"There is no price that can be paid for the suffering of Holocaust
survivors. Those who labored under the Nazis endured the worst that
humanity can devise, and no amount of money can change that. The payments
are a potent symbol, one for which we fought very hard," said Roman Kent,
Chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors.

The payments being made are from the German Foundation "Remembrance,
Responsibility, and the Future," which was established in 2000 by German
government and industry after negotiations with the Claims Conference; the
governments of the U.S., Israel, and several Eastern European nations; as
well as attorneys.

Half of the DM 10 billion Foundation's funding is provided by the German
government and half by the country's businesses. German industry and
business benefited from slave and forced labor during World War II. In
addition, the Nazis utilized such labor in building railroads and air
bases, in military production, and in concentration camps.

Under the German law creating the fund for these payments, the
compensation had to be paid in two installments, in order to ensure
adequate funds to make first payments to all eligible applicants. Included
in the survivors being sent payments this week are 33,510 in the U.S., who
will receive a total of $103.6 million, and 61,901 in Israel, who will
receive a total of $191.4 million.

"We distribute this payment to survivors in the hope that it will make a
difference in their lives. For some, the money will help a great deal with
the necessities of life. But for all, the payments have great symbolism,"
said Claims Conference Chairman Julius Berman.

Documenting Claims

"This program is as much about restituting history as it is about
restituting money. There are 131,000 Jewish survivors of camps and ghettos
alive today and we will not allow their names to be forgotten or their
stories to be lost," said Gideon Taylor, Claims Conference Executive Vice
President.

The program will leave behind it a list of the names of virtually all
Jewish Holocaust survivors alive today, a comprehensive identification of
almost all places where Jews were incarcerated during the Holocaust, and
finally a small symbolic acknowledgement by Germany of the horrors that
hundreds of thousands of individuals endured 60 years ago.

To help survivors document their claims to meet the requirements of the
German Foundation, the Claims Conference undertook pro-active research in
150 Holocaust-related archives scattered in 30 countries around the world.
Claims Conference researchers scoured paper and microfilmed lists -- often
handwritten and not alphabetized -- in order to match the names of
claimants to any documentation that would meet the requirements
established by the German Foundation.

Sources of information included concentration camp lists, ghetto
registers, transport lists, labor battalion rosters, lists of slave
laborers in factories and plants, lists of inmates on work gangs, lists of
prisoners released or liberated from concentration camps by Allied forces
or humanitarian groups, lists of recipients of packages sent by friends
and relatives through the Red Cross, and testimonials of survivors
produced in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi occupation, among others.

This research effort led to payments for more than 30,000 survivors who
otherwise lacked any documentation of their persecution. In addition, the
comprehensive Claims Conference research led to a re-evaluation of certain
aspects of the Shoah. In particular the Claims Conference successfully
pressed the German Foundation to pay claimants able to prove persecution
in certain camps in Bulgaria, Romania, North Africa, and Vichy France.
Without the Claims Conference's research and the demand for a
re-examination of the status of these claimants, they would have been
excluded from consideration for forced or slave labor payments.

Finally, where no documentation could be found, applicants were invited to
describe their persecution experiences and these statements could
constitute part of the proof that the claimant was eligible for a payment.

Processing Claims

The Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers is the most complex ever
administered by the Claims Conference, entailing levels of technology,
staffing, and international coordination unprecedented in the
organization's previous half-century. The large amount of money
distributed, the relatively short application period, and the advanced age
of Holocaust survivors all converged to imbue the program with great
urgency.

To meet the challenge of processing more than 265,000 applications within
a relatively short time period, the Claims Conference created an advanced
system of computerized processing. Every application form was digitally
scanned. By relying on state-of-the art programs that were tailored to the
project and were highly adaptable, the Claims Conference achieved full
electronic processing, with significant advantages in data collection,
integration and investigation.

Hundreds of thousands of applications were electronically sorted and
analyzed to identify and group them for streamlined procedures. This
sophisticated computerization system was key in the most pressing
imperative and most challenging task facing the Claims Conference:
reducing the time needed to process claims.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims
Conference) represents world Jewry in negotiating for compensation and
restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. The Claims
Conference administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish
property, and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare
services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the
Shoah.

(source: Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach LLP)