Germany to Give $662 Million to Holocaust Survivors Struggling during Pandemic

“You're teetering between making it every month,” he said. “Having to decide between food, medicine, and rent.”

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The new coronavirus pandemic aid is targeted to Jews who aren't receiving pensions already from Germany, primarily people who fled the Nazis and ended up in Russia and elsewhere to hide during the war.

Schneider said about 50 percent of Holocaust survivors in the US live in Brooklyn and were particularly hard-hit when New York was the center of the American Covid-19 outbreak, but now numbers are looking worse in Israel and other places.

“It’s a rolling calamity,” he said.

Each of those survivors will receive two payments of €1,200 ($1,400) over the next two years, for an overall commitment of approximately €564 million ($662 million) to some of the poorest survivors alive today.

The coronavirus pandemic aid comes on top of an emergency $4.3 million the Claims Conference distributed in the spring to agencies providing care for survivors.

In addition to the coronavirus-related funds, Germany agreed in the recently concluded round of annual negotiations to increase funding for social welfare services for survivors by €30.5 million ($36 million), to a total of €554.5 million ($651 million) for 2021, the Claims Conference said.

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Germany’s foreign ministry had no immediate comment on the latest round of negotiations.

The money is used for services including funding in-home care for more than 83,000 Holocaust survivors and assisting more than 70,000 with other vital services, including food, medicine, transportation to doctors and programs to alleviate social isolation.