Claims debate

It is with a heavy heart that we feel compelled to address your recent coverage of the Claims Conference. We are both survivors of the Shoah, and one of us is a member of the Claims Conference board of directors. We believe that your recent coverage, focusing on issues surrounding the Claims Conference in the run-up to the annual board meeting, is unbalanced and does your readers a disservice by not giving them a good understanding of the life-changing work we do on behalf of the 500,000 Holocaust victims around the world.

This year, after many years of discussions with the German government, child survivors for the first time have started to receive payments from the new Child Survivor Fund. More than 130,000 Nazi victims in 47 countries receive vital aid and services which we fund, including home care, medicine, emergency assistance and hunger relief.

At the recent annual board meeting reviewing these significant achievements on behalf of Jewish Holocaust survivors over the past year, we noted to the Claims Conference leadership how impressed we are with the work that the organization has accomplished in just the past few years, adding to 60 years of historic achievements. From the 2013 milestone home care negotiations with the German government to this year’s establishment of the Child Survivor Fund, we continue to go from strength to strength. As always, our primary goal is the health and welfare of the hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors worldwide, who depend on the Claims Conference to help them live out their lives with an added measure of dignity.

SIDNEY ZOLTAK Co-President, Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants

PINCHAS GUTTER Vice President, Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants