No More Holocaust Reparations, Says German Finance Minister

Third Generation Holocaust Survivors Have Nightmares

Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück said in Jerusalem Thursday that Germany had no plans to renegotiate a Holocaust reparations deal signed with Israel in 1952.

"The existing deal is signed and final and there is no need to change it," said Steinbrück after meeting with the chairman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, Noah Flug.

Flug said that although the reparation agreement with Germany would not be amended, if there were "specific problems" Germany would try to solve them.

"We didn't ask for money, we spoke of the responsibility of the German government," added Flug.

Complaints that Germany's reparations fail to compensate in any reasonable way for the trauma of the Holocaust are ongoing. But the Israeli Holocaust survivors who met with Steinbrück on Thursday, Nov. 23, to request improvements to the reparations arrangement specifically argued that the original agreement failed to take into account today's longer life expectancy or the tens of thousands of survivors who immigrated to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union.

According to news agency DPA, Steinbrück did agree that Germany would try to help needy survivors via the Claims Committee, the international organization that coordinates compensation payments to survivors.

An unofficial request?