📋 Tender Overview
In a meeting in Israel on September 18 2022 the Israeli Minister for Social Equality and the Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs discussed German-Israeli cooperation in the implementation of the German law on the payment of pensions from employment in a ghetto ZRBG. appreciated.The ZRBG was passed by the German Bundestag in 2002 so that working hours of persons persecuted by National Socialism during a forced stay in a ghetto can be recognized as contribution times in the German statutory pension insurance and pensions from such times can also be paid to persons persecuted by National Socialism who are now living outside Germany.These pensions are paid in addition to not instead of compensation for suffering suffered. Around 73000 so-called ghetto pensions were approved after the ZRBG was passed around 43000 of them for Holocaust survivors in Israel. Due to the fruitful cooperation between the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs the German Federal Ministry of Finance the German Pension Insurance the Israeli Ministry of Social Equality the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Yad Vashem Memorial and the Holocaust Museum in Washington particularly with regard to the classification of places as open ghettos the number of recognitions of entitlements to ZRBG pensions has increased significantly over the past decade.A further 18 cities in Romania were recently recognized as open ghettos within the meaning of the ZRBG. This means that Holocaust survivors who had to work in ghettos in these cities during the war now have those periods legitimately recognized as eligible for pension benefits. In addition both sides agreed that they would continue to discuss ways in which Holocaust survivors and those entitled could be helped to implement their rights.I would like to thank my colleague State Secretary Kerstin Griese for the fruitful cooperation over the past few years. The historic recognition of the rights of Holocaust survivors to receive what is due them is another milestone on our journey to improving the social conditions of the Holocaust survivors living among us today. I will continue to work in every conceivable way and towards all conceivable bodies for this important goal of improving the social situation of Holocaust survivors and the historical recognition of their suffering.
