As many as 16,000 Holocaust survivors in Boca Raton—the south Florida city where your parents or grandparents probably live—may be eligible for additional pensions from Germany after a German court ruled that applications to receive compensation for slave labor in the ghettos should be “liberalized.” Florida agencies will receive nearly $4.5 million from a German fund this year as a result of the ruling—a whopping 40 percent increase from last year.
I am all in favor of reparations for survivors—especially since, scandalously, one in four American ones lives below the poverty line. That said, I found it interesting that Col. Ellis Robinson (Ret.), a longtime Jewish Boca resident and (if I may say so) truly spectacular grandfather, is not also eligible for some Holocaust-based cash. The colonel was not a survivor of the camps; rather, as an officer who landed at Normandy, freed Paris, fought in the Ardennes, and crossed the Rhine at Remagen under General Patton, he helped free them.
So, I asked the colonel: Why isn’t he getting some cash now for his services?
He responded in an email: “Was glad to do it … FREE OF CHARGE.”
Former Nazi Slave Laborers Seek Payment from Germany [South Florida Sun Sentinel]
16,000 Floridians Get a Shot at Holocaust Pensions [UPI/Vos Iz Neias?]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.