‘Survivors should have been treated better’

Your July 3 headline “Last chance for Holocaust restitution?” says it all.

The last chance for most of the survivors has unfortunately passed, but the Holocaust industry is still using them to get “restitution.” Where were they when these survivors needed them? Hiding behind the bureaucracy they built with little concern for the suffering of the individual survivors. They were adept at building layers of commissions, agencies, etc., frustrating these survivors who had already suffered much and were usually not capable of following through the myriad of red tape that was required because of lack of time, unfamiliarity with the language, etc.

Yes, my mother was one, a survivor of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Her experience affected her life and her last years were totally consumed by fear, depression, and insecurity resulting from her “experience” 60 years before.

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My mother-in-law was a survivor of Siberian death camps and her end of life was similarly miserable, consumed by insecurity and fear.

They both were unable to enjoy the fruits of their achievements, and they both received token amounts as recompense, nearly not enough to help them cope with their psychological issues.

But the main purpose of this letter is to express my deep disappointment and frustration with these commissions and conferences. The main people who appear to have benefited are the so-called diplomats who are members of these commissions and attend these conferences (I bet you they are not staying at a Motel 6) and the many attorneys who have built careers on the backs of these survivors, taking the bulk of the compensation and arbitrarily allocating the rest to some agency with a mere trickle left for the people who suffered and actually deserve the compensation. This unfortunately includes the Israeli government.

The Nazi Germans perpetrated the greatest crime of modern times and the survivors should have been treated better.

It appears the only purpose these commissions serve today is to keep the memory of the Shoah alive and refute all the revisionists that seem to come out of the woodwork like termites.