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Program Information
Restituting History: The Search for Documentation
Payments Under Additional Labor Distribution Fund
Payments to Forced Laborers Who Were Not Deported
Survivor Profile:
Gisele Schlanger
The Claims Conference has paid 146,513 Holocaust survivors and claims from 20,003 heirs of victims a total of approximately $1.2 billion from the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility, and the Future," under this program to date.
In addition, 173,926 survivors and claims from heirs of victims have been approved to receive a total of approximately
$252 million from the Claims Conference, with funds from the Swiss Banks Settlement, as compensation for slave and forced labor.
Payments have been made in 75 countries.
Claims Conference Programs:
Program for Former Slave and Forced Laborers
Elena B.
Elena B. (Ella), age
77, lived in Chust, Czechoslovakia, when the Hungarians invaded her town. Her family was deported to Poland but she was able to escape to Budapest. In 1944 she was confined to the ghetto and subsequently deported to Auschwitz. Elena was forced to work at an airplane factory near Hamburg. After being liberated by the Americans, she returned to Budapest in the hopes of finding her family, but to no avail. In Budapest, Elena met Manase, whom she married. They traveled to a displaced persons camp in Austria, where she gave birth to a son in May 1946.
The couple wanted to immigrate to Palestine and so started a long voyage as illegal aliens. They crossed the Alps and arrived in Italy where they stayed at another displaced persons camp. Finally they obtained a visa to Paraguay and in 1948 they illegally entered Argentina.
Elena and her husband led a good life until her husband’s business collapsed. Her husband died in 1989, unable to withstand the pressure of his commercial failure.
When Elena was admitted to the Survivors Aid Program of the Fundaciòn Tzedakà, her income was 200 pesos (about $60) per month from her widows pension. Thirty percent of this pension went to pay off the remains of a lawsuit resulting from her husband’s commercial bankruptcy.
Elena was very lonely, isolated, and depressed. She had no friends and felt deeply ashamed because of her “new poverty.” Through the program of the Fundaciòn Tzedakà Program financed by the Claims Conference, Elena received funds for her housing expenses, food, medicine, and everyday living. Perhaps the greatest achievement with Elena—besides helping alleviate her economic situation—was that finally, after more than 50 years of silence, she was able to start talking about her experiences and sufferings during the war. Elena began to actively participate in all the activities of the program for Holocaust survivors. She also began to feel the need to give testimony and started to lecture in schools and colleges. Today she has a group of Hungarian friends that keep her company and with whom she shares her life.
The program of the Fundaciòn Tzedakà also helped Elena to restart her claims for the Article 2 Fund, for which she was approved.
“I applied for the Slave Labor compensation because I sincerely needed the money. It’s a fair payment, but I don’t feel that this could ever pay for the terrible losses and suffering,” Ella says. “I am very grateful to the Claims Conference for representing us and making this payment possible for so many survivors.”
“This program gave me back my dignity and made me feel that I am not alone any more. Now I have a place where to go, you listen to me and because you restored my self-respect I am able to ask for help without feeling humiliated,” Elena says.