Tragedies continue for needy Holocaust survivors
Sunday’s story about aid toHolocaust survivors gives a terribly wrong picture of survivors’ efforts to secure justice and dignity for our brothers and sisters who are in desperate need. As a survivor who has been advocating for the rights and interests of survivors, especially those living in poverty, I believe there is much more Sun Sentinel readers should know.
First, the “pilot projects” of $200,000 or less being touted by the Obama administration and the Jewish Federations do not remotely meet the actual needs of the 50,000U.S. survivors currently living in or near poverty. Congressional hearings in 2014, at which survivors’ family members, medical professionals and I testified, showed the cost to provide for survivors’ unmet needs for medical care, medicine, dental care, hearing aids, mental health care and in-home care, is hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
As Dr. Barbara Paris, fromMaimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, testified: “Years of malnutrition, hard physical labor, repeated beatings, frostbite and mental anguish take their toll and catch up with you in old age. Survivors have severe degenerative joint disease, severe osteoporosis causing spinal and hip fractures, dental, vision and hearing problems that require many resources to help preserve dignity and independence.”
Second, survivors never asked theU.S. government, or the Jewish community, for special help. Our appeal has been directed to Germany, and others like insurance giants Allianz and Generali that collaborated and profited fromtheHolocaust, to provide the care to allowsurvivors to live their final years in dignity. Past programs, thoughwell-meaning, have still left half of all survivors in or near poverty.
Finally, the very idea of this new program is a betrayal of survivors by the administration.
In 2008, the Obama-Biden campaign solicited survivors’ support. Based on what seemed like sincere commitments from Sen. Joe Biden and campaign officialDan Shapiro (nowU.S. ambassador to Israel), AlexMoskovic and Iwrote an op-ed expressing our confidence that an ObamaBiden administrationwould supportHolocaust survivors’ rights to recover looted assets fromcorporate profiteers, and lead the effort to secure adequate funding for all survivors to live in dignity. Howwrongwe were.
Once in office, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not only ignored our letters, but blocked survivors’ rights to collect on policies that insurers never paid despite collecting premiums fromour parents and grandparents.
In the 2012 campaign, I asked Biden at CenturyVillagewhy he and the president had fought against our equal rights as American citizens. I reminded him thatwe not only survived theHolocaust, but many survivors likemyself, areU.S. military veterans, and far too many are in desperate trouble. Biden acted surprised and promised to personally review the issues. A group of leaders fromtheHolocaust Survivors FoundationUSAmet with top aide Tony Blinken at the WhiteHouse. We asked that the president or vice president personally contact German Chancellor AngelaMerkel to urge Germany to fulfill its responsibility to provide the resources survivors need. Wewere clear that survivors are not asking for special help from U.S. taxpayers or the Jewish community.
Then, to our shock, the WhiteHouse stopped talking to us. Instead of appealing to Germany, the administration turned instead to the Claims Conference, the nonsurvivorNGOthat has been disgraced by scandal, and to the Jewish Federations.
Directly contrary to whatwe requested, the administration then announced, to great fanfare, a ridiculous mix ofU.S. taxpayer funding and Jewish community fundraising as its “Holocaust survivors’ initiative.” The final programinvites agencies to apply for grants for “person-centered, trauma-informed supportive services forHolocaust survivors.” No one really knows what this bureaucraticmumbojumbo means.
The result is a grand total of $12.5 million spread out over 5 years, to be matched with 50 percent local funding, and not one cent can be used for actual direct care. For the Jewish community and the administration to brag about this abomination is not only a betrayal, but perpetuates the torment of tens of thousands ofHolocaust survivors.
JackRubin, of Boynton Beach, was born in Vari, Czechoslovakia. He is a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and three other camps. He is a member of the ExecutiveCommittee of theHolocaust Survivors FoundationUSA.